Middle East News: World Press Roundup

Pres. Obama meets with Pres. Abbas at the White House, presses for direct negotiations, pledges $400 million in new aid and says there must be a new formula for handling Gaza. Abbas is interviewed by Charlie Rose. Tony Judt interrogates clichés about Israel. Israel eases some aspects of the blockade, but ignores global criticism of the flotilla attack, which Walter Rodgers says has deepened the rift with the United States. Bret Stephens asks if liberals have their own double standard. Turkey is attempting to broker Palestinian reconciliation. A new report outlines how the conflict is damaging Israel's economy. An Israeli government document says the blockade is not about security, but is “economic warfare” against Hamas. The Israeli Foreign Ministry warned the Navy not to raid the flotilla in international waters. Abbas reportedly acknowledges Jewish rights in Israel. Israel is considering expanding PA security control in the occupied territories. A UN Summer school in Gaza opens in spite of threats from Palestinian extremists. Michael Young and Joseph Kechichian worry that core Arab issues are being dominated by Iran and Turkey. The National says Israel's current vulnerability presents opportunities to advance peace.

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Remarks by President Obama and President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority after Meeting ATFP World Press Roundup Article from White House Office of the Press Secretary June 9, 2010 - 12:00am The White House » Read more

Charlie Rose Interview With President Abbas ATFP World Press Roundup Article from PBS - Charlie Rose (Interview) June 10, 2010 - 12:00am Transcript of June 9, 2010 Abbas Interview with Charlie Rose on PBS below: Charlie Rose: You met with the president. What came out of that meet something did you get what you wanted? And what did he want from you? » Read more

President Obama to Mahmoud Abbas: Engage in talks ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Politico by Kendra Marr, Laura Rozen - June 10, 2010 - 12:00am Ten days after an Israeli operation to intercept a Gaza aid flotilla left nine dead and sparked international outrage, President Barack Obama met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House Wednesday and encouraged him to engage in direct talks with Israel. » Read more

Obama Pledges New Aid to Palestinians ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Helene Cooper, Isabel Kershner - June 10, 2010 - 12:00am President Obama urged the Israeli government to loosen its blockade of Gaza on Wednesday, as the United States continued to scramble to find a way out of the stalemate in the Middle East and address the outcry over Israel’s deadly raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla last week. » Read more

Israel Without Clichés ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Tony Judt - (Opinion) June 10, 2010 - 12:00am The Israeli raid on the Free Gaza flotilla has generated an outpouring of clichés from the usual suspects. It is almost impossible to discuss the Middle East without resorting to tired accusations and ritual defenses: perhaps a little house cleaning is in order. No. 1: Israel is being/should be delegitimized » Read more

Obama calls for new approach on Gaza blockade ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post by Michael D. Shear - June 10, 2010 - 12:00am President Obama called Wednesday for a "new conceptual framework" to replace Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, saying he thinks the effort should be narrowed to focus only on arms shipments. Obama said a new blockade could target the weapons that Israel says are being used against its citizens, "rather than focusing in a blanket way on stopping everything and then, in a piecemeal way, allowing things into Gaza." » Read more

Israel eases Gaza embargo on food, other goods ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times by Edmund Sanders - June 10, 2010 - 12:00am Let them eat cake — well, at least cookies, potato chips and jam. That's how many here viewed Israel's relaxation of border restrictions to permit a variety of new items into Gaza Strip. The list, announced Wednesday, includes soda, juice, jam, shaving cream, potato chips, cookies, candy and a variety of herbs, including coriander. Israel's move impressed almost no one in this impoverished seaside territory. Some accused Israel of tossing them a few scraps to score points with the outside world. » Read more

Why Israel ignores global criticism of Gaza flotilla raid ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor by Joshua Mitnick - June 10, 2010 - 12:00am Five decades ago, while debating an offensive against Gaza militants, Israel's founding prime minister, David Ben Gurion, is said to have discounted United Nations intervention with a now famous Hebrew quip: "oom shmoom." Rough translation: "UN is nothing." In the face of an international uproar over the May 31 Israeli commando raid of a Gaza aid flotilla that left nine Turks dead, a similar disdain for the global community has resurfaced here. » Read more

Rift between Israel and the United States: Flotilla incident didn't help ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor by Walter Rodgers - June 10, 2010 - 12:00am It is difficult to recall a time when relations between a sitting US president and the Jewish state of Israel have been uglier. The embarrassing and deadly raid by not-so-crack Israeli commandos on Gaza-bound relief ships May 31 only further demonstrates how badly the American president is constrained because of his earlier jagged ties with the government of Israel and with angry, right-wing American Jews. The Obama administration was painfully aware of just how abysmal relations with Israel had become even before the confrontation at sea. » Read more

Israel and Its Liberal 'Friends' ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Wall Street Journal by Bret Stephens - (Opinion) June 10, 2010 - 12:00am Questions for liberals: What does it mean to be a friend of Israel? What does it mean to be a friend of the Palestinians? And should the same standards of friendship apply to Israelis and Palestinians alike, or is there a double standard here as well? » Read more

Forging Palestinian unity tough task, even for Turkey ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters by Tom Perry - June 10, 2010 - 12:00am The prospect of Israel easing its blockade of Gaza has generated new pressure on Fatah and Hamas to end their feud, but the chances of the rival factions restoring Palestinian unity soon appear faint. Turkey, seeking to build on the kudos it has won among Arabs for challenging the blockade, has offered to mediate between the rivals and its prime minister has said the division must end. "For the peace in Palestine, it is necessary to overcome the problems between Fatah and Hamas," Tayyip Erdogan said this week. "There shouldn't be divisions anymore, there can't be." » Read more

Conflict with Palestinians damages Israeli economy ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua by David Harris - June 10, 2010 - 12:00am Israel's ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories is damaging the economy of the Jewish state, said a report published on Tuesday by the Adva Center for Information on Equality and Social Justice in Israel. The document, entitled the Cost of the Conflict, is the latest in a series of reports, which is published once every two years. Perhaps the main conclusion of its author, Adva's academic manager Shlomo Swirski, is that Israel's three-week military operation in and around the Gaza Strip 18 months ago cost the country dear. » Read more

Israeli document: Gaza blockade isn't about security ATFP World Press Roundup Article from McClatchy News by Sheera Frenkel - June 10, 2010 - 12:00am As Israel ordered a slight easing of its blockade of the Gaza Strip Wednesday, McClatchy obtained an Israeli government document that describes the blockade not as a security measure but as "economic warfare" against the Islamist group Hamas, which rules the Palestinian territory. Israel imposed severe restrictions on Gaza in June 2007, after Hamas won elections and took control of the coastal enclave after winning elections there the previous year, and the government has long said that the aim of the blockade is to stem the flow of weapons to militants in Gaza. » Read more

Foreign Ministry warned Israel Navy not to raid Gaza flotilla in international waters ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Barak Ravid - June 10, 2010 - 12:00am During the government's preparatory discussions over how to handle the Gaza-bound aid flotilla, the Foreign Ministry advised that Israel's security forces wait for the ships to reach the country's territorial waters - which lie within 20 miles from the coast - before launching a takeover operation. According to a senior official in Jerusalem, Foreign Ministry diplomats said that despite the legality of overtaking the ships in international waters, such an action would hamper Israel on the diplomatic and public relations front worldwide. » Read more

Abbas tells U.S. Jews: I would never deny Jewish right to the land of Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Natasha Mozgovaya - June 10, 2010 - 12:00am Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told U.S. Jewish leaders on Wednesday that he would never deny Jews their right to the land of Israel, according to participants of the two-hour roundtable discussion. Some 30 Jewish leaders from organizations such as AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League, and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations took part in the Washington meeting, which focused mainly on the indirect peace talks and violent incitements. » Read more

IDF may give PA forces more control ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Yaakov Katz - June 10, 2010 - 12:00am The IDF has drawn up a list of potential confidence-building measures that Israel could make to the Palestinian Authority amid growing expectations in Jerusalem that Israel will face increasing pressure to make concessions, following PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s Wednesday meeting with US President Barack Obama. Abbas and Obama met at the White House for talks that Israeli defense officials said would likely end with the president issuing a number of guarantees to the PA that would include future Israeli concessions. » Read more

Gaza's boys and girls come out to play ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent by Donald MacIntyre - June 10, 2010 - 12:00am London 2012 it isn't. But on Sunday a relay of 50 schoolchildren bearing an Olympic-style torch will start from Deir el Balah Elementary Boy's School in central Gaza on the 17km road journey along the Mediterranean coast to the UN compound in Gaza City. There, they will light a flame, less to commemorate the notorious white phosphorus bombardment which razed the main warehouse here during Israel's military offensive in January 2009, than to herald the start of something altogether more cheerful: the fourth annual summer games. » Read more

Non-Arab states dictating the Arab political agenda ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National by Michael Young - (Opinion) June 10, 2010 - 12:00am All politics is local, the saying goes. But quite often the instruments are found abroad. The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has shown how well he understands this. Last week he used Israel’s cretinous overreaction to the humanitarian flotilla to Gaza to curry favour in the Arab world and burnish his bona fides at home. However, Mr Erdogan’s ability to play on Arab outrage represents a larger phenomenon, what we might call the “peripheralisation” of the Middle East. » Read more

Israel’s weakness is an opportunity for peace ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National (Opinion) June 10, 2010 - 12:00am With all the intense scrutiny of Israel’s assault on the Freedom flotilla, yesterday’s meeting between the US president, Barack Obama, and the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, will appear to many as an irrelevant sideshow. » Read more

Arabs need to take responsibility ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News by Joseph A. Kechichian - (Opinion) June 10, 2010 - 12:00am It was easy to dominate the Arab World during the Cold War. So-called Eastern powers pretended to share revolutionary zeal that was alien, coupled with massive sales of mediocre weapons. Western countries fared no better. They relied on three non-Arab surrogates — Iran, Turkey and Israel (who were allies and maintain close relations despite everything that one hears) — to sustain a privileged hegemony over the one thing that really mattered then as now: oil. East and West alike benefited from Arab complacency. » Read more

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