Obama 'star' of Palestinian ad ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Politico by Mackenzie Weinger - September 7, 2011 - 12:00am President Barack Obama is the unlikely star of a new Palestinian media campaign. Part of a speech Obama gave in 2010 to the United Nations General Assembly is featured in an ad aimed to rally support for the Palestinians upcoming bid for statehood at the United Nations on Sept. 20, Reuters reported on Wednesday. “When we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that can lead to a new member of the United Nations, an independent, sovereign state of Palestine living in peace with Israel,” Obama said in the 2010 speech in the clip that is played in the radio ad. » Read more

Hope in the Sinai ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Daniel Nisman - (Opinion) September 5, 2011 - 12:00am Despite the post-revolution lawlessness currently gripping the Middle East’s most populous nation, the Egyptian government’s actions in Sinai prove that it is still very much in control of the country, even if a transition to real democracy eventually proves to be wishful thinking on the part of the international community. » Read more

Palestinians deploy Obama speech in UN campaign ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency by Tom Perry - September 7, 2011 - 12:00am RAMALLAH (Reuters) - US President Barack Obama is an unlikely participant in a Palestinian campaign to drum up support for a bid to win UN recognition of their statehood -- a diplomatic move opposed by both his administration and Israel. But as part of an official media campaign begun this week, Palestinians have pulled from the archive some words spoken by Obama during the 2010 UN General Assembly, in which he alluded to the prospect of a Palestinian state joining the world body. » Read more

Do we really want peace? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews by Galila Golan - (Opinion) September 6, 2011 - 12:00am I accuse the government of Israel (several of them) not only of failing to provide its citizens with their socioeconomic rights but also of failing to provide its citizens with security. The government of Israel has failed to provide its citizens with security because it has rejected ending the Arab-Israeli conflict. Some would go all the way back to the 1950s when Prime Minister Ben-Gurion expressed his lack of disappointment that the Egyptians were too demanding, because he believed that time was on our side. Many things, not least of which the 1967 war, proved that wrong. » Read more

Peace Now: Settlement building doubles since freeze ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency September 7, 2011 - 12:00am BETHLEHEM (Reuters) -- According to Peace Now's latest report released Wednesday, construction in West Bank settlements has doubled since the end of a building freeze which ended US brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians last year. Peace Now's Settlement Watch Director of Projects Hagit Ofran told Reuters that the settlement construction rate over the past year has allowed settlers to bridge the gap created during a 10-month moratorium that ended last year. » Read more

U.S. envoys press Palestinians to drop U.N. statehood bid ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post by Joel Greenberg - September 6, 2011 - 12:00am JERUSALEM — Two senior White House envoys arrived Tuesday for meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in a last-ditch effort to head off a Palestinian bid for recognition of statehood at the United Nations this month. David Hale, the Obama administration’s acting special envoy to the Middle East, and Dennis Ross, the president’s Middle East adviser on the National Security Council, are pressing for a resumption of peace negotiations that were broken off a year ago. » Read more

Gaza siege chokes Israel diplomatically ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Zvi Barel - (Opinion) September 7, 2011 - 12:00am "Gaza envelope" is not just a geographic term or an imaginary border line delimiting the threat zone around a group of communities in the south. It is a political situation in which, for the sake of accuracy, "Israel" should replace "Gaza." It is the Gaza Strip that envelopes Israel, and not the other way around. If a closure or blockade is the index of a smothering "envelope," then it is Israel that is being smothered, largely on its own account and in no small measure on account of Gaza. » Read more

Gaza: Israelis Kill Militant ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Fares Akram - September 6, 2011 - 12:00am A Palestinian militant in Gaza was killed Tuesday by an attack helicopter after Israeli forces carried out an incursion into Gaza near the southern city of Khan Yunis and clashed with members of a small militant group, shooting at them and receiving mortar fire back, according to the Israeli military and officials of the group, the Popular Resistance Committees. The militant was identified by his group as Khaled Sahmoud, 23. Israeli forces said members of that group carried out the terrorist attack from the Sinai region of Egypt on southern Israel last month that killed eight Israelis.

Gaza: Israelis Kill Militant ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Fares Akram - September 6, 2011 - 12:00am A Palestinian militant in Gaza was killed Tuesday by an attack helicopter after Israeli forces carried out an incursion into Gaza near the southern city of Khan Yunis and clashed with members of a small militant group, shooting at them and receiving mortar fire back, according to the Israeli military and officials of the group, the Popular Resistance Committees. The militant was identified by his group as Khaled Sahmoud, 23. Israeli forces said members of that group carried out the terrorist attack from the Sinai region of Egypt on southern Israel last month that killed eight Israelis.

Elusive Line Defines Lives in Israel and the West Bank ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Isabel Kershner - September 6, 2011 - 12:00am BARTAA, West Bank — For decades Israel has tried to erase from public consciousness the Green Line, the pre-1967 boundary with the West Bank at the heart of stalled negotiations for a Palestinian state. Israel has built on either side of the Green Line and deleted it from textbooks and weather maps. Israeli drivers plying the main Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway crisscross the unmarked line at the Latrun Interchange every second of the day, slicing through half a mile of West Bank territory and several more miles of no man’s land, oblivious to the area’s fraught history. » Read more