Barak, Clinton may join Mideast summit at UN
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Natasha Mozgovaya - September 21, 2009 - 12:00am

Defense Minister Ehud Barak and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will apparently participate in a tripartite meeting on Middle East peace in New York on Tuesday. U.S. President Barack Obama will meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, for a meeting all sides have declared would unlikely bring about an immediate resumption of peace negotiations.

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Obama convenes talks to break Mideast impasse
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Financial Times
by Harvey Morris - September 21, 2009 - 12:00am

Barack Obama, US president, will host a meeting between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in New York tomorrow, seeking to break the Middle East stalemate after a troubled week for US diplomacy in the region. A weekend statement from the White House that Mr Obama would chair a joint session with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, came after the failure of both sides to budge on the issue of Israeli settlement activity had threatened to scupper the encounter.

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Aide: Netanyahu will defend settlement growth at Obama summit
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
September 21, 2009 - 12:00am

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will defend the expansion of West Bank settlements when he meets U.S. President Barack Obama and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday, the premier's spokesman said Monday. "You have never heard the prime minister say he would freeze settlement building. The opposite is true," Nir Hefetz told Army Radio when asked about the tripartite summit, which will take place on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

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Obama to Meet With Mideast Leaders
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner - September 20, 2009 - 12:00am

After a frustrating week of shuttle diplomacy here in which the Obama administration failed to persuade Israelis and Palestinians to renew peace talks, leaders of the two sides are heading to the United States to make their cases again that the administration should push the other harder.

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Obama to Meet With Mideast Leaders
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner - September 20, 2009 - 12:00am

After a frustrating week of shuttle diplomacy here in which the Obama administration failed to persuade Israelis and Palestinians to renew peace talks, leaders of the two sides are heading to the United States to make their cases again that the administration should push the other harder.

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Can Hamas spoil Obama's three-way Mideast summit?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Joshua Mitnick - September 20, 2009 - 12:00am

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh slammed the Obama administration's plan to meet Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, saying that Palestinians will reject anything Mr. Abbas agrees to during discussions on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. His comments come one day after militants in Gaza fired two rockets into Israel and as a flare up in violence along the Gaza border left two militants dead.

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Settling for Failure in the Middle East
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Stephen Walt - (Opinion) September 20, 2009 - 12:00am

Like so many of his predecessors, President Obama is quickly discovering that persuading Israel to change course is nearly impossible.

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Iran and Israel are benefitting from a weakening Obama
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Dar Al-Hayat
by Raghida Dergham - (Blog) September 18, 2009 - 12:00am

Presidents and Prime Ministers are flocking to the United Nations this week, some of them full of expectations, some burdened with depression and others less enthusiastic about meeting US President Barack Obama, after his international flame has waned as a result of internal battles that were waged against him or that he provoked, weighing him down.

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Mitchell extends Middle East trip
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Politico
by Laura Rozen - September 18, 2009 - 12:00am

U.S. Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell has extended his trip to the region to Friday. Negotiations continue between Mitchell and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to see if they can reach an agreement on some sort of settlement freeze. Such an agreement is one key element needed to make way for the announcement of a relaunch of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

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Jonathan Freedland / Maybe Israel just needs to acknowledge Palestinian pain
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Jonathan Freedland - (Opinion) September 18, 2009 - 12:00am

Many of Israel's supporters around the world have spotted an alarming trend in the debate on Middle East peace. Call it the "Back to '48" approach, which argues that any attempt to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is doomed unless it gets to the root of the problem, tackling not only the "1967 file" - ending the occupation, plus or minus a chunk of land here or there - but also the "1948 file," consisting of the issues left outstanding by Israel's birth.

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