President Obama enters the Mideast fray
Media Mention of Ziad Asali In The Los Angeles Times - September 23, 2009 - 12:00am

President Obama, exasperated by the disappointing course of Mideast peace efforts, urged Israelis and Palestinians on Tuesday to reapply themselves, even though eight months of intensive American engagement has failed to return the parties to the negotiating table. Obama met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at a New York hotel ahead of a United Nations session, stepping personally into the process and offering an unusually blunt message.

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In Mideast Peace Bid, Obama Pivots in His Demands
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Mark Landler - September 22, 2009 - 12:00am

President Obama, who has met immovable resistance from Israel over his demand for a full freeze on settlements in the West Bank, is largely setting that issue aside as a first step toward restarting Middle East peace talks.

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Failure to advance Middle East peace a setback for Obama
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Howard Lafranchi - September 22, 2009 - 12:00am

Unbowed by the failure to reach an accord to restart Mideast peace talks, President Obama told Israeli and Palestinian leaders he met Tuesday that he would keep up his administration's diplomatic efforts until negotiations are relaunched. He then directed top foreign policy aides, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and special Mideast envoy George Mitchell, to continue the intense contacts with Israeli and Palestinian officials the US has pursued since Obama took office.

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Palestinian PM cites support for statehood plan
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Karin Laub - September 22, 2009 - 12:00am

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said in an interview Tuesday that he has won broad international support for his plan to ready the Palestinians for statehood within two years. However, Fayyad sidestepped the question of whether the Palestinians would unilaterally declare statehood at the end of that period if a peace deal with Israel is not in place. He said that decision would have to made by the Palestine Liberation Organization and others when the time comes.

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Israel makes secret offer on settlements
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Times
by Eli Lake - September 22, 2009 - 12:00am

Ahead of the Obama administration's first U.S.-Palestinian-Israeli summit, Israel has agreed to a partial freeze of settlement construction for six to nine months but still wants to build more than 2,500 new housing units, said Israeli officials and an Israeli specialist familiar with the country's evolving policy.

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Israeli, Palestinian leaders anxious
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Politico
by Laura Rozen - September 22, 2009 - 12:00am

A private session with President Barack Obama is a big diplomatic get — all the more so when it comes as world leaders are descending en masse on New York for the opening week of the United Nations General Assembly. But two foreign leaders seem apprehensive, to say the least, about their meeting with Obama on Tuesday: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

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Obama seeking 'upgrade' for Netanyahu-Abbas summit
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Barak Ravid - September 22, 2009 - 12:00am

The White House is making a last-minute diplomatic effort to come up with some significant statement signaling the revival of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks to conclude the tripartite summit in New York Tuesday. However, the White House Monday said the administration has no "grand expectations" for President Barack Obama's meeting with the Israeli and Palestinian leaders. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters Monday that Obama was looking to "continue to build on progress" in regional talks. "We have no grand expectations out of one meeting," said Gibbs.

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Commentary: Middle East tunnel vision
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from United Press International (UPI)
by Arnaud De Borchgrave - (Editorial) September 21, 2009 - 12:00am

The only bank this Rothschild ever owned was the West Bank. Danny Rothschild, an Israeli general and onetime coordinator of all government activities in the occupied territories, and now one of 1,200 former intelligence officers in Israel's Council for Peace and Security, says the Palestinians should be allowed to have their capital in Arab East Jerusalem. The very thought of allowing Palestinians to set up a government where 200,000 Israeli settlers moved in since the 1967 war, when Israeli forces "liberated" East Jerusalem from Jordanian rule, is sacrilegious.

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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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Let's try something else
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Ahram
by Samir Ghattas - September 18, 2009 - 12:00am

In three months time, we'll mark the anniversary of UN Resolution 181 of 1947, which provided for the partitioning of Palestine into two states, a Jewish one and an Arab one, with Jerusalem being an international zone.

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