Netanyahu: Next year in a more built up Jerusalem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
June 1, 2011 - 12:00am

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his uncompromising stance on a united Jerusalem Tuesday night, saying he plans to authorize more building in the capital, in a speech at Mercaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem. The prime minister spoke on the eve of Jerusalem Day that commemorates Israel's liberation of east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War. Mercaz Harav, an orthodox Yeshiva located in the Kiryat Moshe neighborhood of Jerusalem was the site of a terror attack in 2008 in which a Palestinian gunman killed eight students.

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Study: Settlements worth $18.8 billion
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Shosh Mula - May 27, 2011 - 12:00am

A new study by the Macro Center for Political Economics has revealed that West Bank settlements are currently worth $18.8 billion, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Friday. The formerly state-funded center, for which the Netanyahu government cut off funding, filed a first report on the monetary worth of West Bank settlements three years ago in order to assess the amount the state may have to pay settlers in the event they are evacuated as part of a peace accord with the Palestinians.

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MKs attend controversial settlement announcement
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
May 26, 2011 - 12:00am

The speaker of Israel's parliament and two ministers attended the dedication on Wednesday of new Jewish settler homes in East Jerusalem in what an Israeli NGO called "a dangerous provocation." Among the first of the VIPs to arrive at the site in the city's annexed eastern sector were speaker Reuven Rivlin, Environment Minister Gilad Erdan and Education Minister Gideon Saar, all of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party.

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Settlers: We won't live in Palestinian state
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Yair Altman - May 25, 2011 - 12:00am

Jewish settlers living beyond the 1967 lines expressed concern Wednesday after hearing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu say Israel "will be required to give up parts of the ancestral Jewish homeland" during his speech before Congress. The possibility of Jewish settlements becoming a part of a Palestinian state aroused their anger. "It's mass suicide, they'll just destroy us," a settler claimed. "Such talk of abandonment is very grave."

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Israel's settlement liability
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Dan Simon - (Opinion) May 25, 2011 - 12:00am

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected President Obama's recent contention that the dream of a democratic Jewish state is incompatible with permanent occupation of the West Bank. Obama suggested in two recent speeches that peace negotiations should aim for a sovereign and non-militarized Palestinian state based on pre-1967 borders, with mutually agreed swaps.

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Israeli settlers, rightists, slam Netanyahu over U.S. Congressional speech
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
May 25, 2011 - 12:00am

Israeli settlers living in the West Bank expressed their disappointment on Wednesday regarding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's U.S. Congressional address, where he suggested Israel would be willing to swap land with Palestinians in exchange for peace. "His discourse was ambivalent," Danny Dayan, Head of the Council of Jewish Communities in the West Bank told Xinhua.

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‘Land Swaps’: Is There Enough Land To Swap?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Nathan Jeffay - (Analysis) May 25, 2011 - 12:00am

It is the magic formula that could end the occupation while letting the majority of settlers stay put. But how would an Israeli-Palestinian land swap, the basis of President Obama’s Middle East vision, outlined on May 19, actually work? The main practical problem of an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank is the fact that some 300,000 Israeli settlers live there. Not only would a full evacuation be hazardous for any Israeli government on the domestic political front, but it also would be logistically difficult and exceedingly costly.

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Meeting senseless aggression face-to-face
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Gershon Baskin - (Opinion) May 23, 2011 - 12:00am

For months I have been hearing about disproportionate use of force by the army against weekly demonstrations in Nabi Saleh – a small pastoral Palestinian village northwest of Ramallah. Last week, I watched several YouTube videos filmed by activists in the village, providing vivid visual images of the forceful arrests of protesters by the army. I was disturbed because all of the clips showed how the demonstrations ended; none showed how they began. I was convinced that there must have been stone-throwing by the shabab in the village which provoked the violent army responses.

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UK minister 'deeply disappointed' in settlements call
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
May 22, 2011 - 12:00am

UK foreign office minister for the Middle East Alistair Burt on Friday urged Israel to "cease unhelpful and destabilising activity" of settlement construction, in the wake of a decision to build 1,500 new Jewish-only homes in occupied East Jerusalem. "I am deeply disappointed with Israel’s announcement on 19 May to build up to 1500 settlement units in the East Jerusalem settlements of Har Homa and Pisgat Zeev," the minister said in a statement.

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Israel approves 294 new W. Bank homes in Betar Illit
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
May 22, 2011 - 12:00am

The Defense Ministry has approved the construction of 294 new homes in Betar Illit, the second largest West Bank Jewish city, located near the Gush Etzion settlement bloc. Although the approval was granted at the end of April, it was first publicized in the last few days – including by Peace Now on Sunday – as part of an overall report on settlement activity. News of the Betar Illit units came as Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon traveled to another settlement bloc, Ma’aleh Adumim, and called for more building there, particularly in an area known as E-1.

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