Livni: Settlement freeze could have stopped PA deal
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Gil Hoffman - May 7, 2011 - 12:00am

Fatah and Hamas would not have reached a reconciliation agreement had Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu immediately agreed to a Palestinian request to extend the 10-month settlement housing start freeze that ended in September 2010, opposition leader Tzipi Livni said on Saturday. Speaking on the Channel 2 program Meet the Press, Livni said Israel needed a prime minister who could persuade the world not to allow a Palestinian state to be declared unilaterally at the UN General Assembly in September, but that Netanyahu did not fit the bill.

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Settlers use tourism to draw Israelis to West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Tia Goldenberg - May 6, 2011 - 12:00am

Perched atop a West Bank hill, the Binyamin region visitors center invites travelers to look past the military jeeps patrolling the surrounding area and enjoy nature, archaeological sites and bucolic vineyards. Jewish settlers are promoting tourism to draw Israelis who might otherwise never set foot in the West Bank, an occupied area Palestinians want as part of a future state. Proponents hope that drawing visitors will help increase support for retaining the territory, while critics say the tourism campaign, like Jewish settlements, is a foothold that stands in the way of making peace.

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Settlers use tourism to draw Israelis to West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Tia Goldenberg - May 6, 2011 - 12:00am

Perched atop a West Bank hill, the Binyamin region visitors center invites travelers to look past the military jeeps patrolling the surrounding area and enjoy nature, archaeological sites and bucolic vineyards. Jewish settlers are promoting tourism to draw Israelis who might otherwise never set foot in the West Bank, an occupied area Palestinians want as part of a future state. Proponents hope that drawing visitors will help increase support for retaining the territory, while critics say the tourism campaign, like Jewish settlements, is a foothold that stands in the way of making peace.

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State to approve outposts on land not privately owned
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Ron Friedman - May 4, 2011 - 12:00am

The state will take steps to retroactively approve construction of those houses in the West Bank outposts of Givat HaYovel and Horsha built on state land, but will demolish, within a year, those houses that were built on privately owned Palestinian land. The state announced the plans in its response to a petition submitted to the High Court of Justice by Peace Now over the construction of settler houses.

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Survey of Campus BDS Finds Few Serious Cases
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Josh Nathan-Kazis - May 4, 2011 - 12:00am

An Israeli diplomat issued a stark warning to a roomful of Jewish communal professionals at a major Jewish convention last fall. The campaign to impose boycotts, divestment and sanctions on Israel, he said, amounts to putting “a practical warhead on the tip of an ideological rocket.”

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Netanyahu suspends east J'lem construction plan
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Ronen Medzini - May 3, 2011 - 12:00am

The Prime Minister's Office on Tuesday decided to postpone plans to build housing units in Jewish neighborhoods beyond Jerusalem's Green Line for the second time in less than a month, Ynet has learned. Discussion on the two projects for the construction of more than 900 housing units in east Jerusalem was taken off the District Planning and Construction Committee's agenda for Thursday. One project is a plan to build 930 homes at the neighborhood of Har Homa, and the other is slated to see the construction of dozens of units in Pisgat Ze'ev.

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Lingering PA cabinet calls for halt to settlements
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
April 25, 2011 - 12:00am

Palestinian Authority ministers convened for a weekly meeting in Ramallah Monday, despite President Mahmoud Abbas' announcement seven days prior that a new cabinet would be appointed within the week. Headed by West Bank Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who was re-appointed by the president when the cabinet was formally dissolved on February 14, caretaker ministers slammed Israel's settlement activity in Jerusalem, and ongoing excavations at the site of the Al-Aqsa mosque in the city.

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New settlement founded, dismantled
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
April 21, 2011 - 12:00am

The newest illegal settlement in the West Bank was dismantled overnight on Wednesday, hours after hundreds of settlers had gathered to announce the land grab. Settlers had arrived Wednesday afternoon at a patch of land east of Itamar, and named the outpost "Regev", according to reports in the Israeli press. The newest illegal settlement, however, was dismantled by Israeli forces overnight, a spokesman for the country's Civil Administration told Ma'an.

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Landau: Israel should annex W. Bank if PA get statehood
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Mordechai Twerksy - April 21, 2011 - 12:00am

Dr. Uzi Landau, Israel's Minister of National Infrastructure, warns that in the event of a unilateral United Nations declaration of a Palestinian state, he will call upon Israel to annex the Jordan Valley and large, Jewish populated blocs in the West Bank:

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Rattling the Cage: Kids are innocent, settlements aren’t
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Larry Derfner - (Opinion) April 20, 2011 - 12:00am

When settlers are suspected of murdering Palestinians, do the IDF, Shin Bet and police trash their settlements and beat up their neighbors until someone confesses, which is what just happened in the village next to Itamar?

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