West bank settlers: 'We're here to stay'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Harriet Sherwood - (Blog) March 17, 2011 - 12:00am

On a windswept hilltop deep inside the West Bank, Noa Alvily contemplates her family's future with remarkable equanimity, unfazed by political decisions taken less than an hour's drive away in Jerusalem.

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West Bank settlements are Israel's nuclear meltdown
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Ari Shavit - (Opinion) March 17, 2011 - 12:00am

On quite a few occasions this week, my mobile phone vibrated with text messages from the settlers' lobby, Yesha. Once it was a quote from Minister Gideon Sa'ar (we must resume construction in Judea and Samaria ). Another time it was a quote from Minister Gilad Erdan (stop holding up the construction tenders in Judea and Samaria ). The third time it was a quote from MK Zeev Elkin (it's time to build cities in Judea and Samaria ). The fourth time it was a quote from MK Yariv Levin (I demand the cabinet and Minister Barak approve construction in Judea and Samaria cities at once! ).

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Palestinian 'price tag' victim recounts attack
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Elior Levy - March 17, 2011 - 12:00am

"I was walking to work as usual when eight young, masked settlers armed with clubs began hitting me in the head and legs," Palestinian construction worker Sami Snobar recalled from his hospital bed Thursday. Snobar was one of two Palestinians who were attacked in the West Bank settlement of Shiloh Thursday morning, in what police suspect was a "price tag" act carried out to avenge the massacre in Itamar. "They sprayed my face with pepper spray – it burned and my face turned red," he said. "Then one of them picked up a brick and struck (my head) with it."

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Washington Watch: Two can play the incitement game
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by D. Bloomfield - (Opinion) March 16, 2011 - 12:00am

You’ve got to hand it to Binyamin Netanyahu, who somehow managed to turn international outrage over the brutal massacre of a young Jewish family as they slept in their beds on Shabbat into widespread criticism of his aggressive settlement policy. The most frequent question I get in speaking to Jewish groups around the country is “why doesn’t Israel get better PR advice.” The answer is simple: The problem isn’t PR, it’s policy and the way it’s announced to the world.

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Finding excuse for colony expansion
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
(Opinion) March 15, 2011 - 12:00am

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is back to his old tricks with the recent announcement that 500 new homes for colonists will be built in the West Bank. The decision follows an attack which killed an Israeli couple and three of their children in a colony — Israeli authorities are still searching for the attacker.

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Itamar settlers erect new illegal outpost
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
March 15, 2011 - 12:00am

Caravan homes were installed 500 meters outside the boundary of the Itamar settlement near Nablus on Tuesday morning, as grieving settlers installed an illegal outpost in memory of the slain members of the Fogel family. Witnesses reported seeing dozens of settlers from the area gather on what is locally known as Silcon hill, a half kilometer east of Itamar. An army spokesman said the settlers had a permit to demonstrate and he was unaware of any violent incident there. By late evening the village was quiet, the Israeli military and Palestinians told AFP.

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Neighbors’ Blood Binds Settlers to West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Isabel Kershner - March 15, 2011 - 12:00am

To outsiders, this Jewish settlement clinging to a hill in the northern West Bank would seem to offer a precarious existence. Surrounded by Palestinian villages and near one of the largest Palestinian cities, Nablus, with a population of more than 120,000, Itamar has about 1,000 residents, many of them children or transient students studying at its religious academies.

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Israel punishes itself
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Nahum Barnea - (Opinion) March 15, 2011 - 12:00am

The government approved Sunday the construction of 400 housing units in Judea and Samaria in response to the murder in Itamar. Why Only 400, wondered Eli Yishai. We need to build 5,000 units, a thousand for each murder victim. To a certain extent, Yishai is right. If the proper response to the despicable murder of the Fogel family is settlement expansion, 400 is a rather pathetic number. It does not reflect the shock, repugnance and fury. It offers no comfort. At most, it serves as an attempt to calm the hard core among the settlers with a real estate pill.

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US criticizes Israeli settlement construction plan
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Amy Teibel - March 14, 2011 - 12:00am

The U.S. Embassy said Monday it was "deeply concerned" by Israel's plans to build hundreds of new homes in the West Bank following a deadly attack on a settler family, calling Israeli settlements "illegitimate" and an obstacle to peacemaking. In a rare interview to the Israeli media, the Palestinian president reached out to the Israeli public, decrying the weekend attack in the settlement of Itamar as "despicable, immoral and inhuman." But he rejected the Israeli suggestion that his government was indirectly to blame.

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A fatal Israeli-Palestinian flaw
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
(Editorial) March 14, 2011 - 12:00am

One of the most depressing characteristics of the dysfunctional Palestinian-Israeli relationship is the self-destructive tit-for-tat mentality that often seems designed to keep the conflict alive rather than to end it.

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