Some headlines from today's news

Click on headline for the article:

-Israel won't extend settlement freeze ahead of direct negotiations
The Israeli cabinet will not vote on extending a partial freeze in West Bank settlement construction before the start of the peace talks in Washington on September 2, a senior cabinet minister told Reuters on Sunday, a decision that could threaten to derail a recently re-launched peace process.
-Abbas: Obama knows West Bank building will ruin talks
Hours before leaving for Washington for peace talks, Palestinian president says he notified US, international officials that Israel will bear sole and full responsibility should talks collapse due to settlement building. 'Israel's security can't continue to be excuse for continued occupation,' he says.
-Abbas: No peace talks with settlement building (AP)
AP - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned Sunday that he will not back down from his threat to pull out of new peace talks with Israel if it resumes construction in West Bank settlements.
-Abbas: Israel to bear sole responsibility for talks collapse due to building
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that direct talks with Israel will be based on the Mideast Quartet's demand, as he puts it, to end the 1967 occupation, including in east Jerusalem.
-The Purpose Of Israel’s Settlements Is To Be Difficult To Remove
I had to read Fred Barnes’ new Weekly Standard piece “In Defense of Settlers” a few times to be sure that Fred wasn’t actually putting us on. It appears he isn’t. Things go awry beginning with the very first paragraph, in which Barnes writes, “When direct talks begin next week between Israelis and Palestinians, the fate of Jewish settlers in the West Bank — tens of thousands of them — will be a major issue in the negotiations. But the settlers themselves won’t be part of the discussion.”
-For Arabs in Israel, a house is not a home
Three representatives of Hamas have been forced to seek sanctuary at the Red Cross compound in East Jerusalem — charged not with terrorism, but with “disloyalty” to the state. Edward Platt on a strange case of exile inside Israel.