Middle East Inside Line: Turkey-Hamas-Israel, Netanyahu Denies "Map", No Russia Missiles to Iran?

Turkey, Hamas, and Israel: Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, having gone to Damascus for discussions with Syrian President Bashar Assad and Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, also reportedly met Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Meshaal on Monday. They spoke about the future of the reconciliation talks between Fatah and Hamas and the continuation of efforts to lift the siege on Gaza.

Meanwhile, Israel took a  positive step towards Ankara. "In light of the calm in Turkey and the absence of large-scale anti-Israeli demonstrations," Israel's Counter Terrorism Bureau lifted a severe warning to Israelis to avoid travel to Turkey.

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However, this is not the end of the story. The Israeli Foreign Ministry requested assurances from Turkey that three ships belonging to the Turkish organisation IHH, backer of May's Freedom Flotilla will not be used for another attempt to run the blockade on Gaza. The Turkish daily Hurriyet reported that in past cases, Israel has required assurances only from the organizers rather than the Government.

Israel Denies Map for Talks with Palestine: The Prime Minister's Office stated on Tuesday that Benjamin Netanyahu had not presented a map of a possible border agreement and land swaps in recent discussions over Palestine, as alleged by the London-based Al-Sharq al-Awsat.

Russia Not Selling S-300s to Iran?: According to Interfax, Russian military official Alexander Fomin on Tuesday, without referring to the S-300 by name, but pledged Moscow would desist from supplying “large missile systems” to Iran in accordance with the sanctions backed by Russia at the United Nations.

Israel welcomed Moscow's statement.

Israel's "Close" Relations with Greece: Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou is coming to Israel on Wednesday. This will be the first visit to Israel by a Greek prime minister since Konstantinos Mitsotakis came in 1992.

Ahead of the visit, The Jerusalem Post reports:

People in government said there was no doubt that the recent tension with Turkey has led to a warming of the relationship between Israel and some of Turkey’s historic rivals, such as Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria. The Cypriot and Bulgarian foreign ministers paid visits to Israel earlier this year.

According to one diplomatic official, the Greeks – looking at the Israeli-Turkish, andTurkish-US tensions – are realizing that strategic alliances in the region are changing, and that this might be a good time to get closer to Israel as a way of warming ties with Washington.

When Israel had a close strategic alliance with Turkey, the official said, Athens gave up any thought of forging such an alliance with Israel.

But now the situation with Ankara has changed, and Athens is seeing more opportunities with Israel.

Israel-Palestine: West Bank Village of Walajeh Faces Isolation

The Palestinian village Walajeh, a village in the Bethlehem Governorate located 8.5 kilometres (5.3 miles) to the southwest of Jerusalem, is in danger of being cut off from the rest of the Palestinian lands, leaving 2,000 villagers encircled by Israeli settlements, roads and security barriers.

"Construction has begun on a new section of the West Bank security barrier," says The Jerusalem Post, which continues:

The barrier will make a large dip into the West Bank to keep the settlements, including Har Gilo and the Gush Etzion bloc, on the Israeli side. Within that pocket, an extra loop of barrier is to surround Walajeh on three sides, with a fenced road off limits to Palestinians to Har Gilo closing off the fourth side, according to the Defense Ministry map of the projected route.

Adel Atrash, a village council member said, “We will cling to the village by our teeth. But we don’t know how the next generation will look at things. Maybe they won’t be able to live with all the difficulties and decide to leave.”

Although Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said, "In future negotiations [with the Palestinian Authority], the route of the security barrier will not constitute a political factor,” the newspaper's brief summary of the Wall is more imposing:

Today, the barrier, almost two-thirds complete, runs for more than 400 kilometers through the West Bank and east Jerusalem. Once finished, the barrier would put 9.4 percent of the West Bank on the Israeli side, along with 85% of half a million Israeli settlers, according to a UN report.

Israel-Palestine Analysis: The Weight of the West Bank Settlements (Yenidunya)

According to The Jerusalem Post, President Obama will accept Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s suggestion of  ultimate Israeli control over major settlement blocs and an extension of the freeze in all areas outside these blocs in the West Bank. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has also reportedly proposed the creation of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, with a possible land swap of 2.3 percent of the West Bank, although this was denied by the chief negotiator Saeb Erekat.

Palestine & Israel: The Situation on the Eve of Obama-Netanyahu Talks

However, according to Haaretz, at least 2,700 new housing units are scheduled to be built in the West Bank as soon as the current settlement freeze ends this September. Regional councils  are preparing to continue constructions already authorized before the freeze decision.

It is not just the 2,700 housing units inside large settlement blocs that matter but the effect of these in negotiations. According to Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, the jurisdiction of councils over settlements covers 42 percent of the land area of the West Bank even though the the settlements take up just 1 percent of the West Bank’s land area.

Meanwhile, on Monday, The New York Times reported that an estimated $200 million in tax-exempt funds were donated to Jewish residents in the West Bank over the last decade, supporting the settlements. Washington does not allow Israel to spend US aid on West Bank settlements, but tax breaks are allowed on charitable donations to the area. Former US ambassador to Israel Daniel C. Kurtzer said the issue was politically delicate: “It drove us crazy, [but]it was a thing you didn’t talk about in polite company.”