President Shimon Peres, the grand old man of Israeli politics and diplomacy, visited Cairo last week for a formal meeting with President Hosni Mubarak. While the story itself is not very big news, the manner in which it was reported does hold some interest for Middle East news geeks.

For Haaretz, Israel's liberal daily broadsheet, the meeting between the two great survivors of Middle East politics was reasonably positive. The headline of the article is Peres: Israel to halt settlements once peace talks begin; and it opens with the following:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has pledged to halt West Bank settlement construction once peace talks with the Palestinians are renewed, President Shimon Peres said on Sunday during an official visit to Egypt.

"The minute we shall start to negotiate there won't be new settlements, there won't be confiscation of land," Peres said at a joint news conference in Cairo with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, adding that the settlements issue was being blown out of proportion.

The article does go on to quote Peres as saying that the settlements are a 'marginal issue,' and to note Mubarak's criticism of Israeli policies, but the opening gives a more positive impression.

Voice of America, meanwhile, headlines its coverage, "Israel's Peres calls settlement building 'marginal issue." The opening of the article is,

Israel's President Shimon Peres has called Israeli settlement building in occupied territory a 'marginal issue' that he says became a central issue for the wrong reasons. Mr. Peres made the comments Sunday in Cairo during a joint news conference with his Egyptian counterpart, Hosni Mubarak.

The two men met to discuss the stalled Middle East peace process.  Egypt has been a key mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

Mr. Mubarak told reporters that Israel must stop building on land it captured in the 1967 war.  Mr. Peres said he believes the settlement dispute can be resolved though negotiations.

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