By Elaine Donnelly
Extending sexual misconduct to combat units
A leading Palestinian Authority said in an interview broadcast earlier this month that he supported violence against Israel, including a nuclear attack.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas again insisted at a two-day "Freedom and Dignity" conference in Ramallah last week that Palestinians who murder Israeli Jews cannot be punished.
U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry on Sunday urged Turkey to speed up and cement an American-brokered rapprochement with Israel, and he explored with Palestinian officials new ways to relaunch Mideast peace efforts.
Turkey has become the first state to appoint and recognize an ambassador to Palestine.
Palestinian officials say Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad has resigned.
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has tendered his resignation to President Mahmoud Abbas.
Secretary of State John Kerry may not be returning to U.S. soil with a new Middle East peace deal, or a diplomatic solution to how America might best deal with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's reported resignation – which leaves in charge the less friendly President Mahmoud Abbas. And the question of Iran's nuclear program still hovers.
U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry urged Turkish leaders Sunday to speedily restore full diplomatic relations with Israel, two American allies the U.S. sees as anchors of stability in a Middle East wracked by Syria's civil war, Arab Spring political upheavals and the potential threat posed by Iran's nuclear program.
Thousands of Palestinians took to the streets in the West Bank in a show of outrage Thursday over the deaths of two Palestinian protesters killed in clashes with Israel and a third Palestinian who died of cancer in an Israeli prison. In Gaza, militants fired a rocket that landed in southern Israel, causing no casualties.
One key shift in U.S. policy was overlooked in the barrage of news about President Obama's eventful 50-hour visit to Israel last week. That would be the demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish state, called by Hamas leader Salah Bardawil "the most dangerous statement by an American president regarding the Palestinian issue."
Symbolism matters, and President Obama knows it. When the president spoke at Georgetown University in 2009, his advance team asked that the Roman Catholic university cover an image derived from the first three Greek letters of the name of Jesus Christ.
A late education is better than no education at all, even for a president of the United States. The man who is a mighty legend in his own mind is even showing a little humility. Barack Obama, who usually finds someone else — usually George W. — to blame for every little thing that goes awry, finally admitted this week in Israel that even a synthetic messiah can make mistakes.
Israel is a land of symbols. It's fitting then that President Obama's arrival in the Holy Land on Wednesday was bedeviled by a breakdown. The wrong fuel for the president's limousine (diesel instead of gasoline) was quickly remedied, but four years of U.S. policies that have fueled turmoil in the region won't be fixed so easily.
In separate talks before West Bank Palestinians and Israeli college students that carried echoes of Abraham Lincoln's call to "think anew and act anew," President Obama urged both groups Thursday to abandon old ways of thinking and search for new means to reach peace while it was still possible.
Meeting with Palestinians leaders in the West Bank, President Obama condemned an overnight rocket attack from Gaza.
Mr. Abbas declared that many of the Palestinians who were jailed after killing Jewish men, women and children must not be held accountable for their crimes.
Mr. Abbas made clear to Mr. Kerry that the release of prisoners held by Israel was a "top priority" for resuming peace talks, said Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina.
