Earlier this week, the Obama administration once again blamed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for stalling the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Top administration officials said Israel's planned settlement expansion was "especially damaging" and "counterproductive" to forging a lasting peace.
The exiled Hamas chief broke into tears Friday as he arrived in the Gaza Strip for his first-ever visit, a landmark trip reflecting his militant group's growing international acceptance and its defiance of Israel.
Jordan's King Abdullah II paid a rare visit to the West Bank on Thursday in a show of support for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' successful bid for U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state.
An Israeli-Palestinian showdown over plans for new Jewish settlements around Jerusalem escalated on Wednesday. Israel pushed the most contentious of the projects further along in the planning pipeline, and the Palestinian president said he would seek U.N. Security Council help to block the construction.
Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians can’t go anywhere good. Both Arab and Jew know it. President Obama poses as the honest broker, but he too knows that talk of a lasting resolution of differences is 100-proof moonshine.
Israel is moving forward with plans for two major settlement projects in east Jerusalem, a spokeswoman said Tuesday, even as a senior Palestinian official warned that his government could pursue war crimes charges if Israel doesn't halt such construction.
Five European nations summoned Israeli ambassadors on Monday to denounce Israel's latest settlement construction push, deepening the rift between the Jewish state and European allies over the Palestinians' successful U.N. statehood bid.
The United Nations last week voted overwhelmingly to recognize the Palestinian Authority as a nonmember observer state of the world body. The vote was not even close -- 138 delegates in favor of the measure, nine against and 41 abstaining.
Israel on Sunday roundly rejected the United Nations' endorsement of an independent state of Palestine, announcing it would withhold more than $100 million collected for the Palestinian government to pay debts to Israeli companies.
