There is no value in peace talks with Israel unless the goal is ending its 47-year occupation of the Palestinian territories within a “firm timetable,” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the United Nations General Assembly on Friday. “It’s high time for this settlement occupation to end now,” Abbas told the 193-member world body, which overwhelming…
Member states of the U.N. nuclear agency on Thursday rejected an Arab resolution targeting Israel over its assumed atomic arsenal, in a diplomatic victory for the Jewish state and Western countries opposing the initiative. Arab states had submitted the non-binding text – which called on Israel to join a global anti-nuclear weapons pact – to…
A gigantic German department store, rebuilt in the heart of Berlin on the rubble of a shopping centre seized by the Nazis, was opened on Thursday with a ceremony paying tribute to its original Jewish owners. The near 1 billion euro ($1.3 billion) “Mall of Berlin” – an entire quarter with a glass-covered arcade, 270…
When Palestinian filmmaker Leila Sansour returned to Bethlehem to make a film about her home town, she had no idea she would end up running a campaign to put the ancient city on the world map as a model for diversity in the Middle East. Sansour left Bethlehem as a teenager in 1983, disdainful of…
A unity government is to take control of the Gaza Strip, after a breakthrough in talks between Palestinian factions on Thursday which could strengthen their hand in talks with Israel next month. The Gaza ceasefire struck in August between Israel and the Palestinians called for the Palestinian Authority, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, to take…
The masked Islamic State militant in the videos depicting the beheading of two Americans has been identified, FBI Director James Comey said on Thursday, but he did not give the person’s name or nationality. “I believe that we have identified (him). I’m not going to tell you who I believe it is,” Comey told a…
(Religion News Service) — At Beit Daniel, a Reform synagogue in Israel’s secular metropolis, 75 members gather for the Friday evening Sabbath service, led by a female rabbi and a guitar-strumming cantor. Long used to new faces and numerous Hebrew accents, the congregation these days is getting even more diverse. That’s because even as Israel…
(Reuters) — After Steve Ballmer plunked down $2 billion for the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers, fans might expect the former Microsoft chief executive to be hitting the reset button on a team that has been through a nasty public fight over racism. Don’t bet on it. That experience, Ballmer knows, makes his team unique, and…
(Reuters) — Scientists who discovered phenomena as different as the molecular mechanisms of pain, organic light-emitting diodes that illuminate mobile phones and a new quantum state of matter are top contenders for Nobel prizes next month, according to an annual analysis by Thomson Reuters. The predictions announced on Thursday come from the Intellectual Property & Science…
President Barack Obama lamented on Wednesday that “too many Israelis” were ready to abandon Middle East peace efforts and urged them to reflect on the matter, saying the status quo with the Palestinians was unsustainable. As part of a broader speech to the United Nations Assembly, Obama appeared to gently chide close U.S. ally Israel…
Israel will increase its 2015 defense budget by 6 billion shekels ($1.6 billion) or more than 10 percent to 57 billion shekels, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Wednesday. The 50-day Gaza conflict which ended last month has underpinned hefty budget demands by the Defense Ministry. With Israel also preparing for a possible confrontation…
