With the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations operating under a tightly sealed cone of silence imposed by Secretary of State John Kerry, Middle East policy junkies have developed an elaborate guessing game that takes the form of a will-he-or-won’t-he dissection of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intentions. The idea is to examine what’s known about Netanyahu’s past, his…
Israel will accept a peace agreement that includes handing over Arab parts of Jerusalem, senior Likud lawmaker Tzachi Hanegbi said. “I think we will be able to give a good answer, a win-win answer, to almost every issue including the Jerusalem issue, including the settlement issue, every issue has a compromise that can be relevant…
J Street, the dovish pro-Israel lobby that was shunned in its early years by Israeli government officials, is now making another step toward the acceptance by Israeli politicians. This coming September, J Street will host, for the first time, a member of Knesset from the ruling Likud Party and a member of the ultra-Orthodox Shas…
I was on the phone the other day with a very senior adviser to a string of former Likud leaders and prime ministers, mostly listening while he talked about Secretary of State John Kerry and his marathon Israeli-Palestinian peace-processing. He wasn’t optimistic. His main reason for pessimism: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reluctance to risk collapsing…
As Secretary of State John Kerry desperately tries to kick-start a renewal of negotiations for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, a newly crowned King of Likud is intent on sabotaging its realization. Internal Likud elections held in late June underscored an emergent paradox: While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that he is interested in pursuing a…
The guessing game continues: Will he or won’t he? Will Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agree to open peace negotiations with the Palestinians on the basis of the Arab Peace Initiative — meaning, in effect, agreeing to start from the pre-1967 armistice lines as the basis for negotiating future borders? Netanyahu is under pressure. He…
Israel’s state-owned Channel 1 Television aired the first part of a five-part miniseries version of “The Gatekeepers” on Sunday night. That’s the Oscar-nominated Israeli documentary in which all six living ex-directors of the Shin Bet security service criticize the government’s West Bank policies. According to Walla! News, the miniseries will include previously unseen material from…
Israel’s ministry of religious services, headed by economics minister Naftali Bennett of the Jewish Home party, has created a new Jewish Identity Administration in an “effort to increase national awareness of Jewish identity,” says a report in Yeshiva World News. Haaretz says its job is to “instill Jewish values” in the general public. The administration…
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