We’re all on anniversary overload lately: 40 years since the Yom Kippur War, 12 years since 9/11, five years since Lehman Brothers collapsed. But there’s another event that requires urgent attention: the Rabin-Arafat handshake on the White House lawn, September 13, 1993, the moment known in Middle East diplo-speak as Oslo. It’s called Oslo because…
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he is prepared to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in order to achieve peace. “There is nothing at all that prevents a meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu at the right time for us to meet or at a time we need to meet,” Abbas said Saturday in…
JERUSALEM — The Palestinians could turn to international bodies to prevent Israel from expanding settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem, a senior Palestinian leader said. “We are saying very clearly that if Israel does not stop, then we have to move,” Hanan Ashrawi told reporters on Wednesday during a visit to Jewish settlements in…
JERUSALEM — Rockets were fired from Gaza at southern Israel as Palestinian prisoners being released by Israel were being transported to the border. One rocket fired Tuesday night at Sderot fell short of its target and is believed to have landed in side Gaza. A second rocket landed in the nearby Sha’ar Hanegev region in…
Israel’s Interior Ministry gave final approval on Monday to a plan to build 890 new apartments in Gilo, a settlement neighborhood beyond the Green Line in southern Jerusalem, just one day before Palestinian leadership is slated to make a final decision on whether to attend Wednesday’s scheduled negotiating session with Israel. It will be a…
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday that Israel’s announcement of new settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem “were to some degree expected,” and urged Israelis and Palestinians to move head with peace talks due to resume this week. “What this underscores is the importance of getting to the table, getting…
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told visiting German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle on Monday that the European Union’s new guidelines on Israel’s settlements in the West Bank undercut the freshly resumed peace process and strengthen the Palestinian position. In a meeting at the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem, where he was recovering from a recent hernia…
Israel said on Sunday it was marketing nearly 1,200 new homes for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, just two days before a planned release of long-serving Palestinian prisoners. Israel has made a major push on settlements since the resumption on July 30, after a three-year break, of U.S.-brokered talks on Palestinian statehood. Israeli…
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