Is Barack Obama’s upcoming visit to Israel going to turn into a Yair Lapid love-in? The Israeli daily Yedioth Araronoth, suggested in its editorial yesterday that Obama decided to come because Netanyahu is currently weak — because of the staggering success of Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party. The administration is working on the premise that…
President Obama’s visit to Israel will focus on Syria and Iran, and he will not initiate new peace moves, the White House said. “This is a trip the president looks forward to making that is timed in part because we have here obviously a second term for the president, a new administration and a new…
Is President Obama’s plan to visit Israel a sign that he’s ready to take another shot at Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking? The White House announced Tuesday that Obama would visit Israel in the spring, his first trip there as president. He did visit in 2008, when he was a candidate for the Oval Office. This trip also…
Pope Benedict said in his New Year’s message on Tuesday he hoped 2013 would be a year of peace and that the world was under threat from unbridled capitalism, terrorism and criminality. The 85-year-old pope rang in the new year with a mass for about 10,000 people in St Peter’s Basilica on the day the…
A pair of new polls indicates that right-wing Israelis are surprisingly open to a peace deal with the Palestinians. The polls laid out a two-state-solution scenario to Israelis and asked them if they would back it. Among voters of Likud-Beytenu, the right-wing coaltion that is expected to win the January election, in a Smith Institute…
Pope Benedict, leading the world’s Roman Catholics into Christmas, on Monday urged people to find room for God in their fast-paced lives filled with the latest technological gadgets. The 85-year-old pope, marking the eighth Christmas season of his pontificate, celebrated a solemn Christmas Eve mass in St Peter’s Basilica, during which he appealed for a…
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas reportedly said he wanted to negotiate with Israel it if freezes construction for six months in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Abbas made the statement on Sunday in Qatar during a meeting of Arab League nations in Doha, The Jerusalem Post reported. He was responding to statements by Qatari Prime Minister…
European Union states struggled to agree on Tuesday on a common response to Israel’s plans to expand settlements in the West Bank, highlighting the divisions within the bloc over how to tackle the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. At a meeting in Brussels, ambassadors responsible for security issues discussed the possibility of all 27 EU states writing to…
דער זומער איז אַן עקשן, ער וויל ניט, וויל ניט קומען, הגם אויף בייטן וואַקסן צעקווייטיקט שוין די בלומען.
