Any future agreement with the Palestinians will be brought to the country in the form of a referendum, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said at the outset of the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, just hours after finishing a six-hour late-night meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at cabinet meeting, June 30, 2013 – Photo: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post
This was Netanyahu’s third meeting with Kerry since he arrived Thursday afternoon.
By Elior Levy
Jordanian media reported that a joint Israeli, Palestinian, American and Jordanian summit will possibly be announced soon, in a move which will signal the restarting of the stalled peace process.
Netanyahu, Kerry earlier this week – Photo: Moshe Milner, GPO
According to the reports, which cite Palestinian sources, the Americans told the Palestinian side on Friday that Israel agreed to their preconditions of settlement construction freeze, prisoners’ release and defining the borders on which basis the negotiations will be held, though these will be implemented gradually, and not all at once. Continue Reading »
In four months as secretary of state, John Kerry has certainly promised great things. Now he has to deliver.
In the Middle East, he has raised hopes his solo diplomatic effort can produce a historic breakthrough ending six decades of Arab-Israeli conflict.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on visit to New Delhi, India. – Photo: Reuters
He has pledged to bring Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government to heel and to work with Russia to end Syria’s civil war. Continue Reading »
In a move surely to be applauded in Jerusalem, the European Union foreign ministers are unlikely to issue detailed conclusions on the Middle East peace process following their monthly meeting on Monday in Luxembourg.
Netanyahu at meeting with Catherine Ashton, EU High Rep for Foreign Affairs, June 20, 2013. – Photo: Courtesy – GPO
Both Israeli and European officials said certain key EU actors were impacted by Jerusalem’s arguments that a detailed European statement right now regarding how the EU envisions the peace process would only serve to undermine US Secretary of State John Kerry’s efforts to get the sides back to the negotiating table.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview with the Washington Post on Thursday that he is committed to reaching an agreement with the Palestinians.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, gestures while meeting with Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Thursday, May 23, 2013. – Photo: AP
In the interview, the prime minister said that he is willing to restart negotiations with the Palestinians, but their demand that Israel halt settlement construction as a precondition serves as an obstacle. Continue Reading »
By Reuters
The Palestinian administration in the West Bank has tried to help the latest US peacemaking drive by quietly cutting off funds for grassroots campaigners against Israel’s occupation of the territory, a senior Israeli general said on Tuesday.
Major-General Nitzan Alon – Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg
Briefing diplomats and reporters at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a conservative think-tank, Alon said Kerry’s bids to revive negotiations had a “positive influence on the ground, mainly on the PA (Palestinian Authority). Continue Reading »
The Fatah leadership on Wednesday warned the US Administration against exerting pressure on the Palestinian Authority to resume peace talks with Israel unconditionally.
PA President Abbas and Chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat – Photo: REUTERS/Tarek Mostafa
Shortly before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry returns to the Middle East in an attempt to renew negotiations, Israel’s planning bodies continue to move ahead with plans to expand the Itamar settlement by 538 housing units.
The entrance to the Itamar community in Judea and Samaria – Photo: Oren Nachson
Objections to the plan, which would increase the size of the settlement by a factor of five, are being heard this week.
WASHINGTON — The Greek foreign minister told an American Jewish audience that his government would “never allow hate to grow and spread,” but did not address specific calls to marginalize the ultranationalist Golden Dawn party.
Golden Dawn members with party leader Nikolaos Michaloliakos (front left)
“Let me state from this forum, in the most determined and compelling manner, that Greece will never allow hate to grow and spread,” Dimitris Avramopoulos told the American Jewish Committee’s annual Global Forum in Washington on Monday.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has threatened to dismantle the PA should US Secretary of State John Kerry fail to “salvage the peace process,” a senior PA official said Tuesday.
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas – Photo: Mark Israel Sellem
Hussein al-Sheikh, the PA minister for civilian affairs, said that Abbas has informed Kerry that the PA’s functional role would end if current efforts to revive the peace process did not succeed.
“Israel, as an occupying force, would then have to assume full responsibility [over the Palestinian population],” Sheikh told the PA’s Voice of Palestine radio station.
A senior Israeli diplomatic official in Jerusalem has told Israel Hayom that he “refused to be moved” by a Reuters report on Monday that quoted a senior U.S. official as saying the U.S. government would abandon its efforts to advance the peace process if it determined that Israel and the Palestinians were not serious about the matter.
If U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry determines that Israelis and Palestinians are not serious about the peace process, he will abandon his efforts on the matter, a senior U.S. official told Reuters.
John Kerry (C) with President Shimon Peres (L) and President Mahmoud Abbas at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa on May, 26. – Photo: Reuters
In an article by Arshad Mohammed, the Reuters journalist responsible for covering the State Department in Washington, the reporter cited those who called Kerry a “Lone Ranger” condemning the Middle East peace process, and that many involved call Kerry “naive.” Continue Reading »
Associated Press
The Palestinian president has told advisers that as the US tries to restart Mideast peace talks, he is under intense international pressure to return to negotiations with Israel and drop demands for a Jewish settlement freeze in the West Bank, officials said Wednesday.
Kerry, Abbas in Ramallah – Photo: AFP
In a closed meeting, Mahmoud Abbas lamented his difficult choice: Rebuff the Americans and alienate Washington, or cave in and face an uproar at home. Continue Reading »
DEAD SEA, Jordan – US Secretary of State John Kerry unveiled on Sunday a $4 billion economic plan to revitalize the Palestinian economy, as he called on Israelis and Palestinians to forgive past wrongs and return to the negotiating table.
President Shimon Peres, US Secretary of State John Kerry and PA President Mahmoud Abbas. – Photo: World Economic Forum/Benedikt von Loebell
“The plan for the Palestinian economy is bigger and bolder and more ambitious than anything proposed since Oslo more than 20 years ago,” said Kerry as he spoke at the closing session of the World Economic Forum by the Dead Sea in Jordan.
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