by Avi Issacharoff, Barak Ravid and Natasha Mozgovaya – Haaretz Israel and the Palestinians are at odds over which subjects will open their next round of peace talks, set to start Tuesday in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to begin with security arrangements, recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and…
by Bret Stephens, WSJ If you’re a reader of a certain age, you might understand the headline. In May 1977, when Menachem Begin was elected Israel’s prime minister, Time magazine set out to describe the man, beginning with the correct pronunciation of his last name: “Rhymes with Fagin,” the editors explained, invoking the character from…
by David Isaac, ShmuelKatz.com In her recent column in The Jerusalem Post, “The New Netanyahu?”, Caroline Glick writes, “The most distressing aspect of Netanyahu’s enthusiastic participation in a process the Israeli public rationally opposes is that it is him doing it.” Caroline Glick, today’s most insightful columnist on the subject of Israel, has been uncharacteristically slow…
by Israel Today Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas clarified for his people on Monday that he intends to make not even one concession or compromise in direct peace negotiations with Israel, and that for a final status peace to be achieved, Israel will have to fully meet all Arab demands and abandon its own conditions. First…
by Moshe Arens, Haaretz This time it’s not going to be deja vu. The negotiations between Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, promoted and orchestrated by Barack Obama, will not be anything like the negotiations that took place during sixteen years, successively, between Yitzhak Rabin, Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, on the Israeli side, and Yasser Arafat. Arafat…
by Aaron Klein, World Net Daily Ahead of the start of today’s Mideast summit in Washington, the Israeli government publicly conceded sections of Jerusalem will become part of a Palestinian state while holy sites would be governed by a “special regime.” Speaking in an interview with Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, Defense Minister Ehud Barak outlined a…
by Michael Freund For the first time in nearly two years, Israel and the Palestinian Authority will be resuming direct negotiations in Washington this week, amid a great deal of fanfare. In a clear sign of the occasion’s significance, President Barack Obama personally set aside several hours between his frequent vacations to host the restart…
by George Will, Washington Post Immersion in this region’s politics can convince those immersed that history is cyclical rather than linear — that it is not one thing after another but the same thing over and over. This passes for good news because things that do change, such as weapons, often make matters worse. A…
by George Will, JewishWorldReview.com ‘Twas a famous victory for diplomacy when, in 1991 in Madrid, Israelis and Palestinians, orchestrated by the United States, at last engaged in direct negotiations. Almost a generation later, U.S. policy has succeeded in prodding the Palestinians away from their recent insistence on “proximity talks” — in which they have talked…
by Emet Report Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday, “There is an obvious Palestinian attempt to evade direct negotiations.” At the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting Netanyahu said, “As far as we are concerned, we are ready to start direct negotiations as early as next week.” The Arab League is slated…