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The Palestinian Authority’s 2017 budget shows a “huge increase” in the funding of salaries for imprisoned terrorists and the families of “martyrs,” an Israeli research institute revealed on Wednesday. According to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), the amount of money allocated by the PA for payments to terrorists jailed in Israel rose 13% this year to $158 million — compared to $135 million in 2016. During the same time frame, disbursements for family members of dead terrorists increased by 4% — to $197 million from $183 million. Overall, PMW said, the PA is spending $355 million this year on the direct...

A meeting between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and senior White House official Jared Kushner reportedly left the Palestinian leader fuming and refusing to agree to watered-down demands that Ramallah cut off payments for some convicted terrorists and their families. According to Palestinian sources quoted in Hebrew and Arabic media Friday, Abbas and his advisers accused the US of taking Israel’s side and refused a demand to stop paying salaries to several hundred prisoners serving time for the most serious crimes. Kushner, who is US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and chief Middle East adviser, met with Abbas in Ramallah on...

The Times of Israel reports: A meeting between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and senior White House official Jared Kushner reportedly left the Palestinian leader fuming and refusing to agree to watered-down demands that Ramallah cut off payments for some convicted terrorists and their families. According to Palestinian sources quoted in Hebrew and Arabic media Friday, Abbas and his advisers accused the US of taking Israel’s side and refused a demand to stop paying salaries to several hundred prisoners serving time for the most serious crimes. Kushner, who is US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and chief Middle East adviser, met...

PA officials confirmed reports in Israel that US President Donald Trump had lambasted PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas during their meeting in Bethlehem over the PA’s involvement in anti-Israel incitement. On Sunday, Channel 2 reported that the meeting between Trump and Abbas in Bethlehem last week had been anything but cordial. The report cited a US official present during the meeting who claimed that the president had expressed outrage with Abbas, yelling at him regarding Abbas’ claims that his Fatah faction was not involved in anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incitement. “You tricked me in Washington,” the president is said to have yelled...

TEL AVIV – The Palestinian Authority has paid out NIS 4 billion ($1.12 billion) over the past four years towards salaries for terrorists and their families, a former intelligence chief said on Monday. Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, who served as the director general of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the longer a Palestinian security prisoner is jailed, “the higher the salary. … Anyone who has sat in prison for more than 30 years gets NIS 12,000 ($3,360) per month.” “When they’re released, they get a grant and are promised a job...

Fatah's Revolutionary Council congratulated the "heroic" hunger-striking terrorists for their "victory" over Israel in what the terror organization called a "fight for freedom and honor." In a committee meeting titled "The meeting for freedom and honor in support of our heroic prisoners," the Council expressed its pride and admiration of the prisoners for "standing strong," and said the Fatah leader and their freedom and their families' honor would continue to top Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' priority list. The Council also gave full support to Abbas' "nationalist" views and credited him with expressing "Palestinian" values in his meeting with US...

President Donald Trump lambasted Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, after the president claims the PA leader deceived him regarding his party’s involvement in anti-Israel incitement. Trump met with Abbas in the PA-controlled city of Bethlehem last week during his two-day visit to Israel. The two held a joint press conference, at which time the president praised Abbas’ commitment to restarting negotiations with Israel for a final status agreement. But according to a report by Channel 2 Sunday evening, the closed-door meeting between the president and the PA chairman was anything but cordial. A US official present during the meeting claims...

Fatah’s Revolutionary Council congratulated the “heroic” hunger-striking terrorists for their “victory” over Israel in what the terror organization called a “fight for freedom and honor.” […] According to Hebrew newspaper Israel Hayom, Abbas rejected Trump’s offer of a regional plan which would first entail normalizing relations with Israel’s neighbors and only afterwards discussing a Palestinian state. Last week, a PA official told Israel Hayom: “Until now, what hindered progress in the advance of the Arab Peace Initiative was the failure of negotiations with Israel. President Trump is interested in advancing a different thought process within the framework of the deal...

Although Abbas has yet to publicly responded to Trump’s demand that financing of terrorism stop, I believe Trump will force him to do so Secretary Tillerson said yesterday that Trump put enormous pressure on Abbas and Netanyahu. So where is Trump going? For the answer, look at the concessions he got from them. Abbas agreed that Israel could keep Maaleh Adumin, Ariel and Gush Etzion. The Israel Cabinet agreed to allow some Arab building in area C and to not demolish illegal Arab construction. The Gulf states said they would normalize with Israel if Israel froze construction outside of the...

Abbas will end up in the diplomatic wilderness if he ignores the messages delivered by both Trump and Netanyahu The horrific carnage perpetrated in Manchester on 22 May presented an emotion-charged backdrop to two meetings the next day between President Trump and President Abbas in Bethlehem and President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu in Jerusalem. Trump pointedly told Abbas: “Peace can never take root in an environment where violence is tolerated, funded and even rewarded. We must be resolute in condemning such acts in a single, unified voice. Peace is a choice we must make each day—and the United States...

Abbas Disrespects Trump How the PA “president” insulted the U.S. president prior to their initial meeting. Palestinian Authority “president” Mahmoud Abbas exploited his visit with Donald Trump in the White House on May 3 to tell a lie so deceitful, it amounted to an insult: “we are raising our youth, our children, our grandchildren on a culture of peace.” As many observers quickly noted, schools routinely are named after Palestinian suicide bombers, and Abbas’ party consistently glorifies murderers including on the very day Abbas met with Trump -- his Fatah party honored 12 terrorists who murdered 95 people. But that’s just...

Trump planning to launch new round of talks during his upcoming visit. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has crossed the Rubicon and voiced “unprecedented” readiness to reach a peace deal with Israel, sources close to the efforts to renew talks between Israel and the Palestinians have told The Jerusalem Post. Abbas, according to the sources, made this clear to President Donald Trump during their meeting at the White House last week. The president plans to use his trip to Israel later this month to receive assurances from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he, too, is committed to a peace agreement.

Germany’s president said Tuesday that it is “truly urgent” to start moving toward a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Much time has already been spent on efforts to set up a state of Palestine alongside Israel, Frank-Walter Steinmeier said after meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank. “In the international community, there were many attempts and much time has passed, and those who know the region know that it has become truly urgent to implement proposals for a two-state solution,” Steinmeier said, standing next to Abbas. Steinmeier said he believes there is no alternative to a...

Prime Minister Netanyahu attacked PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas this afternoon (Thursday) following his meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington. “I heard President Abbas yesterday say that the Palestinians teach their children peace. Unfortunately, that’s not true. They name their schools after mass murderers of Israelis and they pay terrorists,” he said at the opening of a meeting with the Romanian prime minister in Jerusalem. […] Following Trump’s meeting with Abbas on Wednesday, White House Spokesman Sean Spicer said that Trump had raised the issues of the Palestinian Authority’s incitement and payments to terrorists in Israeli prisons with Abbas...

Earlier today President Trump welcomed President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority to the White House. Abbas represents the final member of a building peace alliance including PM Netanyahu (Israel), President al-Sisi (Egypt), King Abdullah (Jordan) and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.

Several hundred Palestinians marched in an anti-government protest Monday, calling for the resignation of Palestinian Authority (PA) head Mahmoud Abbas and criticizing his security coordination with Israel. Abbas administers parts of Judea and Samaria and his policy of cooperation between Israeli troops and PA forces against Islamic militants is unpopular among Palestinians. Despite the tense relationship between Israel and the PA, the two benefit from limited coordination on security issues. .....

President Trump told Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas Friday that it’s time for a comprehensive agreement to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “The president emphasized his personal belief that peace is possible and that the time has come to make a deal,” the White House said in a readout of the phone conversation between the two leaders. “The president noted that such a deal would not only give Israelis and Palestinians the peace and security they deserve, but that it would reverberate positively throughout the region and the world.” Mr. Trump invited Mr. Abbas to a meeting at the White House...

U.S. president stresses his commitment to bring about real peace between Israel and Palestinians, Palestinian spokesman says. U.S. President Donald Trump speaks on the phone in the Oval Office. Alex Brandon/AP U.S. State Department confirms Obama's last-minute aid to the Palestinians Defense Minister Lieberman tells Pence: I expect to see U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem soon President Donald Trump spoke on the phone with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for the first time on Friday, and invited him to the White House, a Palestinian spokesman said. The call was the first contact between the two leaders, coming after complaints by Palestinian officials...

Congressional aides suspected of criminally misusing their access to House computer systems owed $100,000 to an Iraqi politician who is wanted by U.S. authorities and has been linked to Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Middle Eastern terrorist outfit. Imran Awan and four of his relatives were employed as information technology (IT) aides by dozens of House Democrats, including members of the intelligence, foreign affairs and homeland security committees. The aides’ administrator-level IT access was terminated earlier this month amid a criminal probe by U.S. Capitol Police of a suspected security breach, including an off-site server housing congressional data. The Daily Caller News...

The Palestinian Authority (PA) on Wednesday evening reacted to the meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. A statement from PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s office said that the PA remains committed to the two-state solution and is willing to work with Trump’s administration to achieve a peace agreement. At the same time, the statement criticized Netanyahu and claimed that “Israel’s insistence on destroying the two-state solution will lead to more extremism and more instability.” “We are ready to work positively with the Trump administration in order to bring peace,” the statement continued, “but the Israeli Prime...