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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday tried to calm tensions with Israel before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's congressional address, yet insisted the Obama administration's diplomatic record with Iran entitles the U.S. to "the benefit of the doubt" as negotiators work toward a long-term nuclear deal.

<p>That’s what will certainly happen if the Obama administration, as now looks increasingly likely, reaches a deal that preserves Iran as a nuclear “breakout” power.</p> <p>“Breakout” is a key word. It means that instead of permanently ensuring Tehran never gets a nuke, the goal of the deal would be to keep Tehran a year away from the ability to develop nuclear weapons for at least a decade.</p>

Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal took aim at the White House for “disrespecting Israel and the Jewish people” after it was revealed that President Barack Obama’s authorization for the use of military force against the Islamic State (IS) failed to mention that Jews are a prime target of the terror group, according to a statement provided to the Washington Free Beacon. Obama’s war authorization came under fire on Wednesday after Rep. Lee Zeldin (R., N.Y.), Congress’ only Jewish Republican, noted that the resolution specifically omits Jewish people as one of IS’s (also known as ISIS and ISIL) chief targets. It...

After announcing he will be skipping Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu”s speech to Congress for a trip abroad, US Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry both met on Saturday with Labor leader Isaac Herzog on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich, Germany. The two sides insisted that the meetings were informal. But it reportedly revolved around security matters and the Zionist Union’s defense strategy, Israeli media reported. On Friday, Biden announced he’ll miss Netanyahu’s speech to Congress due to a pre-scheduled overseas trip, yet unnamed. Both Kerry and President Barack Obama said last month...

AS THE Obama administration pushes to complete a nuclear accord with Iran, numerous members of Congress, former secretaries of state and officials of allied governments are expressing concern about the contours of the emerging deal. Though we have long supported negotiations with Iran as well as the interim agreement the United States and its allies struck with Tehran, we share several of those concerns and believe they deserve more debate now — before negotiators present the world with a fait accompli. The problems raised by authorities ranging from Henry Kissinger, the country’s most senior former secretary of state, to Sen....

Sixty-one percent of Israeli Jews believe there is a high probability that US President Barack Obama will approve the signing of a nuclear agreement with Iran, even if Israel expressly states that the deal endangers the Jewish state’s security, according to the newly released Peace Index poll by the Israel Democracy Institute. The US is willing to make concessions in the nuclear talks with Iran in exchange for Iran using its influence to ensure stability in Middle East hotspots such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, Army Radio reported Tuesday. Regarding March’s Knesset elections, 58 percent of Israeli Jewish respondents in...

The Obama administration reportedly is fuming over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to address Congress in March regarding the Iranian threat, with one unnamed official telling an Israeli newspaper he will pay “a price” for the snub. House Speaker John Boehner invited Netanyahu -- and the Israeli leader accepted – without any involvement from the White House. In public, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest politely describes this as a “departure” from protocol. He also says the president will not meet with Netanyahu when he visits in early March, but has attributed that decision only to a desire not...

But President Obama will not be meeting with Netanyahu when he visits. “As a matter of long-standing practice and principle, we do not see heads of state or candidates in close proximity to their elections, so as to avoid the appearance of influencing a democratic election in a foreign country,” White House National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said in a statement today. “Accordingly, the president will not be meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu because of the proximity to the Israeli election, which is just two weeks after his planned address to the U.S. Congress.”

President Obama hailed late Saudi King Abdullah, who died at age 90 after a battle with pneumonia, as leading the kingdom “through its emergence as a critical force within the global economy and a leader among Arab and Islamic nations.” “He took bold steps in advancing the Arab Peace Initiative, an endeavor that will outlive him as an enduring contribution to the search for peace in the region,” Obama said of the Saudi plan that would recognize Israel in exchange for concessions including pulling back to pre-1967 borders. “At home, King Abdullah’s vision was dedicated to the education of his...

While Iran’s march toward a nuclear bomb has provoked a major clash between the White House and Congress, Iran’s march toward conventional domination of the Arab world has been largely overlooked. In Washington, that is. The Arabs have noticed. And the pro-American ones, the Gulf Arabs in particular, are deeply worried. This week, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels seized control of the Yemeni government, heretofore pro-American. In September, they overran Sanaa, the capital. On Tuesday, they seized the presidential palace. On Thursday, they forced the president to resign. The Houthis have local religious grievances, being Shiites in a majority Sunni land. But...

House Speaker John Boehner has issued an invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to a joint session of Congress on February 11th concerning Iran. Boehner issued the invitation in response to President Obama's threat to veto further sanctions against Iran.

Sunday's Der Spiegel had a massive expose on the continuing efforts of Bashar al-Assad to build a nuclear weapons plant, which included evidence that Iran is constructing such a plant for Syria in Qusayr, less than two kilometers from Syria's border with Lebanon. The issue came up in the State Department's Monday daily briefing. Disturbingly, spokeswoman Marie Harf said that the United States did not plan to raise the issue in the Iranian nuclear talks, claiming that those talks only deal with Iran's nuclear capabilities and not with Syria's. According to findings of Western intelligence agencies, however, the situation...

WASHINGTON - Biden, speaking at a forum on the Middle East at the Brookings Institution think tank, rejected calls for more sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear program because "this is not the time to risk a breakdown when we still have a chance for a breakthrough." Biden said the sanctions imposed by the United States and allies were working by slowing Iran's economy, as well as its nuclear program. "It's frozen the program, it's given us a shot for a peaceful solution," he said. "I tell you, I think it's a less than even shot but it's a shot,...

Israeli police seized a massive shipment of firecrackers, swords, tasers and other weapons at Ashdod port Thursday - a potentially deadly arsenal which was set to be delivered to Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem. Two containers intercepted by authorities at the southern port were packed with 18,000 fireworks, 5,200 commando knives, 5,500 tasers, 4,300 tasers concealed in flashlights, 1,000 swords and several thousand other "cold" weapons. The lethal cargo was hidden under a layer of Christmas decorations, and had been shipped in all the way from China. The weapons were in all likelihood destined to be used against police and Jewish...

Dear President Obama, You’ve been a great friend for the last six years and, to express our appreciation, we’d like to acknowledge some of your many helpful actions: 1) In 2009, our presidential election results were so dubious that millions of brave, pro-democracy protesters risked their lives to demonstrate throughout our country. When our Basij paramilitary force brutalized them, you kept your response irrelevantly mild for the sake of “engaging” us. That surely helped Iranians understand the risks of protesting our “free” election of 2012 (involving our eight handpicked candidates). It was indeed a very orderly rubberstamp. 2) After eight...

By/Major Garrett/CBS News/November 6, 2014, 9:23 PM Obama writes private letter to Iranian leader WASHINGTON -- U.S. officials confirm President Obama sent a letter to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in mid-October, as first reported in the Wall Street Journal. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest would neither confirm nor deny the letter's existence. "I'm not in a position to discuss private correspondence between the president and any world leader," Earnest said Thursday. When asked about secret negotiations with Khamenei, Iran's top political and religious leader, Earnest said the White House "also" conducts private briefings with key members of Congress...

Barack Obama should listen to Peter Arnett. Arnett is the well-known war correspondent who not only covered the long war in Vietnam for the Associated Press, for which he won the Pulitzer, but who covered the shameful evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon in April 1975. Most recently, he was embedded in Baghdad, reporting from the front. The year 1975 was when the United States abandoned the people of South Vietnam to their fate as soldiers of the Communist North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong descended upon the city. They did so after the South Vietnamese Army, our...

Obama’s foreign policy was supposed to reboot America’s relationship with the rest of the world. Old allies would become people we occasionally talked to. Old enemies would become new allies. Goodbye Queen, hello Vladimir. Trade the Anglosphere for Latin America’s Marxist dictatorships. Replace allied governments in the Middle East with Islamists and call it a day for the Caliphate. Very little of that went according to plan. Obama is still stuck with Europe. The Middle East and Latin American leftists still hate America. The Arab Spring imploded. Japan, South Korea and India have conservative governments. And then there’s Israel. The...

Following a week in which Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of genocide and US president Barack Obama's administration condemned Israel for building in its capital, a poll broadcast Thursday found both unpopular among Israelis. A Panels poll broadcast on the Knesset Channel found that only 27 percent of Israelis consider Abbas a worthy partner for peace talks. Sixty-three percent said he was not a worthy partner. Asked whether they trusted Obama to manage US policy in the Middle East, 74% said not and 21% said yes. Only 25% said they would characterize the president as a "true friend...

Fr. Gabriel Nadaf with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Netanyahu Israeli Christians' New Nationality: Aramaean, not Arab. 130,000 of Israel's 160,000 Christians, hitherto registered as Arabs, are expected to re-register as Aramaeans; their leaders are ecstatic.Interior Minister Gideon Saar has instructed the Population, Immigration and Border Authority (PIBA) to allow the registration of a new nationality – Aramaean – in the identity cards of Christian citizens who were registered as Arabs until now. In a letter to PIBA Director Amnon Ben-Ami, Saar wrote that he has “received rulings according to which the existence of the Aramaean nationality is clear and obvious,...