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The U.S. State Department made it clear Tuesday that Jewish neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem are “settlements,” which U.S. President Barack Obama has called “illegitimate." Reporters covering the daily State Department press briefing have recently asked tough-than-usual questions concerning what they see as the United States trying to determine the future borders of a Palestinian Authority state instead of allowing Israel and the PA to negotiate directly.

The latest threat to Middle East peace is not a rocket from Gaza or a terrorist bombing. It is a Jerusalem apartment project -- at least that's the view in Foggy Bottom.

Former U.S. presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee plans to broadcast his weekend show on Fox News from the site of a disputed construction project in East Jerusalem, a New York politician has told Haaretz. New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind said Huckabee will air the talkshow during a solidarity visit to the site of the project, which is in the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Hikind, who is active in right-wing Jewish causes, told Haaretz that dozens of U.S. activists will participate in the mission, in order to express their support for the project and the man behind it, Irving Moskowitz....

France summoned Daniel Shek, the Israeli ambassador in Paris, to demand that Israel stop all building for Jews in eastern Jerusalem. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Tuesday afternoon. "The Israeli ambassador in Washington was summoned and the ambassador in Paris has now been summoned to the Foreign Ministry," Kouchner told reporters at a weekly news conference. France’s bold move, coupled with increasingly harsh criticism of Israel by Russia, have strengthened U.S. President Barack Obama’s determination to enforce his demands that Israel stop construction for Jews. American officials said that the building activity is a negative factor on negotiations with...

Last week, the New York Times published an article about “signs of hope” in the West Bank (and in the city of Nablus in particular) that refreshingly breaks with the standard narrative of Palestinian desperation and misery. The Israeli military recently closed down its checkpoint into the city, along with other checkpoints elsewhere in the territories. The economy is growing instead of contracting. Downtown is full of shoppers. Islamist scolds have backed off. Police make sure passengers have fastened their seat belts.

In a letter addressed to American rabbinical organizations and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations that was obtained by The Jerusalem Post, Amar wrote that "the Torah commands the Jewish people to live in Israel. And we hear that the US is putting pressure on the Israeli government to prevent Jews from living or building their homes in large parts of the Land of Israel.

We knew it would come to this. Over the weekend, the Obama administration showed just how radical the shift in U.S. policy toward Israel has been. It has demanded that the Israeli government withdraw the municipal approval of a building project in the Eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. The land that houses the old, run-down Shepherd Hotel, which is to be replaced by an apartment building, was lawfully purchased by Jews. No matter: That part of town is seen by Washington as a “settlement.”

The demand issued to the new Israeli ambassador (and former Commentary contributor) Michael Oren this past weekend spoke volumes about the changing nature of the U.S.-Israel alliance. For the past few months, Obama’s Jewish supporters have been saying that the dispute between the two countries over settlements is not about the United States trying to harm Israel but rather a case of Washington seeking to stop “illegal settlements” opposed by many Israelis and most American Jews. But the demand issued to Ambassador Oren was not about some illegal hilltop outpost somewhere deep in the West Bank, in territory that most...

(CNSNews.com)- An already uneasy relationship between the U.S. and Israeli governments looks set to become significantly more chilly with the Obama administration's decision to challenge Israel's freedom of actions in its own capital. With the exception of the dovish left wing, Israeli control over Jerusalem now and in the future enjoys support across the Israeli political spectrum; the Palestinian Authority (P.A) wants the city-or at least the eastern portion-for its capital. The State Department late last week called in Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren to warn Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's government not to permit the building of a 20-apartment building on...

(IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu issued a sharp response Sunday to United States pressure to stop Jews from building in parts of Jerusalem claimed by the Palestinian Authority. Israel's sovereignty in Jerusalem is “not up for debate,” Netanyahu said, and Jews are permitted to build in any part of the capital city, as are Arabs. Netanyahu implied that the U.S. request was racist, saying before the weekly Cabinet meeting, “Imagine what would happen if Jews were forbidden to live or to buy apartments in certain parts of London, New York, Paris or Rome. There would be an international outcry." "All...

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was taken by "surprise" by a U.S. demand over the weekend to immediately halt a Jewish constriction project in eastern Jerusalem. "I was surprised by the U.S. move," Netanyahu was quoted by his advisers as saying yesterday. "In my conversation with Obama in Washington, I told him that I could not accept any limitations on our sovereignty in Jerusalem. I told him Jerusalem is not a settlement, and it has nothing to do with discussions on a freeze." According to a source in Netanyahu's office speaking to WND, the Israeli leader has been...

The Palestinian Authority is hoping that the intervention of the US State Department with Israel to halt a construction project in Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood would be the first step toward taking action against new homes in Jewish neighborhoods established in the parts of the city annexed after 1967. There is no difference between a settlement in the West Bank and a so-called neighborhood in east Jerusalem," said Hatem Abdel Qader, who until recently served as PA minister for Jerusalem affairs. "In both cases we are talking about territories that were occupied in the 1967 war." The Palestinian Authority, which...

Jordan captured East Jerusalem in 1948 and expelled all surviving Jews from the city. Meanwhile Israel - being Israel - had no problem letting Arabs own homes in West Jerusalem. Israel then reunited the city in 1967, allowing anybody to purchase property anywhere. Arabs continued to buy land in the western part of the city and Jews began to move back to the portions Jordan had occupied. Theoretically this is what we call a "free market" in a "free country" where people live under the "rule of law." Unfortunately the Palestinians find Jews kind of icky so they're complaining to...

Just about a week and a half ago was the 17th day of the month Tammuz in the Jewish Calendar. It marks the anniversary of the day the Roman siege broke through the walls of Jerusalem almost 2000 years ago. It is also the start of a three week mourning period leading up to Tish'a B'Av (this year starting on the evening of July 29th) which is (along with Yom Kippur) the only full day fast on the Jewish calender it marks the day that both of the Jewish Temples were destroyed. This year it is not the Romans trying...

Jerusalem is the "unified capital of Israel and the capital of the Jewish people, and sovereignty over it is indisputable," Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Sunday, responding to an American demand to put an end to a housing project to be built in east Jerusalem. "Hundreds of apartments in the west of the city were purchased by Arabs and we didn't get involved. There is no prohibition against Arab residents buying apartments in the west of the city and there is no prohibition barring the city's Jewish residents from buying or building in the east of the city," Netanyahu added...

A principal argument of those who support the division of Israel's capital is the need to improve the city's demographic balance between Jews and Arabs in favor of Jews. However, a higher Arab birthrate is not the primary cause for the decrease in the Jewish majority in Jerusalem. Rather, the main reason is that large numbers of Jews are leaving the city due to housing and employment difficulties. To reverse Jewish emigration from Jerusalem, the city must be declared an area of national priority of the highest order.

JERUSALEM – Israeli radio stations say the U.S. has told Israel to halt construction project in east Jerusalem. The international community considers Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem to be settlements and an obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. Israel Radio and Army Radio reported Sunday that Israel's ambassador to the U.S. was summoned to the State Department over the weekend. The stations say Michael Oren was told the project should not go ahead. The project is being developed by American millionaire Irving Moskowitz and is near Israel's national police headquarters. The radio reports say Israeli planning authorities have approved the project.

JERUSALEM, Israel (AP) -- Israeli radio stations say the U.S. has told Israel to halt an east Jerusalem construction project. The international community considers Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem to be settlements and an obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. Israel does not regard them as settlements because it annexed east Jerusalem in 1967 after capturing it in June of that year.

JERUSALEM, July 17 (Xinhua) -- Ultra-Orthodox riot in Jerusalem over the arrest of a woman, suspected of starving her infant son, upgraded Thursday night, local daily Ha'aretz reported on Friday. Hundreds of policemen encountered with protests of over 1,000 ultra-Orthodox rioters at Jerusalem's key intersections, especially the key artery Road One, said Ha'aretz, describing it one of the worst clashes in Jerusalem between ultra-Orthodox people and police in years. In Road One, a main road in the city from north to south, hundreds of rioters clashed with police who used water cannons to disperse rioters who tried to block the...

The Australian Broadcasting Commission's Middle East correspondent Anne Barker became caught in violent street protests involving ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem at the weekend. This is her graphic account of her ordeal. As a journalist I've covered more than my share of protests. Political protests in Canberra. Unions protesting for better conditions. Angry, loud protests against governments, or against perceived abuses of human rights. I've been at violent rallies in East Timor. I've had rocks and metal darts thrown my way. I've come up against riot police. But I have to admit no protest - indeed no story in my career...

Religious Jews have rioted in Jerusalem on the Jewish Sabbath for the second straight week. Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews took to the streets of Jerusalem, throwing stones and scuffling with police. The demonstrators were protesting the opening of a parking lot on the Sabbath to accommodate an influx of Israeli visitors from around the country to Jerusalem's Old City. Jewish religious law forbids driving on the Sabbath and the Orthodox accuse the secular government and public at large of desecrating the biblical holy day of rest. Some demonstrators chanted that "Sabbath desecrators will die." Riots first erupted last month when...

The world of archeology is rocked by evidence of King David's palace unearthed in Jerusalem. How Jewish is Jerusalem? You might think that's a silly question, but in the world of academia, revisionist history and even biblical archaeology, scholars have cast the shadow of doubt over Judaism's intrinsic connection to Jerusalem. The Moslem Waqf, the religious authority that administers the Temple Mount -- the site of Judaism's First and Second Temples -- has been claiming for years that there was never a temple there. But the idea that Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and Jerusalem its...

IsraelNN.com) The Center for American Progress, an American think tank which has served as a source for several of the Obama administration’s policies, issued a report recommending that control of Jerusalem be taken away from Israel. Operating with the premise that the Old City of Jerusalem is the central problem in the peace process, the report discusses various options for a third-party entity that would replace Israel as its administrator.

Bible buzz begins as hunters wait to view Ten Commandments box Ark hunters and Bible enthusiasts are buzzing about a report that the Ark of the Covenant, the ancient container that holds the Ten Commandments, is expected to be unveiled in Rome today. As WND reported, the patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia says he will announce to the world the unveiling of the Ark, which he says has been hidden away in a church in his country for millennia, according to the Italian news agency Adnkronos. Abuna Pauolos, in Italy for a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI this...

The Jordanian government on Tuesday condemned as 'provocative' a tour of Jerusalem's al-Aqsa Mosque earlier in the day by Israeli Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch and a number of soldiers. Minister of State for Information Affairs and Communication Nabil Sharif urged an immediate cessation of such moves, which he said endangered the chances of peace. 'This is an unacceptable provocation that hurts sentiments of millions of Arabs and Muslims, and a flagrant encroachment on the sanctity of one of Islam's most sacred places,' he said. 'The Jordanian government has been following up with extreme concern this dangerous development and expresses...

Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem are included in the US demand that Israel halt "settlement" construction, including for natural growth, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told 'The Jerusalem' Post during a press briefing on Monday.

In the course of criticizing the Obama speech in Cairo, Father Khalil Samir SJ, a Vatican Islamologist quoted frequently and favorably on this blog, threw a bomb in Israel’s direction: Another ambiguous element [in the Obama Cairo speech] concerns his placing on the same scale the legitimate desire of Palestinians and Jews to have a homeland in the Middle East. The legitimate desire of Jews in Europe was to live in peace where they were, not to have a homeland in the Middle East at all costs. This ambiguity is present in many in the West. But it also has...

Rally against any 2 state - PLO state that will attack Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion Airport. Support Israel - please demonstrate with us and bring your signs to show how you feel about this Obama/Hillary betrayal of Israel and America! NO NUKES FOR IRAN! -- BIBI: STAND FIRM! ADDITIONAL RALLIES: We will also hold rallies against this Obama `sellout` in front of the Federal Building in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, on June 9th, 16th, 23rd, 30th from 5:00 to 7:00 P.M. on Broward Blvd. and 3rd Ave.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo last week robbed Judaism of its legacy and threatens the existence of the Jewish state, according to Temple Institute Rabbi Chaim Richman. The rabbi also said the president’s comments were in essence perverse and obscene.

The Obama administration is creeping closer to a move to carve up Jerusalem. White House ambiguity holds the holy city hostage to Palestinian ambition.

Israel is the heart of the Jewish people, Jerusalem is the heart of Israel and the Temple mount is the Heart of Jerusalem. Everyday there are new protests about Israel trying to "Judaicise" the area around the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. The Sheiks, the Waqf are all trying to politicize what was originally the place of the two Jewish Holy Temples. I have even read with curiosity how European Foreign Ministers and press reporter's with Christian backgrounds describe the site as "what the Jewish people SAY was the location of the Holy Temples. I wonder when those folks go to...

Jerusalem under Palestinian Assault (snip) "Jerusalem is the religious, political and spiritual capital of Palestine - the Jews have no right to it." [Dr. Tayseer Al-Tamimi, PA Chief Justice of religious court] The erasure and denial of 3,000 years of Jewish history in Jerusalem is integral to Palestinian ideology. Accordingly, Israel and Jews are said to have "no rights" to Jerusalem, and any contemporary manifestation of Jewish life and development there is labeled by the Palestinian Authority as "Judaization." Jerusalem is presented as an exclusively Muslim and Christian city, with no regard for historical reality. Beyond this historical revisionism, the...

Maaleh Adumim, Betar Illit, Ariel and Gush Etzion are on the chopping block; U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said she refuses to honor an American promise that Israel retain large population centers.

Late on Friday The Washington Times' Christian Bourge obtained a copy of Presidential Determination 2009-19, latest in a series of pro forma memos to the Secretary of State entitled "Suspension of Limitations Under the Jerusalem Embassy Act."

US President Barack Obama claims to be a big fan of telling the truth... But in his self-described exercise in truth telling, Obama ignored...basic truth in favor of the Arab lie....

Israeli leaders vowed that all of Jerusalem would remain Israel's undivided capital amid protests by eastern Jerusalem Arabs and their supporters. "United Jerusalem is Israel's capital" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a state ceremony at Ammunition Hill to mark Jerusalem Day, which celebrates the reunification of the city in 1967. "Jerusalem was always ours and will always be ours. It will never again be partitioned and divided." Israel annexed Jerusalem shortly after the Six-Day War. "Israel will never have another capital other than Jerusalem, and Jerusalem will never be the capital of another people," President Shimon Peres asserted during...

JERUSALEM — Sirens blared across Israel on Tuesday as the nation carried out its biggest-ever "doomsday" drill meant to simulate a catastrophic attack. The faux fears, however, were overshadowed by deepening anxiety in Jerusalem that Israel is heading for an unavoidable political showdown with President Barack Obama over the center-right government's refusal to stop building Jewish homes in the predominantly Palestinian West Bank. Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's largest daily newspaper, carried a front-page story Tuesday bluntly titled: "The American Threat." Its biggest competitor, Maariv, carried a bold headline: "Pressure." The building apprehension comes as Obama is preparing to make a direct...

The following is the full text of Caroline Glick's speech after accepting the 'Guardian of Zion' award. For nearly as long as I can remember, the image of the watchman on the gates of Jerusalem has been the singular image of Jewish strength for me. It is has always been to the Jewish watchmen, ever vigilant, to whom we have owed our lives, and our survival as a people. Today these watchmen preserve our freedom in our land. For 50 generations in exile, it was the memory of those Jewish Centurions, manning the barricades, that inspired us to keep faith...

(Washington, D.C., May 20, 2009) — Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has just finished his visit to Washington. Full analysis on my weblog, including a link to the YouTube clip of me on Glenn Beck’s show with a former CIA analyst who says he wouldn’t care if Israel ceased to exist. MUST WATCH:Joel On The Glen Beck Show That said, there’s more troubling news this morning. I’m horrified by credible reports that in his June 4th speech in Cairo, President Obama will say it is time to divide Jerusalem and make the holy city the capital of a Palestinian state. No,...

Every year the Shia Muslims make pilgrimage to one of their main religious sites in Iraq. And it is quite a sad spectacle to behold indeed. A goulish / gastly site of folks beating themselves, whipping themselves, and cutting themselves till blood flows. Many have inflicted themselves with serious injury as a result. While Islam has not been around since ancient times, [ 7th century], horrible and dispicable practices similar to what was just described were engaged in by heathen cultures. A notable account of this is the confrontation between Elijah, the prophet of the Lord, and the false prophets...

Every year the Shia Muslims make pilgrimage to one of their main religious sites in Iraq. And it is quite a sad spectacle to behold indeed. A goulish / gastly site of folks beating themselves, whipping themselves, and cutting themselves till blood flows. Many have inflicted themselves with serious injury as a result. While Islam has not been around since ancient times, [ 7th century], horrible and dispicable practices similar to what was just described were engaged in by heathen cultures. A notable account of this is the confrontation between Elijah, the prophet of the Lord, and the false prophets...

OUR ENEMIES are right in choosing their targets. They are right because they know who we are. We are the children of Jerusalem, of Zion. Our physical and spiritual survival is dependent on our willingness to dedicate our lives in every generation to guarding both the physical and spiritual walls of this city. It is only by guarding Zion, that we guard its people. I am humbled and honored beyond words to have been chosen from among so many of my fellow Jews for this singular honor of being named a Guardian of Zion. For me, more than anything, what...

...Obama and his administration told Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting last week the U.S. foresees the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, according to a top PA official... "The American administration was very friendly to the position of the PA," said Nimer Hamad, Abbas'... "..(Abbas) heard from Obama and his administration in a very categorical way that a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital is in the American national and security interest," ... ...Obama informed Abbas he would not let Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "get in the way" of normalizing U.S. relations...

President Obama and his administration told Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting last week the U.S. foresees the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, according to a top PA official speaking to WND. "The American administration was very friendly to the position of the PA," said Nimer Hamad, Abbas' senior political adviser. "Abu Mazen (Abbas) heard from Obama and his administration in a very categorical way that a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital is in the American national and security interest," Hamad said. Another PA official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told...

Israeli construction of E-1 will not undermine Palestinian contiguity, but were Israel to lose control of E-1, the contiguity of Israel would be severely compromised.

Sheikh Raad Salah, leader of the Northern Wing of the Islamic Movement in Israel, believes Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will try to rebuild the Jewish Temple. Speaking at a conference organized by website Islam Online in Doha, Qatar, Salah stated his belief that Netanyahu may try to build the Jewish Temple – which the Islamic preacher called “the false temple” – during his current term after allegedly failing to do so in his first term as Prime Minister in the late 1990s.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s hopes for a quick peace pact between the Palestinian Authority and Israel are rapidly growing dimmer as a PA spokesman Monday termed as “illegal” any future American approval of Israeli building in several Jerusalem neighborhoods.

The US State Department said Sunday that the future status of Jerusalem would be determined through peace negotiations, after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's declaration Thursday that the capital would "never again be partitioned and divided."

The US State Department said Sunday that the future status of Jerusalem would be determined through peace negotiations, after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's declaration Thursday that the capital would "never again be partitioned and divided." "Jerusalem is a final status issue. Israel and the Palestinians have agreed to resolve its status during negotiations. We will support their efforts to reach agreements on all final status issues," a State Department spokesman said when asked to respond to Netanyahu's proclamation that Jerusalem would always remain under Israeli sovereignty. During a Jerusalem Day speech on Thursday, Netanyahu insisted that all of Jerusalem will...

The U.S. State Department said Sunday that the future status of Jerusalem would be determined through peace negotiations, despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's declaration last week that the capital would "never again be partitioned and divided." "Jerusalem is a final status issue. Israel and the Palestinians have agreed to resolve its status during negotiations. We will support their efforts to reach agreements on all final status issues," a State Department spokesman said when asked to respond to Netanyahu's proclamation that Jerusalem would always remain under Israeli sovereignty. At a state ceremony marking the annual Jerusalem Day on Thursday, Netanyahu said"...