Free Republic

WASHINGTON — The White House has concluded that an agreement with the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a fast-track program to establish a Palestinian state is unlikely to happen. U.S. sources, including those close to the Obama administration, said such cooperation would be greater by an Israeli government led by the opposition Kadima Party, chaired by former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. "It may be that the Obama administration has concluded that they cannot achieve the two-state solution with the Netanyahu government and perhaps want another Israeli prime minister," Aaron Miller, a former State Department official and regarded as...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is playing with fire. And Israel is getting burned. Over the past week, it has been widely reported that the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government are conducting secret negotiations regarding future Israeli land surrenders to the Palestinians in the Jordan Valley and Jerusalem. According to the reports, the Obama administration has presented Netanyahu with a plan whereby Israel will cede its rights to eastern Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley to the Palestinians and then lease the areas from the Palestinians for a limited period. The reports on the length of the lease vary. Some claim...

LOD, Israel -- A blonde, stylish television presenter, a peripatetic mother of six, and a Russian convert to Judaism, Anastasia Michaeli personifies the brand-new Kadima Party's attempt to shake up Israeli politics. Michaeli, 30, is one of six Russian-speaking immigrants Kadima recruited to join its list of candidates -- a record number for any major Israeli political party -- in the hope of luring a key voting bloc to the platform it calls Israel's new centrist consensus.

JERUSALEM - Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expects to draw Israel’s permanent borders by 2010, and as part of that effort, will build a controversial settlement outside Jerusalem, he said in an interview published on Thursday. Olmert, whose Kadima Party is the clear frontrunner ahead of March 28 elections, told The Jerusalem Post daily that within four years, he intended to “get to Israel’s permanent borders, whereby we will completely separate from the majority of the Palestinian population and preserve a large and stable Jewish majority in Israel.” Olmert’s chief security adviser, Avi Dichter, had disclosed that time frame earlier...