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The presidential limo is a perfect metaphor for the economy. The people who claim authority have no idea what it runs on. President Obama was due in Israel. So the advance team wheels his non-sequestered limo out of the cargo plane and over to the gas pumps to make sure he has a full tank when he arrives. Apparently there is some concern he might have to make a hasty retreat and won’t have time to fill it up later. Whoever was filling it up didn’t know that it ran on diesel and filled it up with regular. Apparently, they...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry held talks with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Saturday evening, after earlier discussing ways to push a new peace plan with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, U.S. and Israeli sources said. A radio report said Netanyahu and Kerry had a first round of private talks and were then joined by Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Netanyahu's personal envoy Yitzhak Molcho and his national security adviser Yaakov Amidror. Channel 10 News reported that Kerry is planning on offering Israel and the PA an outline which would see Israel releasing terrorists from its prisons and transferring areas...

The US State Department announced on Friday that nearly $500 million in aid had been unblocked for transfer to the Palestinian Authority, months after Congress froze the funds in late-2012. “To date, we have moved $295.7 million in fiscal year 2012 money… and $200 million in fiscal year 2013 assistance,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters. The announcement came on the heels of US President Barack Obama’s first trip to Israel and the West Bank since assuming office in 2009. The Palestinian Authority has been in the grips of a deep economic crisis, largely due to promised aid going...

Israel issued a formal apology to Turkey and agreed to pay compensation over the Mavi Marmara killings of 2010 on March 22 after a phone conversation between the two countriesÂ’ premiers, Benjamin Netanyahu and Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan, that was brokered by U.S. President Barack Obama. Turkey accepted IsraelÂ’s apology, sources from the Prime Ministry confirmed, underlining that Israel had also agreed to ease its blockade on Gaza.

President Barack Obama has earned a new title: world-class hunk. That was the assessment of Miss Israel, the 21-year-old Ethiopian immigrant Titi Aynaw who met Obama on Thursday. “He’s an exciting man, a world-class hunk, charming and an extraordinary gentleman,” she told the Israeli publication Yediot Aharonot.

John Kerry, the US secretary of state, hit the red carpet first, followed by Barack Obama. The welcome ceremony lasted five minutes, with time for only solemn-faced handshakes and a reedy rendition of the Star Spangled banner before presidential entourage disappeared into Muqata'a building. The red carpet rolled up promptly behind them...

Now that the applause has died down from President Barack Obama’s address to students in Jerusalem, Members of Knesset are coming out with their criticisms, with one lawmaker calling Obama’s speech “offensive to Netanyahu” and another saying it contained “filth.” That’s no surprise, considering that in his speech, Obama encouraged the Israeli students to push their political leaders to “take risks” for peace. This, even though the Israeli public went to the polls only two months ago to democratically elect their leaders.

As always, one must listen carefully to what leadership says, or fails to say, in analyzing current affairs. During his trip to Israel, President Obama said, "It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of her own." Of course, as people of good will we would like everyone to have the right of self-determination and God-given liberty, but we also have to ask ourselves what has been done to establish the circumstances necessary for that. It's been observed that a Palestinian child cannot grow up "in a state of her own" because of Palestinian...

A fierce sandstorm hit Jerusalem Friday, forcing United States President Barack Obama to travel by motorcade to Bethlehem, just south of Jerusalem, rather than by helicopter as scheduled, according to an Israeli police spokeswoman cited by Agence France Presse. Spokeswoman Luba Samri told AFP that the stormy weather precluded flying, with Obama likely to drive directly from Bethlehem to Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv from where he was scheduled to depart for Jordan on Air Force One.

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U.S. President Barack Obama confers with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L), at an official state dinner hosted by Israel's President Shimon Peres (not pictured) in Jerusalem, March 21, 2013.

At a press conference today in Ramallah, President Barack Obama addressed the assembled journalists while standing under a Yasser Arafat banner:"Hope everyone saw presser. If not there, it was notable that Obama and Abbas spoke from under a banner bearing pictures of Arafat and Abbas. Also another big banner was hanging on wall nearby with Abbas kind of superimposed on Arafat," the White House pool reporter notes.

President Barack Obama spoke critically of Israeli settlement activity and reaffirmed his commitment to the creation of "an independent and sovereign state of Palestine" in a Thursday news conference in the West Bank. "We cannot give up on the search for peace, no matter how hard it is. ... Too much is at stake," the president said at the joint news conference with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on the second day of his first official trip to Israel. Advertise | AdChoices Obama reaffirmed the "difficult" goal of a two-state solution, adding that Israel's program of settlements was unhelpful and...

Giant pic of man who celebrated the murder of Jewish children....and Obama happily stands there. Imagine if Bush spoke where a big photo of Hitler was hanging.

"War is peace," entered our cultural vocabulary some sixty-four years ago. Around the same time that Orwell's masterpiece was being printed up, an armistice was being negotiated between Israel and the Arab invading armies. That armistice began the long peaceful war or the warring peace. The entire charade did not properly enter the realm of the Orwellian until the peace process began. The peace process between Israel and the terrorist militias funded by the countries of those invading armies has gone on for longer than most actual wars. It has also taken more lives than most actual wars. War has...

Brace yourselfs, for NBC's Andrea Mitchell - on MSNBC no less - actually criticized Barack Obama Wednesday. During a News Nation segment about the President's trip to Israel, Mitchell said his relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is "one of the worst" she can remember going all the way back to her years covering Ronald Reagan (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Why is US President Barack Obama coming to Israel today? In 2008, then president George W. Bush came to celebrate Israel’s 60th Independence Day, and to reject Israeli requests for assistance in destroying Iran’s nuclear installations. In 1996, then-president Bill Clinton came to Israel to help then-prime minister Shimon Peres’s electoral campaign against Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu. It is possible that Obama is coming here in order to build up pro-Israel bonafides. But why would he bother? Obama won his reelection bid with the support of the overwhelming majority of American Jews. Their support vindicated his hostility toward Israel in...

Caroline Glick, Senior Contributing Editor of the Jerusalem Post said the Israeli people consider President Obama "a hostile president overall," on "Mornings on the Mall" on WMAL-FM in Washington DC. Appearing with Brian Wilson and myself Wednesday morning, Glick said the Israeli people "can't figure out what he's doing here," when asked about the mood in Jerusalem as the President's plane touched down for the first time in his presidency.

Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have said they share the same goals, as the US leader makes his first visit to Israel as president. Speaking in Jerusalem, the two leaders said they agreed that Israel had the right to "defend itself by itself". Mr Obama said there was "not a lot of light" between the US and Israel in assessing Iran's nuclear programme. The leaders also reaffirmed their commitment to a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. snip Following talks in Jerusalem, Mr Netanyahu said the fact the US president had made Israel the first foreign visit...

Daniel Morcate @dmorca Quote of the Day: '#Israel can never cede the right to defend itself, even to its greatest friend.' Israeli PM B. #Netanyahu President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are holding a joint presser in Israel. White House Live ✔ @WHLive Happening now: President Obama & PM @netanyahu hold a press conference: http://wh.gov/live 6:33 PM - 20 Mar 13 White House LIVE Join me in watching it LIVE from the White House PETER MAER @petermaercbs Netanyahu on Iran nuclear threat: "We (Israel) have both the right and capability to defend ourselves."