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A senior Palestinian official’s recent statements fly in the face of decades of US aid to his people, totaling billions of dollars. In an interview with London-based newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi published Saturday and translated by Palestinian Media Watch, Fatah Deputy Chairman Mahmoud al-Aloul declared that “the entire Palestinian leadership” is of the opinion that American administrations – all of them — “have not given the Palestinians anything of substance but rather worked in order to pull the rug out from under their feet by exerting pressures on them, and that with all their might they support [the Palestinians’]...

Former Secretary of State John Kerry recently made a trip to London, where he met with Palestinian official Hussein Agha. Agha is close to Palestinian Leader Mahmoud Abbas, who walked away from peace talks after the U.S. announced an embassy move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. During the meeting, Kerry reportedly told Agha that Abbas should essentially ignore President Trump. He also strangely suggested Trump wouldn't be in office by the end of the year.

President Donald Trump “burst the Palestinian Arabs’ bubble”, Middle East expert and regular Arutz Sheva contributor Dr. Mordechai Kedar said on Thursday. “The Palestinians are very disappointed because they built an entire building by claiming they will get a Palestinian state. Who will give them such a thing? Nobody. They dream about the ‘return’ of the ‘Palestinian refugees’ not to ‘Palestine’ but to the same villages in which they lived in Tel Aviv, in Netanya. These are all dreams, and now Trump came and took out the Jerusalem card from the building, as well as the issue of the refugees...

The Palestinians rejected US President Donald Trump’s fresh threat to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in aid on Thursday, saying peace talks are “off the table” if the American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital isn’t reversed. Ahead of a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Davos, Trump said the US would no longer provide aid to the Palestinians if they refused to engage in US-brokered peace talks with Israel. He also said he’d taken Jerusalem “off the table” with his December 6 recognition of the city as Israel’s capital — a move that led the Palestinians to...

ormer Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly tried to meddle in Middle East peace talks, allegedly telling a close associate of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas not to “yield to President Trump’s demands.” Israeli news outlet Maariv reported on the apparent meeting between Kerry and Hussein Agha in London, where the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee also reportedly floated a possible encore bid in 2020. But in the conversation, Kerry reportedly told Agha to share a message with Abbas – urging him to “hold on and be strong” during talks with the Trump administration and “play for time ... [and] not...

JERUSALEM, January 25, 2018 (WAFA) – The Israeli High Court rejected on Thursday an appeal by the family of Isra Jaabis, 32, a mother of a baby child and a resident of Jabal al-Mukkaber neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem, to reduce her sentence and have an early release, according to Isra’s sister Muna. Jaabis was sentenced in November 2016 to serve 11 years in prison after she was charged with attempting to blow up an Israeli army checkpoint outside Jerusalem in October 2015. Jaabis was the only person injured in the explosion in her car that occurred away from the...

You may recall four years ago when the actor Scarlett Johansson ended her relationship with Oxfam after the charity took exception to her involvement with the Israeli company SodaStream, which at the time operated a factory on the West Bank– including a commercial during the American Super Bowl. Even though SodaStream has since closed that plant and relocated inside the Green Line to the Negev, certain “pro-Palestinian” groups are still angry with her. They boycotted the anti-Trump Women’s March in Los Angeles (one of hundreds) marking the first anniversary of the Trump presidency. "The Palestinian American Women’s Association cited in...

US Vice President Mike Pence told Israel’s Knesset on Monday that Washington was intending to bring forward a controversial plan by the Trump administration to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. “In the weeks ahead, our administration will advance its plan to open the US Embassy in Jerusalem — and the embassy will open before the end of next year,” Pence said. The intention to move the embassy, which has been condemned by the Palestinians and their Arab allies, was agreed in theory by US lawmakers years ago but was set in motion by US President Donald...

Slovenia is expected to recognize the “state of Palestine” in the coming weeks in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, senior officials in Jerusalem told Israel’s Channel 10 News on Sunday. According to those officials, three other European countries are considering the same move. About a week ago, according to the report, the Slovenian government convened to promote the recognition of “Palestine” as a state, and the Slovenian government passed the issue to parliament, which is the body authorized to recognize other countries. On January 31, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Slovenian Parliament...

Palestinian Authority chief negotiator Saeb Erekat revealed in a report prepared for the PLO Central Committee meeting last week details of the American proposal for a “deal of the century” aimed at advancing an agreement to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. According to the report, the outline drawn up by US President Donald Trump’s negotiating team included the annexation of 10% of Judea and Samaria by Israel and the placement of the capital of the future state of Palestine in the suburbs of Jerusalem. The proposed Palestinian state would be demilitarized, and Israel would maintain a security presence along the Jordan...

When President Donald Trump suggested on Twitter earlier this month that he might cut off aid to the terror-affiliated Palestinians, whom former President Barack Obama had coddled like children, he meant every word of it — and more. This week the State Department announced it intends to not only withhold $45 million in aid to the Palestinians, but also an additional “$65 million it had planned to pay the U.N. agency that serves the Palestinians,” according to Reuters. That agency is the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA. Talk about killing two birds with one stone. Below is Trump’s...

..... ....Yes, contrary to what one might expect, the Government of Israel wanted continued U.S. payments to UNRWA, fearing that their termination might cause a new intifada, the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, or renewed warfare with Hamas. Also, Jerusalem sees UNRWA as a lesser evil than alternative recipients of the money, such as the PA. ..... And even if no one replaced U.S. donations, denying UNRWA money does not get to the heart of the problem, which lies not in its sponsored activities but in its perpetuating and expanding population of "Palestine refugees" in three unique, even bizarre ways:...

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas launched into a long-winded diatribe last Sunday against President Trump and against Israel’s legitimate right to exist as a Jewish state. Abbas called President Trump’s decision on Jerusalem a “slap in the face” and threatened that the Palestinians “will slap back.” Abbas declared, "Politically, Jerusalem is our capital; in our religion, it is our capital; geographically, it is our capital." As for Israel, Abbas claimed that “Israel is a colonialist project that has nothing to do with Jews. The Jews were used as a tool under the concept of the promised land — call it whatever...

The Palestinian president on Wednesday again blasted Donald Trump in a fiery and emotional speech, saying the U.S. leader’s decision to recognize contested Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was “sinful” and “ill-fated.” Mahmoud Abbas, who has openly cursed Trump over his policies, told a conference in Egypt that the United States has disqualified itself from continuing as a broker in the long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, a role America has had for decades. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday he was certain the U.S. Embassy in Israel would be moved to Jerusalem sometime this year, much sooner than Trump administration...

The U.N. agency that serves Palestinian refugees and their descendants said Wednesday it would launch a global fundraising appeal in hopes of making up for funding cuts announced by the United States. The Trump administration on Tuesday suspended $65 million for UNRWA, demanding it undertake a “fundamental re-examination.” The U.S. provides roughly one-third of UNRWA’s budget, and the agency has warned that it now faces the “most dramatic financial crisis” in its nearly 70-year history. The agency provides health care, education and social services to 5 million Palestinians across the Middle East. UNRWA’s secretary-general, Pierre Krähenbühl, said the fundraising appeal...

MainAll NewsMiddle EastUN chief 'very concerned' over American cut to UNRWA UN chief 'very concerned' over American cut to UNRWA Antonio Guterres says UNRWA is "an important factor of stability" in the Middle East. Contact Editor Elad Benari, 17/01/18 00:06 Share Antonio GuterresAntonio GuterresReuters UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday he was "very concerned" by reports that the U.S. had cut its funding to UNRWA, the UN agency for “Palestinian refugees”, by half. According to AFP, Guterres said he had not been informed of Washington's decision. "I strongly hope that in the end, it will be possible for the...

RAMALLAH — Palestinian leaders voted on Monday to call for the suspension of recognition of Israel, as they met in response to US President Donald Trump’s acknowledgement of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The vote ordered the Palestine Liberation Organisation to suspend its recognition of the Jewish state until Israel “recognizes the state of Palestine,” cancels its annexation of East Jerusalem, and stops settlement activity, a statement said. It was unclear if the vote by the Palestinian Central Council, a high-ranking arm of the PLO, was binding. A previous vote by the council in 2015 to suspend security coordination with Israel...

The Trump administration is preparing to withhold tens of millions of dollars from the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, cutting the year’s first contribution by more than half or perhaps entirely, and making additional donations contingent on major changes to the organization, according to U.S. officials. President Donald Trump hasn’t made a final decision, but appears more likely to send only $60 million of the planned $125 million first installment to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, said the officials, who weren’t authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. Future contributions would require the agency,...

President Trump set off another Twitter firestorm last week when he hinted that he may be considering cutting off hundreds of millions of dollars in annual U.S. aid to the Palestinians. snip In the meantime, most other "refugees" the world over have long ago moved on. snip Trump may be rash and unfamiliar with the stagnant Middle East peace process, but his political instincts are probably correct. Polls show that less than 20 percent of Americans support the Palestinian cause. Many U.S. citizens are tired of subsidizing those who claim that they do not like their benefactors in the United...

Both Israeli and Palestinian leaders want Norway to facilitate future peace talks, says Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Søreide, who met with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Monday. Søreide also met with Palestinian lead negotiator Saeb Erekat. Following the meetings, the foreign minister told Norwegian broadcaster NRK that leaders in both Palestine and Israel want Norway to facilitate future peace talks between the two countries. “Both Israeli and Palestinian leaders would like Norway to facilitate potential future peace talks,” she told NRK. Søreide also stressed that the situation remains difficult and that she was realistic about the peace process. The minister...