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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday said Israel would pursue peace with the Palestinians, but reiterated his insistence on satisfactory security arrangements for Israel. “Peace is desirable in and of itself, but it is based on our ability to defend ourselves,” Netanyahu said at a ceremony at the Mount Herzl military cemetery marking the 109th anniversary of the death of Zionist visionary Theodor Herzl. >>SNIP<< A report in the Haaretz daily on Thursday quoted a senior Likud official as saying that Netanyahu would be willing to “withdraw from the majority of the West Bank” and even evacuate settlements in exchange...

Middle East: With the formal determination that Syria has used chemical weapons, the stage is set for U.S. intervention, with Hezbollah and Iran on the other side. How´s that Arab Spring working out, Mr. President? Following our less-than-stellar attempts at regime change in Egypt and Libya — aiding in the ouster of Egypt´s Hosni Mubarak and the overthrow and death of Moammar Gadhafi — the administration, even by its own elastic standards, has decided it can no longer afford to kick the Syrian can down the road. Perhaps it just needs a good war to grab the headlines

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday slammed Israel's plans to increase construction in Judea and Samaria, saying they were undermining hopes of ending the Middle East conflict by setting up a Palestinian state. "The secretary general is deeply concerned by the continuing expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank in violation of international law," said UN spokesman Martin Nesirky, according to the AFP news agency. Ban was "particularly troubled" at Israel moving forward with plans for more than 1,000 new homes in two communities Judea and Samaria, the spokesman said. He was referring to plans to build...

Secretary of State John Kerry claimed Monday that Israel’s failure to foster peace with the Palestinians fuels extremism and terrorism across the world in his address before the American Jewish Committee’s annual policy conference in Washington, D.C. World leaders “literally” discuss the issue in every meeting Kerry has, he told a largely Jewish audience. “Everywhere I go – literally – China, Japan, foreign ministers, presidents raise this issue,” Kerry said. “Young people ask me about this conflict and what they can do to help end it.” “In the last couple of weeks I had visits here from the foreign minister

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday issued a stark warning to Israel to resume long-stalled peace talks with the Palestinian Authority, saying that if efforts fail now they may never get another chance. "We are running out of time. We're running out of possibilities... If we do not succeed now, we may not get another chance," Kerry told a forum held by the American Jewish Community, according to the AFP news agency. Kerry’s warning came amid reports that he is planning to return to the Middle East region within days, for his fifth trip to Israel since he...

Israelis’ “sense of security” prevents them from feeling sufficient urgency to resume peace talks with the Palestinians, US Secretary of State John Kerry said in Jerusalem Thursday, warning of fast-approaching “challenges” that required a change of approach for the Jewish State. “I think there is an opportunity [for peace], but for many reasons it’s not on the tips of everyone’s tongue,” Kerry told reporters before entering a meeting with President Shimon Peres. “People in Israel aren’t waking up every day and wondering if tomorrow there will be peace because there is a sense of security and a sense of accomplishment...

Lital Shemesh is a 29-year-old successful, female, Israeli journalist who recently participated in a seminar with other young Israelis and Arabs in hopes of igniting optimism for peace. She returned from the seminar disappointed and disillusioned. She is a rising star in the Israeli media who openly expresses her political aspirations in the Knesset. She worked as Editor-in-Chief for the Yedioth Youth Magazines, reported for the Israel Broadcasting Authority and the Hot CableTV News channel, and is CEO and Founder of a web-based girls magazine “Pinkish – Everything that Girls Love.” In her first video blog in English two years...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Defense Department is working out final details of $10 billion in sales of warplanes, transport aircraft and advanced missiles to Israel and two Arab nations amid concerns about the growing threat from Iran and its disputed nuclear weapons program, Pentagon and congressional officials said Friday. The U.S. has spent the past year negotiating with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on the deals, which come ahead of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's visit to the Middle East starting Sunday. The officials said the United States will sell to Israel an undisclosed number of KC-135 aerial...

US Secretary of State John Kerry again warned Wednesday that time was slipping away to reach a Middle East peace deal, and for the first time said there may only be a year or two left. Appearing before US lawmakers for the first time since becoming America's top diplomat in February, Kerry said his three trips to the region already were proof of his commitment to try to find a way to resume peace talks, AFP reported. The Obama administration is "trying to find out what is possible," Kerry told the House foreign affairs committee, as he laid out the...

US Secretary of State John Kerry again warned Wednesday that time was slipping away to reach a Middle East peace deal, and for the first time said there may only be a year or two left. Appearing before US lawmakers for the first time since becoming America's top diplomat in February, Kerry said his three trips to the region already were proof of his commitment to try to find a way to resume peace talks, AFP reported. The Obama administration is "trying to find out what is possible," Kerry told the House foreign affairs committee, as he laid out the...

Minister for International Affairs Yuval Steinitz on Sunday dismissed reports that Turkey may take an active role in mediating between Israel and the Palestinians in future peace talks. In an interview to IDF Radio, Steinitz said the process did not require any additional mediation to that already provided by the International Quartet. “I think it is a baseless report. I personally am not familiar with any such decision,” said Steinitz in response to a Turkish media report claiming US Secretary of State John Kerry planned to ask Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to play a part in the Mideast...

KABUL — Secretary of State John F. Kerry made an unannounced trip to Afghanistan on Monday to smooth over relations with President Hamid Karzai, who recently accused the United States of colluding with the Taliban. Kerry knows the Afghan leader well and was a frequent intermediary for President Obama while serving in the Senate before becoming secretary of state last month. Kerry’s second foreign trip as the top U.S. diplomat also took him to Iraq. In both war-scarred countries Kerry was pushing a message of U.S. support while also making clear that Washington won’t call the shots. The United States...

The kid from Philly meets the kids from down the block this week. Remember when the kid from down the block was hailed as a hero for saving the little boy he had pushed into the pool himself just seconds earlier, after he looked around to make sure nobody was watching him? snip Fast forward to 2013, what if that type of kid was beginning his second term as the American President, and what if he was going to visit Israel? While the American President refused to sell the Democratic Israel F-16 fighter jets, he cut a deal with the...

This is the attitude that Barack Obama is taking with him on his first official visit to Israel as president. When President Obama was asked by a group of Arab-American leaders during a meeting last week on why he did not intend to launch a new peace process, the leader said that Israel was not ready to make concessions, the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, cited an official, who was present at the high-level meeting, as saying. The official, who kept his identity anonymous, said the U.S. leader was frustrated with fruitlessness of the peace process, claiming it would be pointless to...

..... The sad fact is that the peace process has always failed and will continue to fail until we do an abrupt restart and begin to base any future peace process on biblical principles, historical justice, and common sense. Toward this end, I have proposed a new peace plan....At its core are four key principles: 1. The entire land of Israel is the eternal sovereign inheritance of the Jewish people and no other sovereign nation or quasi-governmental authority can exist within the borders in Israel’s possession, which at this time consists of the territory from the Mediterranean Sea to the...

President Shimon Peres held out hopes Wednesday of seeing the Middle East draw inspiration from the European Union by one day turning a region long at war into one at peace. Praising Europe for overcoming 1,000 years of conflict in six short decades as he visited EU headquarters, Peres said, "You have the gift of a united hope even if you have a divided economic situation." "I hope the time will come when the Middle East will become a peaceful united region like you," he added. Peres, on an eight-day tour to Brussels, Paris and Strasbourg, said he believed there...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday Washington was increasingly confident that weapons being sent to the Syrian opposition by other countries were going to moderate forces. Kerry, on his first overseas tour since taking office, told a news conference in Doha he had held talks with nations in the region about the kinds of arms being sent to the different Syrian opposition forces. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are widely believed to be providing weapons to the rebels, but the United States says it does not wish to send arms for fear they may find their way to...

Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA) has introduced a bill that I think it's important everyone know about. You may remember that when then-candidate Barack Obama was running for office in 2008, he said, "We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded." Don't believe me? http://youtu.be/Tt2yGzHfy7sBelieve me now? Well, it seems as if the building blocks may be coming together if Lee has her way. She has introduced a bill that creates a...

WASHINGTON — The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the president's former pastor whose sermons touched off a firestorm in the 2008 political campaign, urged today that Barack Obama heed the words of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and transform the country into the world's "No. 1 purveyor of peace." **SNIP** Wright said he hasn't seen Obama in person since 2008. "I think that the media created a firestorm that caused him to distance himself from me," he said Monday.

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