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President Shimon Peres said that he believes that U.S. President Barack Obama will attack Iran’s nuclear facilities if diplomatic efforts fail. "I have no doubt that if diplomatic talks fail with Iran and Tehran doesn't stop accelerating its nuclear development – U.S. President Barack Obama will conduct a military attack against Iran," Peres told the Israel Hayom newspaper this week, in an interview ahead of Israel’s 65th Independence Day next week. "Preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon isn't only an Israeli interest, but a global and an American interest. As long as the U.S. is in the lead —...

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...

Israel will award President Barack Obama the country’s Presidential Medal of Distinction during his upcoming visit. Israeli President Shimon Peres’ office said Monday that Obama will be recognized for his “unique and significant contribution to strengthening the State of Israel and the security of its citizens.” …

I'm getting a lot of email asking me how Israel could be awarding its 'highest civilian honor' to the most anti-Israel President of the United States ever, Barack Hussein Obama. Here's some fairly typical coverage from Fox News. Israel will award President Barack Obama the country's Presidential Medal of Distinction during his upcoming visit. Israeli President Shimon Peres' office said Monday that Obama will be recognized for his "unique and significant contribution to strengthening the State of Israel and the security of its citizens." Obama is scheduled to visit Israel in March -- his first as president. Obama has often...

Newly-installed U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry isn't wasting any time in getting started on his new job. After two full days in office, Kerry spoke to officials in Mexico, Canada, Israel, Turkey, and the Palestinian Authority (PA), his office said Sunday. On Sunday, Kerry called PA chief Mahmoud Abbas. According to an Abbas spokesperson, Kerry told the PA chief that he expected to meet him in the near future in order to discuss restarting negotiations with Israel. Kerry told Abbas that President Barack H. Obama supported such talks, and that he hoped both sides would agree to participate. In...

President Shimon Peres's comments that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is a partner for peace hurt Israel's public diplomacy efforts, Information and Diaspora Minister Yuli Edelstein (Likud) said on Monday. Edelstein told Arutz Sheva that it is now clear that the Oslo Accords were a nightmare, adding that the focus of the storm around Peres's comments should not be whether the president should express a personal opinion during an election period but rather how his remarks affect Israel's public diplomacy. "We spit blood while the Palestinians - sometimes successfully - try to convince leaders in Europe and North America that...

Israel's President Shimon Peres accused Iran of encouraging the Palestinians to continue rocket attacks on Israel rather than negotiating a ceasefire, saying "they are out of their mind." At the same time, Peres praised Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi for the constructive role he has played in the intensifying crisis. "The unpleasant one is the Iranians. They are trying again to encourage the Hamas to continue the shooting, the bombing, they trying to send them arms," Peres said in interview on CNN. "They are out of their mind," he said. The President said Israel had no choice but to wage its...

President Shimon Peres on Saturday saluted as "courageous" remarks by Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas in which he appears to relinquish the demand for a "right to return" of PA Arabs to their former homes in what is now Israel. "Abu Mazen's courageous words prove that Israel has a real partner for peace," Peres said in a statement, referring to Abbas by his "kunya" name. .....

A letter from the desk of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi is sparking controversy in Egypt leaving people in disbelief that the Muslim Brotherhood leader had actually referred to the Israeli president as a "great friend." Yet skeptical Egyptians who have called the letter a "Zionist fabrication" have now been silenced, as a spokesman for Morsi confirmed on Thursday the authenticity of the letter, which was given to Shimon Peres by Atef Salem, Egypt's ambassador to Israel, on Wednesday at an official ceremony in the president's residence. The contents of the letter, which were leaked to the press, caused an uproar...

(Reuters) - Israeli President Shimon Peres on Thursday came out against any go-it-alone Israeli attack on Iran, saying he trusted U.S. President Barack Obama's pledge to prevent Tehran from producing nuclear weapons. "I am convinced this is an American interest. I am convinced (President Obama) recognizes the American interest and he isn't saying this just to keep us happy. I have no doubt about it, after having had talks with him," Peres told Israel's Channel Two television. "Now, it's clear to us that we can't do it alone. We can delay (Iran's nuclear program). It's clear to us we have...

President Shimon Peres is under attack for undercutting the elected government's stance on the Iranian threat. Besides stating a position that runs counter to the Prime Minister's in a television interview, he is also reported to have accused Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in closed conversations, of "terrible irresponsibility" in the Iranian matter. "The honorable president has apparently also been sucked into this unnecessary argument that is damaging for the state of Israel," said MK Moshe Matalon of Yisrael Beytenu. "As a former prime minister and defense minister, and a person who was privy to spectacular operations that were...

Egypt denied on Tuesday evening the reports that President Mohammed Morsi had sent a letter to Israeli counterpart Shimon Peres. Dr. Yasser Ali, Morsi’s official spokesman, denied the reports which appeared in the Israeli press and which said that Morsi thanked the Israeli president for his Ramadan greetings and said he is looking forward to Egypt helping to get the peace process “back to its right track.” However, according to a report on the website of the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram, Ali described these reports as completely incorrect and stressed that Morsi did not send any letter to Peres. Another report...

At a panel discussing the life of Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, President Shimon Peres said Monday that Ben-Gurion was a “religious Jew.” Peres said that Ben-Gurion “did not fight against the religious, but against the attempt to turn religion into a bureaucracy. Ben-Gurion saw himself as a religious mam. He was the greatest diplomat of them all, and he had a prophetic vision. “He did not make a mistake in anything...

Danny Dayan, head of the Yesha (Judea and Samaria) Council, spoke to IDF Radio on Wednesday morning and refuted statements made by President Shimon Peres the night before. “There is a solid Jewish majority west of the Jordan that is not dropping despite all the negative prophecies,” he said, responding to Peres’s claim that Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria endangers Israel’s Jewish majority. Population counts aside, “whether Israel will continue to be Jewish or not is not a matter of counting heads,” Dayan said. “What will keep us Jewish is the connection to Jewish tradition, to history and to...

President Shimon Peres reached out to the Iranian people Wednesday evening, saying “there is no need for us to live as enemies.” In a special address to the Knesset marking its 63rd anniversary, Peres spoke about the peace process with the Palestinian Authority, but also talked about the Iranian nuclear threat. In direct remarks to the Iranian people, the Israeli president said, “We were not born enemies, and there is no need for us to live as enemies. Do not allow the flags of hostility to cast a dark shadow on your heritage. You are a sensitive people that aspire...

President Shimon Peres' bodyguards were involved in an altercation with three Arabs Sunday evening, Channel 2 television reported. The reason for the fight is not yet clear. The incident reportedly took place outside Peres' temporary residence at Kfar David (Mamila) in Jerusalem. The president had to leave his permanent residence about six weeks ago, because of damage caused by flooding due to heavy rains. .....

Attorney Ami Palmor, Head of Pardons Department in the Justice Ministry, arrived at the President's Residence Saturday evening and delivered the files concerning the terrorists that are to be pardoned in the first part of the Shalit deal. Peres will attach a letter to the pardons, as he did when he pardoned child-murderer Samir Kuntar in the Regev-Goldwasser deal in 2008. At the time, Peres wrote: "I used the authority to grant pardons for the release of abducted prisoners Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. My decision does not denote any forgiveness for the murderers for their heinous acts. I do...

President Shimon Peres held a clandestine meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas recently in London, Maariv reported Friday. According to the report, the two continue to exchange telephone calls and messages, and their close associates have held discussions as well. Peres took the official position of refusing to respond to “rumors.” However, a close associate of the president quoted in the report expressed upset that the Peres-Abbas connection would be revealed. “President Peres is the last Israeli who continues to enjoy a direct channel to the Palestinians, and it is highly unfortunate that this channel will be sealed due...

Moscow, Aug 21 (DPA) A Russian newspaper claimed Friday that suspected pirates who boarded the freighter Arctic Sea were actually agents of the Israeli secret service trying to stop it from smuggling arms into Iran. According to Russian media, the Arctic Sea may have been carrying illegal X-55 cruise missiles destined for Iran hidden among its cargo of lumber. Men acting on behalf of the Israeli Mossad secret service commandeered the ship to divert the weapons away from Israel's regional enemy, the daily Novaya Gazeta said. Citing Moscow publicist Yulia Latynina, the daily pointed to the surprise visit of Israeli...

I’m glad Shimon Peres has retracted his claim that the British Establishment is motivated by anti-Semitism. It was a silly and unpresidential thing to say and, more to the point, it was inaccurate. No doubt it can be frustrating to deal with FCO mandarins; but, wrong as our officials are about most things, they are rarely anti-Semitic. It’s true that our diplomats tend to emphasise Britain’s relations with its former Arab protectorates, notably Jordan and the Gulf monarchies. Nothing wrong with that, of course, though you can see why it makes some Israelis uneasy. It’s true, too, that many FCO...

IPT News June 9, 2010 SNIPPET: "The Turkish-based charity that helped drive last week's deadly confrontation with Israeli commandos has deep ties to Hamas and other terrorist groups. The Hamas ties are not in question. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and IHH officials simply do not acknowledge that Hamas is a terrorist group." SNIPPET: "U.S. officials have expressed concern over the fact that "IHH representatives have met with senior Hamas officials in Turkey, Syria, and Gaza over the past three years," but IHH is not a designated terrorist organization in the United States. It's fair to ask, why not?"...

Israel plans to establish a national war monument in Jerusalem to honor the memory of the 22,684 soldiers and security personnel who have fallen defending the land of Israel since 1860 – the year the first Jews left Jerusalem’s Old City walls to settle other parts of the country. On Sunday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak announced plans to erect the new monument, during a ceremony at its future location on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. “As a society we owe a great moral debt to bereaved families,” Barak said. “In its 62 years of independence this country has stood before complicated...

Mideast: Israeli officials charge Syria with transferring ballistic missiles to the control of Iran's puppet militia, Hezbollah. It seems that another attempt to woo and appease a hostile power is not working. Last November we commented on reports in the Arab media in the Persian Gulf that Syria, apparently at the request of Iran, had turned about 300 long-range ballistic missiles over to Hezbollah control in Syrian territory. Hezbollah personnel were being trained to operate the Scuds. On Tuesday, Israeli President Shimon Peres confirmed these reports, publicly charging Syrian President Bashar Assad's government with transferring Scud missiles to the control...

Visiting US Vice President Joe Biden began his round of talks with senior Israeli officials on Tuesday at the President's Residence in Jerusalem. Biden told President Shimon Peres that the Iranian regime is isolated more than ever before, both domestically and internationally, adding that the Iranian people are imposing what he called moral sanctions against it. The Israeli president said imposing moral sanctions on Iran, including its expulsion from the UN, were no less important than taking economic measures. According to Peres, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cannot be a UN member and at the same time call for Israel's annihilation...

JERUSALEM, Sept. 21 (UPI) -- Israeli President Shimon Peres reportedly proposed last month to persuade the United States to not install a missile system in Europe. A report in Maariv Monday said Peres made the proposal to garner Russian support for sanctions against Iran, Peres discussed the matter during a two-day visit to Russia. The newspaper said Peres promised to use Israel's influence in Washington to abort erecting the U.S. missile shield in Poland and Czechoslovakia, in exchange for Russia's support to impose sanctions on Iran and reconsider the delivery of S-300 missile defense systems to the Islamic Republic. Peres...

US President Barack Obama is expected to moderate a September meeting between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, President Shimon Peres said in an interview with Fox News Monday. Peres told the TV network that the two leaders would be meeting at the United Nations.

Israeli President Shimon Peres claims that Lebanon's Hezbollah now has an arsenal of 80,000 rockets to bombard Israel -- double the previous estimate by Israeli intelligence and almost four times the number the Iranian-backed militants possessed during their 2006 war with the Jewish state. Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh has dismissed as "lies" the claim made by Peres in an interview with the Kuwait daily Al-Rai published Sunday. "I don't know how he counted these rockets." But the Israeli leader's claim has fuelled regional fears that a new conflict between Hezbollah and Israel is brewing. There has been no independent...

Government officials accompanying President Shimon Peres in Kazakhstan accidentally left behind secret documents, including details of his itinerary, and threw security officials into a panic. The president’s spokeswoman confirmed to Israel National News that the documents had been forgotten and placed the source of the blunder in the Foreign Ministry.

Iran has recalled its ambassador to Azerbaijan for consultations after a visit by President Shimon Peres to the Islamic Republic's northwestern neighbor, an Iranian news agency reported on Monday. Quoting an informed source, ISNA said the envoy was recalled to Tehran after Peres' visit to Azerbaijan on June 28 and "threats" which it said the Israeli ambassador in Baku had voiced against Iran, without elaborating. The semi-official Fars News Agency carried a similar report.

Today, Shimon Peres kicked off the AIPAC conference with a special address. Phil noted some observations below. Initial buzz from the speech in and around the conference center is that Peres neglected to mention the need to establish a Palestinian state as part of the peace process. This is shaping up to be an important tension between the Obama and Netanyahu administrations.During his speech, Peres was briefly interrupted by activists from Code Pink. The photo below is of Desiree Fairooz standing on a table in front of Peres as he speaks (photo credit: Mark Wilson, Getty Images). Below is the...

Israeli President Shimon Peres on Wednesday called a U.N. investigation accusing Israel of recklessness during the war in Gaza "outrageous" and said the Jewish state will not apologize for defending its citizens against Hamas missile attacks. He conceded that the Israeli military made some mistakes — as all armies do during war. Nonetheless, Peres said he thinks chances for Mideast peace "were improved" following his meeting in Washington on Tuesday with President Barack Obama.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a brief press availability with Israeli President Shimon Peres at the top of their meeting in the Capitol this afternoon. Below are their remarks: Speaker Pelosi. It is a very special day indeed. The Speaker of the House has the privilege of welcoming the President of Israel to the Capitol of the United States. President Peres is a hero to many of us. He is a great visionary and has been recognized by the world as such. The President is a tremendous leader, a fighter for peace, a Nobel laureate recognized for his vision, his intellect,...

Peres Presses for Cave-In to Vatican? by Hillel Fendel (IsraelNN.com) President Shimon Peres is pressuring Interior Minister Eli Yishai to sign away six properties demanded by the Vatican, including Mt. Tabor and a church in Nazareth, according to IDF Army Radio. The Vatican has long demanded that Israel give it these and other properties, while Israel has refused. With the visit of Pope Benedict XVI only a week away, tensions between the sides are rising. Minister Yishai, of the Sephardic hareidi-religious Shas party, has thus far refused to give his approval – and staffers in the President’s office say they’ll...

President Barack Obama held a prime-time news conference Wednesday to mark his first 100 days in office. The potential flu pandemic was topic number one. Next came the economic crisis, with worries about the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal a close third. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict went unmentioned. Next week, however, expect Israel to be in the Washington limelight. The 2009 AIPAC Policy Conference kicks off on Sunday with speeches by leading US politicians and Christian religious leaders. President Shimon Peres is scheduled to talk on Monday morning, and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will deliver his banquet address Monday evening, via...

President Shimon Peres had some unusually aggressive words for Iran Sunday, seemingly threatening military action if US President Barack Obama's overtures to the Islamic republic don't bear fruit. In an interview with Kol Hai Radio, Peres also said that the arrest before the weekend of a Hizbullah terror cell in Egypt was a blow to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's power. "Ahmadinejad recruits forces against us, but there are also forces against him," Peres said. "What happened in Egypt created a fierce opposition and we must unify all his opponents - the Sunnis and the Europeans, as well as those afraid...

Benjamin Netanyahu is on his way to becoming Prime Minister once again in Israel. He has been tapped by Israeli President Shimon Peres to form a new government following party elections there earlier this week. Netanyahu's party, Likud, lost by one vote but has the support of other minor parties to form a new government. If he can do it within the next six weeks, he will be Prime Minister. Netanyahu is a conservative, and will take a hard line on Iran and other terrorist entities. The Obama Administration would undoubtely like to see a more dovish Prime Minister in...

President Shimon Peres said Wednesday that he erred in supporting Israel's unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

In Friday’s edition of “Best of the Web Today,” James Taranto writes this analysis of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan giving Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres a tongue-lashing during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos: “One obvious point is that Turkey is hardly in a position to criticize Israel for responding firmly to terrorist attacks” (referring to repeated Turkish air and ground incursions into northern Iraq to go after the Kurdish Workers' Party), and “[a] less obvious point is that Erdogan might have killed whatever chance his country had of becoming a member of the...

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday stormed off the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, red-faced after verbally sparring with President Shimon Peres over the recent fighting in Gaza. Erdogan was angry after being cut off by a panel moderator after listening to an impassioned monologue by Peres defending Israel's recent 22-day offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

"Today is a great day not only for the United States of America, but for the entire world," President Shimon Peres wrote in a letter addressed to Barack Obama on the day of his inauguration as president of the United States. "Obama was elected by the United States, but as a matter of fact, he was chosen by the whole of humankind," Peres continued, "His election is the correction of one of the greatest wrongs in the annals of history… - slavery." "I pray here in Jerusalem that Barack Obama will be a great President of the United States. If...

Outgoing US President George Bush telephoned President Shimon Peres bidding him farewell on the occasion of the end of Bush's term as president Tuesday. Peres said to Bush, "If the world had acted against Hitler the way you acted against Saddam Hussein, the lives of millions would have been saved." The president added, "You made a historic contribution to the entire world and to the Jewish people in particular. We will treasure this forever and will never forget it."

ISRAELI President Shimon Peres has praised his outgoing US counterpart George W. Bush for his contribution to the Jewish state and people in a phone conversation. "In my name, in the name of Israel and the Jewish people I would like to thank you for the long years of help and friendship to Israel," Mr Peres told Mr Bush, who spoke to world leaders by phone today on the eve of leaving office. "You have made a historic contribution to the entire world and the Jewish people in particular," Mr Peres' office quoted him as telling Mr Bush, who staunchly...

Egypt's leading Muslim cleric Mohammed Tantawi has denied he knowingly shook hands with Israeli President Shimon Peres at a religious conference, saying he did not recognize him, a newspaper reported yesterday. Pictures of the handshake during a UN-sponsored religious dialogue last month caused a furor in the Egyptian opposition press and demands by an opposition MP that the government-appointed Tantawi be sacked. Tantawi, who heads the Islamic Al-Azhar University, told Al-Masri al-Yom that he did not know the octogenarian Peres, who has occupied various positions in the Israeli government since its founding in 1948 and is a Nobel peace prize...

President Shimon Peres told Diaspora Jewish leaders Monday, "You have to close your eyes" to make peace. He also reasoned that a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority will encourage Sunni Muslims against Ahmadinejad. Speaking at the annual General Assembly of the United Jewish Committees, he said that "making peace is a little bit like marriage [and] you have to close your eyes and accept what is possible to accept." His audience laughed and applauded. He also explained his reasoning why surrendering Judea and Samaria to the PA and establishing a new Arab state in their place would have a...

LONDON - U.S. President-elect Barack Obama proclaimed himself "very impressed" with the Arab League's peace plan when he discussed it with President Shimon Peres during a brief visit to Israel four months ago, Peres said Tuesday. Peres, who had just arrived in London for an official visit, made the comment in interviews to be published in the British media. He was responding to questions about whether he thought Obama would advance the Middle East peace process in general and the Arab League's plan in particular.

Israelis and Palestinians have never been closer to making strategic decisions than they are today, and at the end of the day, each side wants to win a little more than the other, Sheikh Abdallah Nimr Darwish, founder of the Islamic Movement, told President Shimon Peres on Tuesday. "But the Palestinians have nothing left to offer Israel," he added. Darwish spoke at the traditional Iftar meal for leaders of Israel's Arab communities hosted by President Shimon Peres during Ramadan. "The Palestinians can't give up any more," said Darwish, without elaborating on what they have already ceded. There was agreement on...

Lebanese murderer Samir Kuntar one day after his release from an Israeli prison promised to continue on the path of jihad against the Jewish state. Israel said he wouldn’t get the opportunity. Kuntar and the four Hizballah militants released with him attended a special prayer service on Thursday at the graveside of slain Hizballah operational chief Imad Mughniyah, who masterminded an untold number of attacks against Israel and Jewish targets abroad.

When Israel announced it was in negotiations with Syria, Abbas countered with his intended talks with Abbas. Neither the US or Israel objected. A week ago, Israel agreed to a "lull" with Hamas for stated reasons which were incomprehensible. Perhaps the real reason was to enable the reconciliation between them. Two days ago I reported that Shlomo Brom who is very connected to leftist government circles argued that because of the split, Israel must negotiate with Hamas. Even more telling, Peres recently said at an official dinner ""There is no chance of reaching an agreement between Israel and the PA,"...

Israeli President Shimon Peres, the primary proponent of Israel’s land-for-peace process with the Palestinian Authority, very pragmatically announced at a dinner party last weekend that he no longer believes a genuine peace can be achieved.

On the eve of Israel's 60th Independence Day, President Shimon Peres cites the country's achievements but he is also aware of the public's sense of cautious joy, and how that feeling exists despite the government, not because of it. "So what?" he says in an interview this week at the President's Residence. "It's not terrible that there is no rejoicing at the government. Governments all over the world are losing their strength. Besides, the Jews gave the world dissatisfaction. Celebration is not a Jewish thing. Still, I'm optimistic, though I'm not satisfied." Such an expression uses the plays on words...