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Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday told visiting French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius that any new Palestinian unity government should not include Hamas, AFP reports. The remarks came on the eve of a key meeting of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to discuss forming a new cabinet. The unity government between Hamas and Fatah collapsed last week as Abbas decided to dissolve it amid a deepening rift between the sides. "(Abbas) told me this government of national unity could only include women and men who recognize Israel, renounce violence and who are in agreement...

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini called Wednesday on Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) to resume peace negotiations, saying the situation on the ground was "not sustainable," according to AFP. Mogherini issued the remarks after eyewitnesses said the Israeli Air Force (IAF) carried out four strikes on terror targets in Gaza on Wednesday, hours after terrorists launched five rockets at civilians in the Jewish state. "We see the situation on the ground as not sustainable and (it is) an illusion to think the status quo is an option," Mogherini said at the opening of an annual meeting in Brussels...

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday said that after a new Israeli government has been sworn in he will investigate whether there are "realistic options" for a return to peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), Reuters reports. "Once a new government has been sworn in, the Secretary-General will explore with Prime Minister Netanyahu realistic options for a return to meaningful negotiations on a two state solution," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, after Netanyahu was able to clinch a deal to form a coalition hours before a deadline. Dujarric also said Ban was "deeply concerned by recent...

A Lebanese newspaper reported that Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas told Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi that the Palestinian Authority would not file a case against Israel in the International Criminal Court if negotiations between Israel and the PA resumed “in the coming weeks.” According to the report in the Al-Ahabar newspaper, Abbas made the comments to Sisi during their meeting in Cairo Wednesday. The PA several weeks ago formally requested membership in the ICC. Approval of the PA's membership is expected within two months. Last week, the PA recognized the ICC's jurisdiction to investigate what it said were Israeli war...

The European Union’s (EU) foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said Tuesday's vote at the United Nations (UN) Security Council on Palestinian statehood underlined the need for Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) to urgently resume peace negotiations. The Security Council failed to adopt an Arab-backed resolution that would have paved the way to a Palestinian state, setting a 12-month deadline for Israel to reach a final peace deal with the PA and calling for a full Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria by the end of 2017. The vote "underlines once again the urgency of resuming meaningful negotiations between the...

US Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday responded to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's decision to disband the Knesset. Kerry said that whatever government will be formed, he hoped it would be able to "negotiate and move towards resolving differences between Israelis and Palestinians." In April, Kerry's push for peace talks were torpedoed right ahead of their nine-month deadline by the Palestinian Authority (PA), which formed a unity agreement with Hamas after breaching the Oslo Accords by making unilateral moves to join international conventions. The PA has been inciting and praising the recent spree of high-profile terror attacks concentrated in...

Welfare Minister Meir Cohen (Yesh Atid) announced on Saturday that his party would be leaving the coalition government if it does not negotiate with the Hamas-Fatah unity government, regardless of the fact that Hamas is a terrorist group. "I believe that the peace talks will be renewed. It's clear to me that will happen, and if not, we won't be in the government," said Cohen on the Channel 10 program "Hamateh" (the headquarters), as reported by Walla!. .....

Nabil Sha'ath, a senior official in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and a close confidant of Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, says the PA wants to renew peace talks. Speaking on Thursday at a conference of the far-left Meretz party in Tel Aviv, Sha'ath claimed "we are interested in renewing the talks." Sha'ath clarified "there are topics that are open for negotiations, and they are the core issues, while on the other hand there are topics that are not up for negotiations: the Palestinians' right of self-definition in the 1967 borders, and the right of unity in the Palestinian...

..... Despite what Kerry said, which was unpleasant to Israeli ears, his commitment to the success of the diplomatic process and the time he has invested in solving the problem, regardless of the other unresolved conflicts in the world, should to be appreciated. Ukraine can wait. Kerry's goal of ending the conflict needs to be our goal as well. His problem, however, is how to go about it. From the beginning, he should never have set the bar so high. He should have added this, for the sake of fairness, at the Senate hearing. Perhaps he forgot. There is no...

Minister of Transport Yisrael Katz (Likud-Beytenu) noted with satisfaction Saturday night that the date set for freeing the fourth and final tranche of Palestinian Arab terrorist prisoners has passed without them having been released. “We passed the set date yesterday and no terrorist wasd freed,” he said. “Not [Marwan] Bargouti, not the Israeli terrorists and not the rest of the terrorist murderers. "Jew-killers belong between the crosshairs of a gun, and if not that – then in jail,” he stated. Terror victims' organization Almagor held a rally of identification with the bereaved families protesting outside the Prime Minister's Residence in...

Negotiations have reached a peak in which Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas must decide if they really want peace, opposition leader Isaac Herzog said Thursday evening. Referring to Netanyahu's meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Davos planned for Friday, Herzog said "Netanyahu and Abbas must decide whether they will move toward peace or blink, retract and lead us to adverse developments." "Both American and Israeli leaders have seen this picture before," Herzog added. "Time and again, talks come to this point." The opposition leader said both sides have to make a genuine,...

A secret report by one of the Palestinian Authority security services paints a worrying picture of a possible upsurge in terrorist attacks in the West Bank this year. The report, which was obtained by the Hebrew news website Ynet, warns that there is a high probability of a third intifada if the current Israeli-Palestinian peace talks fail. PA officials in Ramallah said they were unaware of the existence of such a report. According to Ynet, the report recommends that the Palestinian civilian authorities and the security forces draw up a plan to deal with any escalation in demonstrations. .....

MK Orit Struk of the Jewish Home (Bayit Yehudi) party called on the Israeli government to stop releasing Arab terrorist murderers from jail, following the terror attack Sunday on a bus in Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv. The release of the murderers has been presented to the public as a “gesture” accompanying “peace talks” with the Palestinian Authority (PA). "The release of terrorists is the fuel on the fire of the terrorism that is returning to our streets,” MK Struk said. “I call on the government to stop the release of terrorists and bring back sanity, responsibility and security...

United States Secretary of State John Kerry insisted on Sunday that concrete progress has been made in peace talks between Israelis and the Palestinian Authority (PA), but said details will be kept under wraps, AFP reports. Kerry, who has made nine trips to the Middle East since March and helped launch nine-month direct talks between the two sides in July, said talking about any agreements could be counterproductive. "I'm personally encouraged that very tough issues are beginning to take shape," he was quoted as having said in an interview with ABC's "This Week." .....

An overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews believe that the current negotiations with the Palestinian Authority will not lead to a peace agreement, a new poll by the Israel Hayom daily newspaper has found. The poll, conducted by New Wave Research and released Friday, found that 87.5% of Israeli Jews do not believe that the talks will result in a peace agreement. 6% of Israeli Jews said they think the peace talks will lead to a deal, while 6.5% said they were not sure. The poll was released hours before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, on his latest visit to...

US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday that a peace deal could be imminent as he wrapped up his Israel visit, according to an AFP report. "I believe we are closer than we have been in years to bringing about the peace and the prosperity and the security that all of the people of this region deserve," he told reporters traveling with his delegation at Ben Gurion airport. The news follows reports from Maariv that negotiations were improving Thursday, as Kerry indicated that the US was more willing to follow Israel's stance on its security - specifically the...

The Palestinian Authority (PA) is threatening once again to pull out of the peace talks with Israel over its plans to build in Judea and Samaria. Channel 2 News reported on Sunday that the PA is accusing Israel of not having really cancelled tenders that were issued several weeks ago for 20,000 new homes in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reprimanded Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel over the construction and cancelled it, but the PA is now claiming, according to Channel 2, that the announcement of the tenders appeared as “active” on the Housing Ministry’s website...

Reports of the death of the peace process with Israel have been greatly exaggerated, Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday. In an interview with German television network Deutsche Welle, Abbas said that peace negotiations with Israel have not reached a deadlock, as reported by the Maariv newspaper recently. Abbas would not give details about the negotiations, but said that each side had discussed proposals offered by the other. "The fact is that we're still at the beginning. We still have time to negotiate the issues," Abbas told the German network. .....

...Those who talk about a durable peace are by definition giving up on Palestine...

US Secretary of State John Kerry extended for a third day on Saturday his shuttle diplomacy between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, raising speculation of progress in reviving long dormant "peace talks." In a sign of Kerry's desire to keep negotiating, AFP reported, he paid a rare visit to Jerusalem during Shabbat – the sabbath day. Kerry arrived just before sundown to see Peres, with aides warning that the two would have been obliged to cancel a photo opportunity after the sabbath began at around 7:15 pm. Peres, realising that they were cutting it close, quipped that the sabbath began at...