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Construction of new housing for Jews in east Jerusalem will press forward, Cabinet Secretary Zvi Hauser illustrated in a statement on Monday. This drew Palestinian accusations that the plans could undermine newly relaunched peace talks. "Building is expected to begin soon in Har Homa ... and Neve Yaakov, where (construction) bids have been issued," Hauser told Army Radio, referring to two east Jerusalem neighborhoods. "Building in Jerusalem is continuing according to its regular pace."

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will not enter indirect peace talks with Israel as planned, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said overnight Wednesday, due to the approval of plans to build 1,600 housing units in Ramat Shlomo in east Jerusalem. “The Palestinian president has decided that he does not intend to enter negotiations at this stage,” Moussa said at a press conference in Cairo. A senior PA official in Ramallah had said Wednesday that the PA would resume talks with Israel in the coming days, despite the threats and strong condemnations coming from Ramallah. The official’s comments came after visiting...

Obama himself claims that he has launched a political war against Israel in the interest of promoting peace. But this claim, too, does not stand up to scrutiny. On Friday, Obama ordered Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to present Netanyahu with a four-part ultimatum. First, Israel must cancel the approval of the housing units in Ramat Shlomo. Second, Israel must prohibit all construction for Jews in Jerusalem neighborhoods built since 1967. Third, Israel must make a gesture to the Palestinians to show them we want peace. The US suggests releasing hundreds of Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons. Fourth, Israel must...

A worker is seen on a construction site in the neighborhood of Pisgat Zeev in East Jerusalem, Thursday, Aug. 11. The Israeli government, facing public protests over the soaring cost of housing, announced on Thursday it is advancing plans for thousands of new homes in contested East Jerusalem. The Israeli government, facing unprecedented public protests over the soaring cost of housing, yesterday announced it is advancing plans for thousands of new homes in contested East Jerusalem. The announcement, which drew pointed criticism from Palestinians, the United Nations, and the US, highlights an issue that has been largely avoided by the...

President Barack Obama's team hope to push Right-wing premier Benjamin Netanyahu into a coalition which will put peace talks on track. For Jewish settler families, there is nothing controversial about the plans to erect 1,600 new homes. But for Washington they represent an insult that has reduced relations between the United States and Israel to their lowest ebb in a generation. The friendship that has been a cornerstone of American foreign policy for 40 years and sustained a small democracy in a perilously hostile neighbourhood has moved on to novel, shaky ground. Rather than peace process, the new buzz phrase...

Group calls Washington’s statements on Israel “a matter of serious concern.” Though the crisis with the US over construction in east Jerusalem continues to percolate, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu still plans to travel to Washington next week to participate in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual policy conference, sources in his office said Sunday night. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is also still expected to address the pro-Israel group, hours before Netanyahu on Monday, according to US officials, despite her tense phone call to the prime minister on Friday berating him for an Interior Ministry panel’s approval of the...

Obama claims he's launched a political war against Israel in the interest of promoting peace. But this claim, too, does not stand up to scrutiny. Why has President Barak Obama decided to foment a crisis in US relations with Israel? Some commentators have claimed that it is Israel’s fault. As they tell it, the news that Israel has not banned Jewish construction in Jerusalem – after repeatedly refusing to ban such construction – drove Obama into a fit of uncontrolled rage from which he has yet to recover. While popular, this claim makes no sense. Obama didn’t come to be...

The Palestinian Authority on Thursday condemned Israel’s decision to build new housing projects in Jerusalem and accused the Israeli government of seeking to create new 'facts on the ground,' the PA-run Maan news agency reported. Interior Minister Eli Yishai (Shas) on Thursday approved 1,600 apartment units in the Jerusalem haredi neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo late on Wednesday night. It was also reported the Interior Ministry was working to prepare two additional projects, including 2,000 projects in Givat Hamatos and 625 units in Pisgat Zeev. Nabil Abu Rudaineh, spokesman for PA President Mahmoud Abbas, said that the decision was an attempt...

Publicly, Vice President Joe Biden tried to keep up a positive tone in his good will visit to Israel this week. But privately, the Israeli press reports, he had sharper words for Israeli decisions Biden said jeopardize the peace process and U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq, fight insurgents and stabilize Afghanistan and Pakistan, and strengthen an international and regional alliance to pressure Iran. The Israeli press has been extremely critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government's behavior during Biden's visit. See these excerpts from a piece by Shimon Shiffer in Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth today, headline: "Biden: You’re Jeopardizing Regional...

U.S. President Barack Obama's demands during his meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last Tuesday point to an intention to impose a permanent settlement on Israel and the Palestinians in less than two years, political sources in Jerusalem say. Israeli officials view the demands that Obama made at the White House as the tip of the iceberg under which lies a dramatic change in U.S. policy toward Israel. Of 10 demands posed by Obama, four deal with Jerusalem: opening a Palestinian commercial interests office in East Jerusalem, an end to the razing of structures in Palestinian neighborhoods in the capital,...

Fearing that the Jewish community now perceives him as hopelessly unsympathetic to Israel, President Barack Obama has launched a Jewish charm offensive. Last week alone 15 rabbis and 37 Jewish members of Congress were invited to the White House. The rabbis met presidential advisers while the congressmen and senators, all Democrats, got the real deal, a pitch from the president himself. An invitation to the White House is a big deal and can play all kinds of tricks on people’s convictions, which might explain why so many of those who visited emerged with newfound praise for the president even though...

Former Alaska governor and US vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Tuesday urged the Obama Administration to lay off Israel, and noted that its recent hostile rhetoric toward the Jewish state only served to bolster the enemies of both nations. "The Obama Administration has decided to escalate, make unilateral demands of Israel, and threaten the very foundation of the US-Israel relationship," Palin wrote on her Facebook page. "The Obama Administration needs to open its eyes and recognize that it is only Iran and her terrorist allies that benefit from this manufactured Israeli controversy," she continued. Palin was referring to last...

The Palestinians are now insisting on Israeli concessions which they had essentially given up during the government of former prime minister Ehud Olmert, Channel 10 reported Tuesday evening. During Olmert's tenure, then-foreign minister Tzipi Livni offered to establish a Palestinian state on 92.7 percent of the territories conquered in the Six Day War. The map presented to Palestinian negotiators did not include the Jordan Valley as part of the State of Israel. The settlement of Ariel would remain part of Israel, but the stretch of land ensuring its contiguity with the rest of the country would be very narrow, Channel...

Despite R. Shlomo crisis, PM says Israel will continue to build in all parts of the capital. While the United States continued to criticize Israel over an east Jerusalem housing project approved during US Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel least week, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday said construction in the capital would continue as usual. "Construction in Jerusalem will continue in any part of the city as it has during the last 42 years," Netanyahu stressed at the Likud faction meeting. "In the past 40 years, there was no government that limited construction in any Jerusalem area...

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has obtained a copy of the text of a letter written by conservative leader Gary Bauer to President Obama, challenging the Obama administration’s recent rhetorical assault on Israel. Bauer is circulating the letter to other conservative leaders as signatories, and apparently is getting a strong response. Here’s the text of the letter: Dear Mr. President, In recent days your Administration has unleashed an unprecedented barrage of criticism at Israel, our most reliable ally in the Middle East. The ostensible reason for this assault was a municipal zoning decision permitting construction to continue on a housing division inside...

Netanyahu keeps strong position despite American pressure. Says 'cabinet's decision to end construction freeze after 10 months remains standing' Despite the unprecedented crisis with the White House following Israel's plan to build 1,600 new housing units in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he plans to forge ahead with construction in Jerusalem "as we have since the Six Day War". Knesset Member Tzipi Hotovely's asked Netanyahu during a Likud faction meeting what will happen after the 10-month construction freeze period ends in September. The prime minister replied that "construction in Jerusalem – and anywhere...

Thousands of Americans are preparing to protest in New York this Sunday against the Obama administration's increasing hostility towards Israel. The event is scheduled to take place outside the Israel Consulate on Sunday, April 25 at 1:00 p.m. EDT. A partial list of organizations who endorsed the demonstration is below. Beth Gilinsky, head of the Jewish Action Alliance that is sponsoring the event, said, "We are outraged that President [Barack] Obama is scapegoating Israel and wants to expel Jews from their homes in Jerusalem. President Obama and Secretary Hillary Clinton show more anger about a Jewish family building a home...

(IsraelNN.com) In a letter to US. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Jewish leaders in Judea and Samaria explain the unshakeable historic and religious bonds between the Jewish People and Jerusalem. The letter was written in response to President Obama’s and Clinton’s criticism of Israel’s intentions to build in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo. The neighborhood is a part of Jerusalem-proper, and is surrounded nearly completely by Jewish-populated areas. Though it is part of area liberated by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War, it was not recaptured from Jordan, but was rather considered no-man’s land between 1949 and 1967.

Ex-Rabin adviser says US government's stance recalls US-Israel Sinai crisis The American leadership is mistakenly “painting Israel into a corner,” as it did during a 1975 confrontation between the two countries, Yehuda Avner, who was an adviser to then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin at the time of the crisis, said Monday. Ambassador to the US Michael Oren was quoted as telling Israeli consuls general on a conference call Saturday night that the current crisis with the US was the worst since the 1975 confrontation between then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Rabin over an American demand for a partial...

Where Hamas and Fatah may each be accusing the other of being guilty of showing lack of unity in what is now being called the “Jerusalem Intifada”, they both fully support the violence called for against Israel and Jews in general. The difference in opinions is to how wide the violence should spread and who gets the credit. Hamas wants a general Intifada throughout the West Bank and against Israel from Gaza while Fatah, sometimes mistakenly referred to as the Palestinian Authority, wants the violence only in the Israeli controlled areas of the West Bank. The reasons given for the...