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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says he is willing to work with President-elect Donald Trump to reach a two-state solution to the conflict with Israel. Abbas spoke Saturday at an event marking the anniversary of his Fatah party. He said "We want to emphasize our willingness to work with the newly-elected American administration... to achieve peace... based on a two-state solution." Abbas thanked the U.S. for its U.N. abstention vote last week, which allowed the Security Council to adopt a resolution declaring Israeli settlements in territory claimed by Palestinians illegal.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union has joined the outgoing U.S. administration in defending the two-state solution as the best way to achieve lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians. A spokeswoman for the 28-nation bloc reiterated the EU's support for the two-state solution on Thursday, the day after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry tore into Israel for settlement-building.

Multiple media outlets are reporting that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is finalizing a document that the Obama administration hopes will form the basis for a UN Security Council resolution that officially recognizes a Palestinian state before the end of Barack Obama’s term on January 20th. This comes on the heels of the UN Security Council’s adoption of resolution 2334 on December 23rd. That resolution declared that all Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal, it stated that the Security Council recognizes the 1967 ceasefire lines as the border between Israel and “Palestine”, and it officially gave East...

The Obama administration Friday defended its abstention on a key United Nations resolution condemning Israel for West Bank settlements, with Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes saying that the continued activity threatened longstanding U.S. policy calling for a two-state solution in the region.

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom, who was refused meetings with Israeli ministers during her visit to the region, on Saturday tweeted about her visit to “Palestine”. “Returning from Palestine. Action is needed to save the two state solution. Settlements and demolitions thwart conditions and hope for peace,” tweeted Wallstrom, who visited Ramallah and met with Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki. The Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported that during her visit to Ramallah, Abbas decorated the Swedish minister with an award he calls the Grand Star of the Order of Jerusalem. Speaking in a press conference...

Two-thirds of Palestinians believe a two-state solution to their conflict with Israel is no longer possible, a poll said Tuesday. The share of those who lost faith in such a deal rose from 56 percent in September to 65 percent now, probably due to an acceleration of settlement activity, said the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey research. Most in the international community still back the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, even though a deal appears to be increasingly complicated, in part because of the continued growth of settlements. Gaps between Israeli and Palestinian leaders remain wide, preventing...

The most shocking thing about talk of Keith Ellison’s Israel record as he rises within the Democratic Party is how few think it’s shocking. Rep. Ellison, D-Minn., is a leading contender for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee, despite a record of tough criticism of Israel that pro-Israel insiders say would easily have disqualified him a decade ago. A supporter of the two-state solution and a frequent visitor to Israel, he also voted against additional funding for Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system in 2014. In 2009, Ellison spear-headed a letter from 54 Democrats to Presdient Obama urging him to...

Shortly after Donald Trump’s election, phone calls and other messages of congratulations began coming in. Some were a bit more, shall we say… measured than others. One very pointed example of this was the “congratulations” the President Elect received from Germany’s Angela Merke and her deputy chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel. (Washington Post) “Germany and America are bound by common values — democracy, freedom, as well as respect for the rule of law and the dignity of each and every person, regardless of their origin, skin color, creed, gender, sexual orientation, or political views. It is based on these values that I...

Egypt’s foreign minister paid a rare visit to Israel on Sunday, saying that his country remains a “steadfast and unwavering” supporter of a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians but warning that conditions for achieving that are deteriorating. Sameh Shoukry’s trip was the first official visit to Israel since 2007 and reflected the strong but low-profile ties that have developed between the two countries in recent years. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said Shoukry’s visit was aimed at reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. …

International mediators trying to promote Mideast peace warned in a highly anticipated report Friday that Israel’s settlement expansion is eroding the viability of a Palestinian state and raises “legitimate questions” about its commitment to a two-state solution. The Quartet of Mideast negotiators — the U.N., U.S., European Union and Russia — also criticized the glorification of Palestinians who commit “terrorist attacks” against Israel and called on the Palestinian Authority to “act decisively” to stop incitement to violence and clearly condemn “all acts of terrorism.” While the Israeli and Palestinian leaders and the majority of people on both sides support a...

Former Secretary of State and current Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton believes both Republican candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz "missed the mark" with their approach to the Israel-Palestinian Arab conflict. Speaking Sunday to CNN, Clinton vowed to support Israel but also said she would insist on the "two-state solution", that is the formation of a Palestinian state, in order to bring an end to the conflict. In the interview, Clinton was asked about Trump's and Cruz's comments last week. While Trump indicated he would be "sort of a neutral guy" on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, Cruz said, "I have no...

Opposition leader MK Yitzhak Herzog admitted on Wednesday that the "two-state solution" is not feasible at this time. "I look at the reality, and the reality as I read it is a complex one. I cannot see in the current reality how the two-state solution could be implemented," the Zionist Union chairman told Army Radio in an interview. "I want to aspire to it, I want to negotiate it, and I am committed to it, but I do not see the ability to do that now," added Herzog, who continued, "In the absence of the ability to do that right...

In response to Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon's (Likud) announcement last Wednesday that a strategic 40 dunam compound is being officially added to the Gush Etzion region in Judea, the US lost little time in condemning the move. The land that is being added was purchased by American millionaire Irving Moskowitz and his wife, and is referred to as "Beit Bracha." Jerusalem Councilman and Israel Land Fund (ILF) Director Arieh King covertly obtained the abandoned church complex adjacent to Highway 60 three years ago according to reports, and worked to renovate the compound. On Friday, US State Department spokesperson John Kirby...

On Saturday, US Secretary of State John Kerry gave a speech before the Brookings Institute's Saban Forum. Kerry focused on the Palestinian conflict with Israel and sought to draw a distinction between the two-state policy model, which he supports, and the one-state policy model, which he rejects. To justify his rejection of a policy based on Israeli sovereignty over areas beyond the 1949 armistice lines, Kerry raised a series of questions about what a one-state policy would look like. I answered all of his questions, as well as many others, in great detail in my book The Israeli Solution: A...

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...

What does the State Department’s Wendy Sherman do with her spare time when not negotiating weak nuclear deals with rogue regimes? The same as the rest of the Obama foreign-policy team: threaten Israel with diplomatic isolation at the United Nations. Sherman issued some thinly veiled threats yesterday in remarks to a gathering of Reform movement leaders in which she made clear that the administration expects the next Israeli government to do its bidding with respect to supporting a two-state solution with the Palestinians. While there’s nothing new about this insistence, Sherman’s language followed the same pattern as other remarks issued...

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said the United States should not be attempting to tell Israel how to negotiate peace with the Palestinians, and he wouldn’t do so if elected president. “Israel is a sovereign nation, and I trust the leaders of Israel to determine whether they want to adopt a one-state solution or a two-state solution,” Cruz said in an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” The Obama administration has “demonstrated an arrogance that America’s going to dictate the terms of security in Israel. It’s not our place to do it,” Cruz said. …

<p>Ugh. Our petulant man-child Muslim president and his Israel-hating administration are now threatening that they just might agree to a UN Security Council resolution that would call for Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and push them into negotiations to create a palestinian state.</p>

In first post election interview, Netanyahu says he wants a ‘sustainable’ two-state solution, notes ‘we have no other alternative’ to continued cooperation between US and Israel

Days after vowing not to establish a Palestinian state, Netanyahu says something else in his first post-election interview. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has retracted his pre-election statements, according to which he would not allow a Palestinian state to be established. "I don't want a one-state solution. I want a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution," Netanyahu said Thursday in an interview with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell. "I haven't changed my policy." Netanyahu said his earlier comments were a reflection of changing conditions on the Palestinian side, pointing to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's pact to form a unity government with Hamas, which Israel,...