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Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's visit to Oman last week came as a surprise to the Palestinians, who denounced it as a form of "normalization" with Israel. Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah said on Saturday they did not know if PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who also visited Oman last week, knew in advance about Netanyahu's visit to the country's port capital of Muscat. A senior adviser to Abbas would neither confirm nor deny reports to the effect that Oman and its leader, Sultan Sayyid Qaboos bin Said Al Said, were acting as mediators between Israel and the Palestinians in a bid...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday called on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to agree to return to the negotiating table without preconditions. “Since he doesn’t speak Hebrew, and my Arabic isn’t great, I will turn to him in a language we both understand,” Netanyahu said at a special Knesset session dedicated to the Israeli-Arab conflict. “I say: Give peace a chance,” he said, alluding to the title of John Lennon’s 1969 classic. snip Appearing in the plenum because 40 MKs had signed a petition forcing him to address the topic of the Arab Peace Initiative, the prime minister said...

Before delving into the question of what follows the death of the two-state solution we must get a certificate of death. This may prove to be more difficult than getting a certificate of live birth for President Obama. Everyone prefers to kick a dead horse, so to speak, than to acknowledge it is dead. The Arabs were against the creation of Israel in the first place. They opposed the Palestine Mandate, The Partition Plan, The Declaration of Independence by Israel and Resolution 242. In 1968 they decided at the Khartoum Conference on the three “no’s”; no recognition, no negotiation and...

NOTE The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-obama-and-president-abbas-palestinian-authority-after-meeting Home • Briefing Room • Speeches & Remarks The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release June 09, 2010 Remarks by President Obama and President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority after Meeting Oval Office 11:58 A.M. EDT PRESIDENT OBAMA: Hello, everybody. Be careful, careful. Before I begin, I know that there was just a vote in the United Nations Security Council. I'm going to comment on that separately. I don't want to detract from the topic at hand here. So for reporters who are interested in that issue, I...