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Inner cabinet meets after Israel reportedly pressured to respond to Washington demands. While Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu convened his six senior ministers on Wednesday night to discuss the crisis with Washington, US President Barack Obama on Wednesday said the US-Israeli relationship is not in crisis over the approval of an east Jerusalem building plan during US vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel,. Obama told Fox News Channel that the new housing units "weren't helpful" in carving out a peace between Israelis and Palestinians, but that Washington remains a committed ally for Israel. The expansion of Ramat Shlomo was a...

The Hurva Synagogue was the premier Jewish place of worship in Jerusalem's Old City in the 19th and early 20th Centuries -- until Jordanian troops destroyed it in 1948. On March 15, after several years of painstaking restoration, it came to life again -- an exact replica of the old Hurva. In the week before its reopening, however, the Palestinian Authority unleashed a vicious conspiracy campaign that falsely claimed that reopening the Hurva was a prelude to Israel's intent to destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque on Temple Mount to make room for the Third Jewish Temple. Palestinian officials called on Arabs to...

The papers are full of reports about the startling criticism of Israel by the Obama administration — a criticism of a type not used by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton against many human rights abusing-governments the world over during the past year. (Who cares, for example, that 50,000 Muslim Burmese refugees are on the verge of starvation in Bangladesh, when you can bash Israel day after day, as the Obama administration did last week?) The Los Angeles Times noted that “Hillary Rodham Clinton’s harsh words stunned Israel.” The Wall Street Journal reported that “Clinton levied a blistering rebuke of Israel”...

Palestinians fueled by anger over what they see as Israeli expansions into Palestinian-dominated areas clash with police in East Jerusalem. Rising political and religious tensions in Jerusalem spilled into the streets Tuesday with a string of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police that left more than 100 people injured. In scenes reminiscent of past uprisings, dozens of Palestinian youths, some with scarves masking their faces, pelted police with rocks, blocked roads and burned tires in half a dozen neighborhoods around East Jerusalem. Israeli police, who have been on high alert for days, responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and stun...

Clinton dismisses suggestions of crisis in Israel ties; U.S. envoy Mitchell postpones visit to region.. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Tuesday that Israel had proven its commitment to peace before both in words and actions, after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Jerusalem to do more to prove it was serious about the Middle East process. "The State of Israel appreciates and respects the warm words said by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton regarding the deep bond between the U.S. and Israel, and on the U.S.' commitment to Israel's security," Netanyahu's office said in a statement. "With regard...

IDF official: Neither Israel nor PA wants more conflict; police chief: This will not lead to third intifada.. After Hamas declared an official "day of rage" leading to clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces across Jerusalem on Tuesday, the violence seemed also to spread to other parts of the country. Assailants in the central Israeli city of Jaffa hurled rocks at two public buses, cracking the back window of one of them. Rocks were also thrown at a truck near Kibbutz Mishmar Hanegev in the south and at two vehicles in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Dor. There were...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday hailed the "unshakeable bond" between the United States and Israel in an effort to quell the diplomatic spat that has rocked ties between Washington and its closest Middle East ally. "We have an absolute commitment to Israel's security. We have a close, unshakeable bond between the United States and Israel," Clinton told a news briefing. Her comments marked a turn after days of tough U.S. talk following Israel's announcement last week that it would approve construction of a housing project in East Jerusalem, a move which infuriated the Palestinians and put hopes for...

Remember, last June, when President Obama told reporters that it was “not productive” for the U.S. to be “meddling” in the affairs of a certain Middle Eastern country? Obama’s diplomatic deference inaugurated six months of silence after Iran’s sham elections. By the time the White House got around to “strongly condemn[ing]” the bloody crackdown against protestors, the nascent “green revolution” was in retreat, and Iran’s maniacal president – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- was bragging about how close he was to developing nuclear weapons. Obama is showing he has far fewer reservations about meddling in the domestic affairs of another Middle Eastern...

It took awhile, 14 months to be exact, but both the ADL and AIPAC have issued very solid statements condemning the President's new verbal war on Israel, and asking for the Administration to curtail the public berating of its supposed ally, and work with Israel in a more diplomatic fashion on both the peace process and Iran. What is disgraceful is that so far, exactly one elected Democrat in Congress has done the same: Congresswoman Shelley Berkley of Nevada. Sadly, Democrats seem to care far more about passing health care legislation this week, than protecting the US-Israel relationship from Obama's...

An ill-timed municipal housing announcement in Jerusalem has mutated into one of the most serious conflicts between the United States and Israel in two decades, leaving a politically embarrassed Israeli government scrambling to respond to a tough list of demands by the Obama administration. The Obama administration has put Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a difficult political spot at home by insisting that the Israeli government halt a plan to build housing units in East Jerusalem. The administration also wants Mr. Netanyahu to commit to substantive negotiations with the Palestinians, after more than a year in which the peace process...

Recent hostile outbursts by the US gov't must be viewed in the context that the US-Israel relationship has been on a downward spiral since Obama. The bureaucratic fashla [blunder] of our dysfunctional government to forestall the announcement of a new housing project in Jerusalem during the visit of US Vice President Joe Biden provided a pretext for the Obama administration to launch one of the harshest condemnations ever leveled against us by a US government. But while the timing of the announcement was appalling, it involved no breach of undertaking. In fact, the Obama administration had previously publicly praised the...

Major riots in Wadi Joz; 15 arrested, 2 cops hurt as protesters clash with police. Dozens of masked Palestinians were hurling rocks at Israeli police and burning tires in the east Jerusalem neighborhoods Wadi Joz, Issawiya and Abu Tor on Tuesday. More than one hundred policemen, some of them on horseback, were trying to disperse the crowd at Wadi Joz, where some two hundred Arabs were throwing rocks at security forces. Stun grenades, tear gas and other measures were being used against the rioters. Twenty five Palestinians have been arrested so far on suspicion of stone-throwing and disruptions. In addition,...

Obama’s Israel Crisis  by P. David Hornik   Israel Apartheid Week hadn’t yet run its course when Israel came in for a barrage of hostile characterizations also from the Obama administration. In the same brief time span there was also Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—“The Zionist regime is the most hated regime in the world…. with Allah’s help, this regime will be annihilated.” All this came hard on the heels of a wave of international outrage, and violent attacks by Palestinians, over Israel adding shrines in Hebron and Bethlehem to a list of national heritage sites.If it seems like a lot...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration's fierce denunciation of Israel last week has ignited a firestorm in Congress and among powerful pro-Israel interest groups who say the criticism of America's top Mideast ally was misplaced. Since the controversy erupted, a bipartisan parade of influential lawmakers and interest groups has taken aim at the administration's decision to publicly condemn Israel for its announcement of new Jewish housing in east Jerusalem while Vice President Joe Biden was visiting on Tuesday and then openly vent bitter frustration on Friday. With diplomats from both countries referring to the situation as a crisis, the outpouring...

The Obama administration's calculated decision to escalate its open attacks against Israel over a routine decision by the Jerusalem Planning and Building Board to approve 1,600 housing units in Ramat Shlomo neighborhood presents Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with an unenviable task. He has to either relinquish Israel's sovereignty over its capital by capitulating in the face of the unprecedented American assault, or he can tell Obama and Clinton and their cohorts to go to hell. It is depressing, and let's face it, a bit scary that the US, which has refused to raise a finger against Iran's nuclear program or...