Free Republic

In Israel, politics is the national pastime. Israelis follow politics the same way certain New Yorkers absorb every statistic, past and present, about the Yankees. Last week, which was sandwiched between the Jewish new year and the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur, Israelis were still following the news - just not the latest round of Middle East peace talks. News outlets gave what felt like obligatory coverage, but the talks typically ranked as the second or third item. This is a pronounced shift from past go-rounds, in which the primarily left-of-center news industry breathlessly provided wall-to-wall coverage. This...

Mr. Prime Minister; Many Jews both from Israel and in the Diaspora have reacted with horror and revulsion to the latest Time Magazine Cover Story, “Why Jews Don’t Care About Peace.” Time’s base use of the Shylock blood libel is beyond false, it is disgusting. But perhaps there is a lesson beyond the obvious hatred against Jews in general, Israel specially, and you, Mr. Prime Minister, can take from this journalistic episode. Time has unwittingly pulled back the veil and shown exactly how the world media will, for the most part, depict the breakup of the current peace talks should...

I would like to say I’m shocked but the only surprise is it took this long for President Obama to call for the continuation of the building freeze on Jewish areas in Judea and Samaria while making no comment on Arab and Muslim building of illegal structures throughout the same area and especially in and around Jerusalem. President Obama has still not made mention of the illegal buildings erected by Arabs, Muslims, and Druze illegal building within the Green Line in uncontested Israel, especially in the Negev where the problem has become endemic lately. The one positive consequence of this...

First, we need to identify what the Palestinian demands will consist. The extension of the building freeze is probably the most obvious. Many of the other demands are a rehash of long standing demands including Right of Return, total control of Jerusalem’s Old City, return to the Green Line (pre 1967 borders), release of all Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, free passage between the West Bank and Gaza, end of the blockade of Gaza, removal of all IDF troops, checkpoints, travel restrictions, and other prohibitions imposed to prevent terror attacks. The truth is that even should Israel concede and meet...

Yitzchak and Talia Emes, 47 and 45 years old, along with 24-year-old Avishai Shindler, married just a year, and 37-year-old Kochava Even Haim were recently murdered while returning to their homes after a day in Jerusalem by Hamas terrorists in a drive by shooting. Over three-dozen bullets had been fired at their vehicle, including a number from point blank range to assure that the attack had killed and not merely wounded its targets. The response in Israel was one of shock and abhorrence while in the Palestinian areas of the West Bank and Gaza there was much celebratory dancing and...

Rumors in the news speak of Prime Minister Netanyahu trying to find an unhappy medium whereby we have a freeze on building but do not really have a freeze in building beyond the Green Line. The claim is his government is looking for a magic combination that will allow enough building to keep the coalition together while restricting the building sufficiently to keep Mahmoud Abbas happy and sitting at the negotiating table. Despite the obvious problem that any building will cause Abbas to throw a fit which will require some unwise concession to placate him free of any return of...

JERUSALEM - While Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly blessed the Palestinian Authority's return to direct negotiations, a combination of deadlines, timetables and financial factors could turn the renewed peace process into a political curse for the Israeli prime minister. Netanyahu spent this past weekend with members of his inner cabinet crunching the political and financial numbers associated with what the Israeli leader has himself termed "making the painful choices for peace." Both Yediot Aharonot and Yisrael Hayom reported that Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor, the most dovish member of the inner cabinet, suggested that Netanyahu announce Israel will continue to build...

In 1994, Israel asserted, and the PLO accepted, that construction would continue on existing Jewish settlements. For the next 15 years, negotiations were never stopped by that building. In January 2009, the Palestinian Authority (PA) stopped negotiations because Hamas attacked Israel from the Gaza Strip and Israel defended itself. Of course, Hamas is also the PA's enemy and the PA would be delighted if Israel destroyed that group. But for public relations' purposes, the PA had to pretend inter-Palestinian solidarity. Then came President Barack Obama who demanded a stop to all construction on settlements in 2009. Israel finally complied but...

Speaking at Herzliya Conference, Netanyahu praises Palestinian efforts to improve economy and build institutions, appeals to them to accept resumption of efforts toward peace accord. Photo by: GPO Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Wednesday he had reason to believe that long-stalled peace talks with the Palestinians could resume in a matter of weeks. Netanyahu did not give details, but an Israeli official indicated Israel would take a step to make it possible for the Palestinians to agree to talks. He did not give details and spoke on condition of anonymity because no offer has been made. Palestinians have been insisting...

The Middle East peace talks are at a deadlock. Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians to move ahead with the plan established by the so-called Quartet – the US., U.N., EU and Russia -- have faltered and come to a complete standstill. Continuing with this inertia will have a long-term negative effect on the future of the region both from a political point of view as well as from a business perspective. With the exception of a few risk-takers, what company or business executive would be willing to invest in the Middle East once the region plunges onto the abyss...

Truthfully, the real reason there is no peace between Israel and the Palestinians is the Palestinians don't want peace. No other country in the world has made concessions the way Israel has. Since 1977, they given up areas of land three times the size of the State of Israel. The Oslo process began in 1993. Sixteen years have passed since then, and they are no closer to a permanent settlement. The Palestinians don't want peace, after all its bad for buisness. It is the hatred of Israel that allows the PA to keep power. It deflects public anger from their...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu declared that he wanted to immediately resume negotiations with the Palestinians Monday and rejected the charge that he wasn't interested in reaching an agreement. "We need to move toward peace with a sense of urgency and a sense of purpose," Netanyahu told the Jewish Federations of North America's General Assembly during a trip to Washington. "My goal is not negotiations for the sake of negotiations; My goal is to achieve a permanent peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians, and soon. I cannot be more emphatic on this point." Critics of Netanyahu, particularly in the Arab...

Palestinians on Sunday accused US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton of undermining progress toward Mideast peace talks after she praised Israel for offering to curb some Jewish settlement construction

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli and Palestinian activists on Tuesday presented the most detailed vision yet of what a peace deal could look like — more than 400 pages crammed with maps, timetables for troop withdrawals and even a list of weapons a non-militarized Palestine would be barred from having. The manual has no official standing, but has generated interest among Israeli and Palestinian leaders and is meant to show it's still possible to establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel, despite many setbacks, said those involved in the drafting. The plan's details illustrated the many obstacles that have to be...

President Obama's Middle East policy is in ruins. While the US continues to press Israel for a settlement freeze (and now a freeze on Jerusalem) his strategy is falling apart piece by piece. He has turned the Israeli populace against him and strengthened the hand of Prime Minister Netanyahu. At the same time he has eroded his own support among American Jews and other US friends of Israel. The Arab League nations answered no to the Presidents request for a peace gesture and the President of the Palestinian Authority uses Obama's settlement pressure as his "out" from re-entering negotiations. What...

Defense minister briefs senior cabinet members on London meeting with Obama's Mideast envoy; one of them quoted as saying Barak 'offered dismantling of illegal West Bank outposts in exchange for nothing' Roni Sofer "(Defense Minister Ehud) Barak returned with nothing from his talks with (special US Mideast envoy) George Mitchell; it appears that he offered the dismantling of illegal West Bank outposts in exchange for nothing," a senior minister said Tuesday. The minister, who asked to remain nameless, was also quoted by his associates as saying, "The inclusion of Syria and Lebanon in the statement on a comprehensive peace agreement...

For the past month or so, President Obama has been putting most of the blame for the lack of Middle East peace on Israel and the settlements. His demand of a settlement building freeze requires a prohibition on construction inside the footprint of communities that today are de facto Israeli territory. These are the city-settlements that have long been slated for inclusion into Israel in any final-status agreement, with equivalent Israeli territory awarded to the future Palestinian state through land swaps. But the presidential myopia goes beyond that, Obama has chosen to ignore the one single fact that has stalled...

Since we are about to embark on another fruitless peace effort in the Middle East, it probably makes sense to take another look a the UN Resolution we will be hearing a lot about over the next few months, resolution 242. You will hear politicians and diplomats say that Israel must withdraw to the pre-1967 borders per UN Resolution 242. These people have no Idea what the resolution calls for: Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict; It all surrounds the use (or non-use) of one simple article "The." The Arab side and their supporters...

Most people do not understand the real problem with securing a "two-state solution" between the Palestinians and Israel, only one side, Israel is interested in achieving peace. The Palestinians have NEVER made the commitment to live aside a Jewish State of Israel, in fact the new PA government is not even willing to commit to new negotiations. As reported by my friend Barry Rubin: The Palestinian Authority (PA) has announced its thirteenth government in fourteen years. Its prime minister is Salam Fayad, a Westernized professional economist who has no political base whatsoever. Why is he prime minister? The only reason...

Well this should make negotiations go much quicker. Palestinian President and "Moderate Terrorist, Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday that there will be no negotiations until Israel agrees to return to the pre-Six-Day-War Borders. Previously he has said that he will not recognize a Israel as a Jewish State, Israel must agree to give the Temple Mount to the Palestinians, and that Israel must agree to a Palestinian right of return. In other words, give us everything we want, then we can talk. Folks, this kind of talk proves that there will peace will not happen in the near future, because the...