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Rice: Israeli settlements contravene U.S. policy By Shmuel Rosner and Arnon Regular, Haaretz Correspondents, and the Associated Press Several hours ahead of her meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States delivered harsh messages to Israel over construction between Eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank town of Ma'aleh Adumim, which contravenes the Bush Administration policy in the Middle East. Speaking at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Rice said that the U.S. is concerned about Israeli construction in the West Bank, and cuts back on economic aid to Israel due...

Gaza City (CNSNews.com) - The scheduled withdrawal of Israeli communities from the Gaza Strip is a defeat for Israel, and the armed conflict that led to that "defeat" will continue until Israel leaves all of the West Bank and Israel, a senior Hamas leader said in an interview with Cybercast News Service. Hamas, on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations, is taking credit for Israel's decision to uproot Jewish communities and Israeli military bases from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank. The disengagement, initiated by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, is scheduled to begin in mid-August. Mahmoud...

US Urging Israel to "move Forward" Despite Netanya BombingBy Barry Schweid The Associated Press Published: Jul 12, 2005 WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration, condemning Tuesday's deadly bombing in Israel, urged Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to "move ahead" toward establishing a Palestinian state despite the violence. The immediate focus should be withdrawal from Gaza and part of the West Bank, as Sharon has pledged to do later this summer, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said. Evidently concerned that Sharon might stop at that point because Palestinian leaders have not dismantled terror groups, Casey said the planned pullout was a "genuine...

Shattering a relative calm surrounding the Sharm el-Sheikh summit, Palestinians fired 17 mortar shells in the Gaza Strip early on Monday, most of them exploding near Neve Dekalim settlement. A number of the shells fell in Palestinian areas of the Strip. No injuries were immediately reported, but one of the houses in the settlement sustained damage. The salvo was one of the heaviest mortar barrages since Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas reached an accord on January 22, under which militants would curb their activities, unless Israel resumed military operations in the territories. Following the early morning attack, IDF...

Nov. 26, 2003 Powell optimistic about road map By JPOST.COM STAFF U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell expressed optimism about renewed movement toward peace in the Middle East in an interview released Wednesday, but said the new Palestinian government must first show it is acting against terrorism. "We should not say that the 'road map' is dead," Powell was quoted as saying in the interview, to be published in Thursday's edition of the German weekly Die Zeit. "We have not only a new Palestinian leadership but also movement on the Israeli side." Powell cited among the encouraging signs "interesting comments...

The suicide bomber who blew up a bus in central Jerusalem Wednesday was disguised as a haredi or ultra-Orthodox Jew, officials said.

The U.S. administration is demanding Israel formally accept the road map to a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, so that it does not appear to be recalcitrant trying to delay advancing the political process. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's chief of staff, attorney Dov Weisglass met yesterday with U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in an effort to find a formula that would enable Israel to accept the plan, while taking into account its comments and reservations about it. Rice also meant with Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayyad, who is in Washington for parallel talks with administration officials. Meanwhile, reports in...

Twenty-two American Christian conservative leaders signed a letter sent to US President George W. Bush on Monday protesting the road map for Middle East peace saying in its current form it "could lead to disaster." "You and the United States are being undermined by the other members of the so-called 'Quartet' - the European Union, the United Nations and Russia. You and the United States are being pressured to show we are 'evenhanded' and are being urged to pressure Israel to make concessions," the letter says. "It would be morally reprehensible for the United States to be 'evenhanded' between democratic...