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Israel warned on Wednesday that it might shun a key EU research program unless a compromise is found over the bloc’s guidelines which boycott Israeli entities operating beyond the Green Line. Israel’s position was spelled out at a meeting with the European Union on the Jewish state’s participation in Horizon 2020, the bloc’s six-year funding plan for research and innovation, the foreign ministry said, according to AFP. … Horizon 2020 aims “to de-pollute the Mediterranean by the year 2020 by tackling the sources of pollution that account for around 80% of the overall pollution of the Mediterranean Sea: municipal waste,...

The United States said on Thursday that it was against Israeli approval of new Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria. The comments were made hours after it was reported that the Civil Administration has authorized construction of 878 housing units in Judea and Samaria. The units were approved for towns in the Binyamin region, the Jordan Valley, and Gush Etzion. Speaking to reporters, State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki responded when asked about the new construction, "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity and opposes any efforts to legitimize settlement outposts." She added that Washington had...

In response to the European Union’s guidelines which forbid any contact with Israeli companies operating beyond the 1949 Armistice Line, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has clarified that Israel will not sign any contracts with Europe so long as the boycott of these regions continues. Netanyahu met on Thursday to discuss the issue with Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, Finance Minister Yair Lapid, Agriculture Minister Yair Shamir and Science and Technology Minister Yaakov Perry. Following the meeting, Netanyahu said, “Israel will not sign agreements with the EU, so long as the directive on the [pre-]1967 borders remains in...

The Israeli Cabinet on Sunday expanded its list of West Bank settlements eligible for government subsidies, a decision that came just days after the resumption of long-frozen peace talks and drew quick Palestinian condemnation. The Cabinet approved a range of housing subsidies and loans for more than 600 Israeli communities deemed “national priority areas,” expanding an earlier list. The list includes poor towns in Israel’s outlying areas, but also dozens of settlements. The Palestinians want to establish a state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem—lands Israel captured in 1967—and renewed talks are to draw Israel’s borders with such...

In a deal to temper Jewish Home’s resistance to the release of over a hundred long-time Palestinian prisoners, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to advance construction of thousands of housing units in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Hebrew daily Maariv reported Wednesday morning. The Prime Minister’s office declined to comment on the report. According to the report, members of the religious-nationalist Jewish Home party were convinced to swallow what they saw as the bitter pill of the prisoner release — and not threaten to walk out of the government — for the sake of furthering their cause...

President Peres has politely suggested that the European Union to step out of Middle Eastern affairs while delicate negotiations are in process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. … The Israeli president, who is also visiting Lithuania, thanked Latvia for helping to convince the European Union to list the military wing of the Hizbullah terror organization as a terrorist entity. But Peres also criticized the EU for blocking financial aid to Israeli institutions located in Judea, Samaria and areas of Jerusalem restored to the capital following the 1967 Six Day War. …

Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon has ordered the Coordinator of Government Activities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, Maj. Gen. Eitan Dangot, to turn down any request by the European Union which relates to these regions, Channel 2 News reported on Thursday evening. Yaalon’s directive is a direct response to the EU’s new guidelines which forbid any contact with Israeli companies operating beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines, said the report. … According to Channel 2 News, Yaalon instructed Dangot to make it difficult for the Europeans to operate in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. In the past week, Israel has denied several European...

The European Union’s new ban on areas located beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines will do nothing to advance peace talks, Finance Minister Yair Lapid wrote on Friday. In fact, said Lapid in an op-ed which appeared in the New York Times, the ban will simply encourage terrorist groups. “As the American secretary of state, John Kerry, leads new efforts to reinvigorate peace talks among Israelis and Palestinians, one of the obstacles—if not the main one—is the presence of extremist Palestinians and their supporters,” he wrote. … According to Lapid, “The world shouldn’t make things easier for extremists. It’s challenging enough...

Future agreements between the European Union and Israel must include the explicit exclusion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank or East Jerusalem, according to a new EU directive described by an Israeli official as an “earthquake”. The EU guidelines, adopted on 30 June, will prohibit the issuing of grants, funding, prizes or scholarships unless a settlement exclusion clause is included. Israeli institutions and bodies situated across the pre-1967 Green Line will be automatically ineligible. The Israeli government will be required to state in any future agreements with the EU that settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are...

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas continues to promote the PA libel that Israel is scheming and acting to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, Palestinian Media Watch reported. In an interview to the Saudi paper Al-Watan, Abbas said that the Arab and Islamic world should become more pro-active in responding to the Israeli “plot”. "All these [Israeli] actions indicate an evil and dangerous plot to destroy Al-Aqsa [Mosque] and build the alleged Temple,” Abbas said, according to PMW. “Unfortunately, these dangers, which are clear for everyone to see, have yet to receive proper Arab, Islamic and international responses," Abbas said....

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday slammed Israel's plans to increase construction in Judea and Samaria, saying they were undermining hopes of ending the Middle East conflict by setting up a Palestinian state. "The secretary general is deeply concerned by the continuing expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank in violation of international law," said UN spokesman Martin Nesirky, according to the AFP news agency. Ban was "particularly troubled" at Israel moving forward with plans for more than 1,000 new homes in two communities Judea and Samaria, the spokesman said. He was referring to plans to build...

In a throwback to its darkest past, the German government recently decided to back an initiative which singles out Jewish-owned businesses and targets them for detrimental treatment. Joining 13 other European Union members, Berlin has reportedly agreed to support efforts aimed at applying special labels of origin to products manufactured by Jewish owned factories in Judea and Samaria. The goal is to harm the livelihood of Jewish businessmen and entrepreneurs as a way of undermining the settlement enterprise. Needless to say, goods made by Palestinian-run plants in the territories will not similarly be branded.

German government document gives backing to EU efforts to put “Made in Israel” label only on products from within pre-1967 lines. … Foreign Ministry officials downplayed as “nothing new” an answer the German government gave to a parliamentary question last month supporting EU efforts to specially label goods originating in Israeli-controlled territory beyond the Green Line. Berlin, the officials said, was merely falling into line with other EU countries which were pushing this issue. …

The labeling of products made by Jews in Judea and Samaria would damage Israel, a report by the Foreign Ministry said—but it would damage PA Arabs even more. According to the report, some 22,500 PA Arabs are employed inside Israeli towns in Judea and Samaria. These Arabs are among the highest paid laborers in the PA. … In addition, they have social rights, including health benefits and pension rights, that are usually unavailable to PA Arabs. … If the aim of the European Union is to assist PA Arabs, the report said, then the labeling of goods from Jewish-owned businesses...

s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu nearing his second declaration in four years on a building freeze in the West Bank in order to facilitate the renewal of peace talks with the Palestinians? The answer is probably no. An official source in Jerusalem told The Israel Post that "Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] received this opportunity once. This will not happen again." "If the Palestinians want to talk they know we are waiting for them at the table," the source said. After four years rounds of talks in Jerusalem and Ramallah in the last two months in an effort...

British Foreign Secretary William Hague, who is currently visiting Israel, said in an interview with Sky News that Israel has lost some support in Britain and in other European countries due to its settlement construction policy. He warned that the window of opportunity for Israel and the Palestinians to agree to form a two-state solution was closing fast. …

DUBLIN -Former US President Jimmy Carter said in Dublin “the EU should move to introduce proper labelling of goods produced on illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.” (snip)It could therefore introduce a clear labelling of products made in Israeli settlements, which are illegal under international law,” he added. Ireland currently holds the rotating EU presidency until end of June. Mary Robinson said this was not “an anti-Israel move,” but rather “a concrete step, supported by many of our Israeli friends, to revive the hope of a future state of Palestine

Former Attorney General Michael Ben-Yair severely criticized Israel’s conduct in the West Bank in a debate on his Facebook page over the last few days, Yedioth Ahronoth reported. “The settlements are the most evil and foolish acts since World War II,” Ben-Yair said in a post. … One of Ben-Yair’s Facebook friends, journalist Yaoz Sever, responded: “Do you claim that the settlements are worse than Pol Pot’s regime in Cambodia? Than Stalin’s crimes against his people? Than Darfur?” “Definitely,” answered Ben-Yair. “The settlement movement is a political act by a state against another people and as such is the most...

Ten days after President Obama’s June 2009 address “to the Muslim world” in Cairo, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, in a speech of his own, gently chided him for linking Jewish aspirations for a homeland with persecution and the Holocaust rather than a 3,000-year connection to the land. Judging from his itinerary, when Obama arrives Wednesday for his first presidential visit to Israel, he hopes to correct the impression that he failed to grasp what drove the Jewish dream to re-establish a state 65 years ago in the biblical land of Israel. … An argument often cited by Israeli critics...

Israeli settlers living in the Palestinian territories often deceptively give their products a “Made in Israel” label. The European Union wants to move soon to end the practice and appears to be set on a collision course with the country. … The international community has never recognized Israeli sovereignty over these areas, and the Geneva Convention outlaws the establishment of settlements within occupied territories. Nevertheless, successive Israeli governments have allowed colonies to be built up within them and, today, some 650,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. …