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Former Justice Minister Haim Ramon spoke out against the proposed ceasefire-prisoner swap deal, saying that it is "the worst deal" that Israel could possibly agree to. In an interview with 103 FM Radio, Ramon said, "The deal proposed today is the worst of all worlds. In practice, we will end the war. Anyone who thinks that after 42 days, by pressing a button, we will restart the war - is making a mistake. People will return to the Gaza border area, to the north, and it will be very hard to continue the war." "Because it is this way, and...

Like many of Egypt’s towns and cities, Port Said is bustling. Donkey-carts weave through traffic on roads, while westerners – once the focus of local hostility – move about undisturbed. Sitting at the northern mouth of the Suez Canal, many call Port Said Egypt’s most beautiful city. It is also a popular tourist destination for cruise ships, which roll in and out, unloading their passengers at Egypt’s second largest port. Here, the visitors watch as cargo vessels line up to enter the canal – a 150km stretch of water that links the Red and Mediterranean seas, cutting out the long...

Former US President Bill Clinton admitted Tuesday that he intervened in the Israeli elections in 1996 to help then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres defeat rival Binyamin Netanyahu. "It would be fair to say that I tried to help Peres win the elections, and I tried to help him in such a way that I would not be openly involved," Clinton said in an interview with Israel's Channel 10 News. "I tried to help him, because I thought he was a bigger supporter of the peace process, and I tried to do it in a way that served, in my opinion, Israel's...

Former president Bill Clinton confessed to Israeli television that he tried to help Shimon Peres defeat Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel’s 1996 general elections. In an interview on Channel 10 news that aired Tuesday, Clinton admitted that he tried to help Peres win the election in a way that didn’t “overtly” implicate him, and that he did so because Peres was more committed than Netanyahu to the so-called peace process, which had suffered a huge blow with the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin six months earlier.

The death of former Israeli president and prime minister Shimon Peres last week marks the last of the Zionist “old guard” who successfully fought for a UN mandate to establish the state of Israel in what was formerly British Palestine. Much has been written about Peres since his death. He was a peacemaker. He was a warrior. He was brutal. He was complex. It is possible for all of them to be accurate at the same time. Was Peres a warrior? That is without question. Israel was established in bloodshed and Peres played an important role in that fight. Also,...

Death and Funeral of Shimon Peres Debate Recap – Lester Holt and Lessons Learned LIVE Saturday (10/1) 8 AM EST!!! On Thursday morning, a NJ Transit commuter train crashed into the station in Hoboken, NJ. One young mother was killed, and more than 100 injured. Is this train wreck symbolic of the state of the world? Monday evening, presidential candidates Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton squared off in the first of three planned debates. What we learned most was that Trump faced a tag-team: Hillary and the moderator. But what can and should we expect from our lousy, oft-train...

(AFP) – Hamas welcomed the death of former Israeli president Shimon Peres Wednesday, calling him a “criminal”, while the Palestinian Authority made no official comment after the death of the Nobel Peace Prize winner. In the Gaza Strip, a spokesman for the Islamist Hamas movement which runs the enclave said: “The Palestinian people are happy at the death of this criminal. “Shimon Peres was one of the last Israeli founders of occupation. His death marks the end of an era in the history of the Israeli occupation,” spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP. Tributes to the 93-year-old poured in from...

Condolences Page Created For Shimon PeresBy Israel News Agency StaffJerusalem, Israel — September 28, 2016 … With tears we confirm the passing of former President, Prime Minister Shimon Peres. Israel has lost a founding father, a light for peace. A Condolence Page has been created at Shimon Peres CondolencesThe Shimon Peres condolences page was established on Facebook and will be maintained for several years on both Facebook and on a private Website. Shimon Peres was one of the founders of the State of Israel, and was instrumental in building and developing Israel’s defense and security industry, establishing the IDF, developing...

Shimon Peres, one of Israel’s defining political figures and a Nobel peace prize laureate, has died at the age of 93, two weeks after having a stroke, the official Israel News Agency has confirmed. Peres had twice served as prime minister of Israel and later as the country’s ninth president. He had been seriously ill on a respirator in an Israeli hospital near Tel Aviv and died after his condition deteriorated sharply.

Israel's former President Shimon Peres was rushed to hospital after experiencing chest pains, just a week after suffering a mild heart attack, his spokeswoman said Sunday night. The 92-year-old statesman had been discharged from hospital on Tuesday last week. Medics treated Peres at his home and detected a "light irregular heart rate" after conducting an EKG test, spokeswoman Ayelet Frisch said. "Due to the diagnosis, his doctors decided that the 9th President will spend the night in hospital for observation and testing," she said. ...

US President Barack Obama called former President Shimon Peres over the weekend to wish him well, after Peres suffered a heart attack. In the conversation, Obama thanked Peres for their long friendship, according to a press release on Saturday night from Peres's office. "I was lucky to be treated by a dedicated medical team that worked around the clock, not only to open and improve my artery but to improve my heart. I left hospital stronger than I entered," said Peres in the phone call. He also lauded Obama for sealing the controversial Iran nuclear deal, even as it has...

Israel's 92-year-old former President Shimon Peres suffered a "mild" heart attack Thursday but was in "excellent" condition following a heart procedure, his personal physician said. Peres was rushed to a hospital near Tel Aviv from his home on Thursday morning after he fell ill with chest pains and a check-up found an irregular heart rate, his spokeswoman Ayelet Frisch told Israeli Army Radio. His personal physician Raphi Walden said Peres had a "mild heart attack" but that "his condition is excellent" following a successful cardiac catheterization. ...

Rabin never offered any such two-state compromise Former Israeli President Shimon Peres has pre-empted the memorial rally this Saturday evening to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the assassination on 4 November 1995 of Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin - by writing – quite misleadingly - of Rabin’s vision in the Jerusalem Post this week. Former US president Bill Clinton, Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin and Yitzchak Rabin’s daughter - former deputy defence minister Dalia Rabin - are scheduled to participate in the rally – and hopefully will set the record straight.

MNSBC's Morning Joe reported this morning that President Bill Clinton hosted an Israeli prime minister, Shimon Peres, in his election against Benjamin Netanyahu. President Obama is refusing to meet with Netanyahu next week because, he says, it's too close to Israel's election day. "It's not unprecedented," the MSNBC host said of an American president hosting an Israel prime minister during his reelection campaign. "In 1996, the Clinton administration hosted Shimon Peres for a U.S. visit while he was in the midst of an election against Benjamin Netanyahu." "Democratic presidents have always loathed Benjamin Netanyahu," said the other MSNBC host, Joe...

The supposedly unprecedented step taken by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his plan to speak directly before Congress about the Iranian nuclear threat on March 3, rather than working exclusively with the White House on the issue, actually has an interesting precedent—established in 1975 by none other than Yitzhak Rabin and America’s Democratic Party. That spring, Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger undertook a round of shuttle diplomacy aimed at reaching a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. The negotiations quickly ran into trouble, when Egypt refused to offer anything more than a brief a period of “non-belligerency” in...

Former President Shimon Peres addressed the upcoming elections in March for the first time publicly on Saturday, hinting that he would like to see a replacement for current Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. "These elections are crucial," Peres said. "We have an opportunity to make the best out of the situation we find ourselves in. Some things have changed for the worse and need to be fixed, but there are good things and we should take advantage of them." One issue Peres said had improved was Israel's relationship with the "moderate" Arab world. "The position of the Arab world has changed,...

US Secretary of State John Kerry has been adamant to EU officials not to push the Palestinian Authority (PA)’s anti-Israel resolution through the UN until after the March 2015 elections, a European diplomat told Foreign Policy Friday. “Kerry has been very, very clear that for the United States it was not an option to discuss whatever text before the end of the Israeli election,” the diplomat stated. Kerry said that the warning stems from a meeting he had with former President Shimon Peres and Hatnua Chairman Tzipi Livni, who appealed to him out of concerns that the anti-Israel resolution—if passed...

Speeaking at the 19th annual Rabin memorial rally Saturday night, former president Shimon Peres issued scathing criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the peace process with the Palestinians and of his government’s approach to the conflict. “There are those who have turned the word ‘peace’ into a derogatory term, and there are those who consider ‘peace supporters’ as delusional people,” declared Peres. “I say clearly today: Those who have given up on peace are the delusional ones. Those who gave up and stopped looking for peace. they’re the naive ones, the ones who are not patriots,” Peres added...

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres ended his term as president of Israel on Thursday—a man who symbolizes hopes for peace capping a seven-decade public career amid the brutal reality of war. Peres handed the ceremonial but high-profile presidency over to Reuven Rivlin, a legislator from the hawkish Likud Party. Although the globe-trotting elder statesman has made clear he has no intention to retire, few expect him to hold public office again, after a career that dates back to the 1940s and has seen him occupy almost every major government position in the land. […] … In sharp contrast to...

President Shimon Peres said the Israeli security crackdown will persist in its efforts to combat terror. “Alongside the heavy mourning, we will remain determined to punish the villainous terrorists with a firm hand,” he said. “Our war on terror will only grow, and will not be weakened, such that this murderous terror will not dare raise its head.” The president also offered his deepest condolences to the families and praised them for “devotedly raising their children.” “The kidnapping and murder of innocent youths in the dead of the night is a heinous and unforgivable crime,” opposition leader and Labor Party...