France will convene some 70 countries on Jan. 15 for a Middle East peace conference in Paris, its foreign minister said on Thursday, and will invite the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to meet separately at its conclusion. France has repeatedly tried to breathe new life into the peace process this year, holding a preliminary conference…
(JTA) — The U.S. State Department said it was “profoundly concerned” about a controversial bill that would help legalize West Bank outposts built on Palestinian land. When asked about the measure, known as the Regulation Bill, State Department spokesman Mark Toner on Tuesday during a press briefing also called enactment of such a law “profoundly damaging…
President Barack Obama, keen to preserve his legacy on domestic health care and the Iran nuclear deal, is not expected to make major moves on Israeli-Palestinian peace before leaving office, U.S. officials said on Thursday. One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the last word on the president’s failed peace effort might come…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Outgoing Secretary of State John Kerry signaled in a speech that the Obama administration was still considering action on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in its final days, although it might fall short of a direct intervention on the issue. There’s no way to “force-feed” peace between Israel and the Palestinians, Kerry said in a lengthy speech delivered Tuesday…
Masses of women wearing white and chanting songs of peace made their way through the dust of northern Israel on their way to Kfar Yehoshua in the Jezreel Valley. It was the fifth day of the March of Hope, and a core group of 19 women, surrounded by hundreds of supporters, were walking for peace….
— The international peace conference that begins Friday in Paris will harm chances for Israeli-Palestinian peace and “radicalize Palestinian demands,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said two days before its start. In a speech Wednesday at Bar-Ilan University’s medical school graduation, Netanyahu criticized the Paris effort and repeated a call for direct talks “without preconditions,”…
Benjamin Netanyahu has turned to a 14-year-old Arab peace plan in trying to project a softer image internationally for a new governing coalition in Israel widely seen as more hardline towards Palestinian statehood. In what some political commentators and opposition politicians called spin but a spokesman for Netanyahu dubbed “an important development,” the right-wing prime…
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Sunni Muslim countries are ready to normalize ties with Israel should Israel negotiate a peace deal with the Palestinian Authority on the basis of the Arab Peace Initiative. The Arab Peace Initiative, first proposed in 2002 and reaffirmed in recent years, calls for full…
100% of profits support our journalism
