Tagged Israeli-Palestinian peace talks

(JTA) — This is the fourth op-ed in a series of pieces about anti-Semitism and Jewish issues written by 2020 presidential candidates. This one is by Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts.  The Jewish Telegraphic Agency has sent five questions about anti-Semitism and Jewish issues to all of… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The new Palestinian Authority prime minister said the still-to-be unveiled Trump administration peace plan will be “born dead.” Mohammad Shtayyeh told The Associated Press in a wide-ranging hourlong interview that the international community would join the Palestinians in rejecting the peace plan, whose release date has… Read more »

(JTA) — Donald Trump is just the man to get an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal done. Just ask Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli prime minister was gushing last week about Trump’s negotiating team, which is led by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. “The thing the people don’t realize is that these people… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — As President Donald Trump prepares to address the issue of Jerusalem in a White House speech, the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem instructed U.S. officials not to travel to the Old City or West Bank in the face of reports that there will be protests. Sarah Huckabee… Read more »

Hillary Rodham Clinton, with Haim Saban, making a point at the entertainment mogul's eponymous annual forum, at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., Dec. 5, 2014. (Peter Halmagyi)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — From the drive for Israeli-Palestinian peace to nuclear talks with Iran, Hillary Rodham Clinton is endorsing President Obama’s Israel-related positions. Clinton, who was Obama’s secretary of state during his first term, spoke Friday night with Haim Saban, the Israeli-American entertainment mogul who through the Brookings Institution… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is talking tough. And Israel and the United States don’t seem to mind too much — or else think their best option at this point is to grin and bear it. Abbas used his Sept. 26 speech to the United Nations… Read more »

Martin Indyk said that refraining from imposing ideas on the Israelis and Palestinians inhibited both sides from embracing them. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – What was supposed to have revived the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks — allowing negotiations to develop organically — instead helped kill them, Martin Indyk, until recently the top U.S. peace broker, told JTA in a candid and wide-ranging interview. Speaking by phone Sept. 19 while in transit… Read more »

“Right now, the peace talks are based on only one thing, only on peace talks. It makes no sense at this point to talk about the most contractible issue. It’s Jerusalem or bust, or right of return or bust. That has led to failure and is likely to lead… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — In the charming movie “Groundhog Day,” Bill Murray’s character repeatedly relives the same day until learning from the repetition transforms him from lout to worthy wooer of his colleague, played by Andie MacDowell. The “Groundhog Day” of Presbyterian-Jewish relations is coming soon to a theater… Read more »

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Secretary of State John Kerry in Jerusalem on March 31, 2014. (Amos Ben Gershom/Israel Government Press Office/FLASH90)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Now that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have screeched to a halt, U.S. officials are apportioning blame, and a big share is going to Israel. In an interview with Nahum Barnea, a veteran diplomatic affairs writer for the Israeli daily Yediot Achronot, anonymous members of the U.S. negotiating team… Read more »

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas meets with journalists in Ramallah on April 22, 2014, a day before his Fatah faction signed a reconciliation agreement with the militant group Hamas. (Palestinian Press Office via Getty Images)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Nine months of negotiations were supposed to propel Israelis and Palestinians into a future of peace. Instead, the collapse of talks is threatening to make the future look much like the past. Israel’s decision last week to suspend negotiations — a day after the signing of… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A pox on both your houses, but when you want a cure, we’re still here. That’s the message the Obama administration is sending Israel and the Palestinians amid the deepening crisis in peace efforts. “What we haven’t seen is, frankly, the kind of political will to… Read more »

Secretary of State John Kerry testifies during aSenate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on April 8, 2014. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Obama administration is sticking with the Israeli-Palestinian peace process for now despite a crisis that has threatened to scuttle talks. That’s the message U.S. officials were peddling as a top State Department team was in the region turning over the engine attempting to restart the… Read more »

Yair Lapid says he would leave the coalition if the Israeli government did not "exhaust all options" in its peace negotiations with the Palestinians. (Elad Gutman)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid said he supports freezing settlement growth to help jump-start peace negotiations and vowed that his centrist Yesh Atid party would leave Israel’s governing coalition if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were responsible for the collapse of the peace process. In an… Read more »

Israelis calling for the release of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard during President Obama's visit to Jerusalem, March 19, 2013. (Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)

 WASHINGTON (JTA) — Possibilities raised during efforts to resolve the current crisis over Israeli-Palestinian peace talks include freeing Jonathan Pollard, a partial settlement freeze, guarantees that Palestinians won’t push for international recognition and a mass prisoner release.  Officials close to the talks confirmed to JTA that U.S. Secretary of… Read more »

It is no secret that when Israel’s government announced this past September that we would be returning to the table to negotiate with the Palestinians, I was not optimistic about the prospects of this latest round of talks. I knew that as much as we desire peace and normalcy… Read more »

Scarcely a week goes by, it seems, without Israel’s Minister of Defense Moshe Ya’alon getting his name into the headlines for provocative statements about the United States and its leaders. First, he called US Secretary of State John Kerry “obsessive and messianic” for his efforts to mediate a peace… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – The Obama administration is scrambling to salvage Israeli-Palestinian talks threatened by disputes over core identity issues for each side: recognition of the state’s Jewish character for Israel, the release of prisoners for the Palestinians. Martin Indyk, the peace process envoy for U.S. Secretary of State John… Read more »

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the AIPAC Policy Conference was another rhetorical tour-de-force by this most silvered-tongued of Israeli leaders. There were applause lines for almost everyone. Once again, Netanyahu promised to defend Israel against an Iranian nuclear threat and to be beholden to no other nation in… Read more »

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's Policy Conference March 4, 2014 in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Benjamin Netanyahu came to Washington determined to hold the line on Iran, but he also brought something new: an expansive vision of Middle East peace. The Israeli prime minister remained firm, after meeting with President Obama on Monday, in insisting that any nuclear deal must remove… Read more »