Tagged Palestinian authority

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israel’s government may be ambivalent about the nascent reconciliation between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, but it outright opposes Palestinian bids for statehood recognition through international bodies, including the United Nations. However, for one influential Israeli constituency — the families of Israelis held captive in Hamas-controlled… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken a wait-and-see approach to last week’s Palestinian reconciliation deal. Netanyahu spoke out publicly and loudly against the move toward unity between the feuding Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas, calling it a threat to Israel and a setback to peace.… Read more »

  WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Trump administration is encouraging the Palestinian Authority to assume control of the Gaza Strip and leaving the door open for a role by Hamas in the subsequent Palestinian government. But if such a move was once seen as a traditional predicate to a two-state… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Palestinian Authority expects the Trump administration to commit to a peace deal endgame before the close of this month and prefers it would be the two-state solution. “We need them to tell us where the hell they are going,” Husam Zomlot, the Palestine Liberation Organization… Read more »

  JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli security forces shut down six illegal weapons manufacturing factories in the West Bank in what the army said was the biggest such operation of an ongoing crackdown. The raids conducted jointly by the Israel Defense Forces, Shin Bet security service and Israel Police took place Monday night in Bethlehem and Hebron.… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking at an annual U.S.-Israel confab, said Israel’s government must consider the consequences of evolving toward a single state incorporating the Palestinian areas. “How does Israel possibly maintain its character as a Jewish democratic state?” Kerry said Saturday at the Saban Forum in Washington,… Read more »

“I was a political appointee for two Republican presidents and two Democratic presidents. … What that makes me is an extinct species,” Ambassador Dennis Ross told a crowd of more than 850 at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s “Together” campaign kickoff on Nov. 18 at Congregation Anshei Israel.… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) – In assigning blame for the recent wave of violence in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has turned to the usual suspects – Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. But he has also accused a lesser-known group that operates within Israel’s borders: the Islamic Movement, a religious political… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Barack Obama’s refusal to accept Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ostensible recommitment to a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has watchers of the U.S.-Israel relationship wondering if the recent crisis is a mere speed bump or a sign of a deeper shift in ties… Read more »

(JTA) — A former Clinton administration envoy has let the cat out of the bag on the issue of Palestinian incitement, putting him squarely at odds with Secretary of State John Kerry. Shibley Telhami was one of the Clinton administration’s representatives to the Trilateral U.S.-Israeli-Palestinian Anti-Incitement Committee. Never heard… Read more »

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA) — Loading a newly released video of a beheading in Syria on his smartphone, Nabil Abuznaid, the Palestinians’ ambassador here, shakes his head in disbelief. “Look at those animals,” he says, referring to the fighters from the ISIS jihadist group who carried out the decapitation.… Read more »

Israeli soldiers leaving the Gaza Strip seen near the border between Israel and the Hamas-controlled coastal area, Aug. 4, 2014. (Flash90)

(JTA) – Now that the latest Gaza conflict appears to be over — or nearly so — it’s time to take stock of the winners and losers. Who won the war? Perhaps more than the other two Gaza conflicts in the last six years, Israel is the clear winner… Read more »

(JTA) – Now that Hamas appears to have achieved one of the central goals of its confrontation with Israel, the capture of a live Israeli soldier, a number of things are likely to follow. Hamas is going to trumpet its operation as a success, and that assertion will reach… Read more »

Head of the Hamas government Ismail Haniyeh (right) and senior Fatah official Azzam Al-Ahmed (left) raise their hands together at a news conference that announced a reconciliation agreement between the rival Palestinian factions in Gaza City on April 23, 2014. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

Past attempts by the Islamist terrorist group Hamas and the secular Fatah movement to jointly rule the Palestinian territories have failed. After the latest pledge by the rival factions to unite, opinions vary on what the accord will mean for the Palestinians, for Israel, and for the future of… Read more »

Our agencies regularly provide background discussions concerning  Middle East negotiations, the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA for the cream of the crop of North American Jewry, which includes clergy, students, academics and all streams of Jewish religious observance, from Orthodox Jews to Reconstructionist Jews. Whenever possible, we invite someone who… Read more »

Palestinians demonstrating against the high costs of living in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Sept. 11, 2012. (Issam Rimawi/Flash90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) – Could the Palestinian Authority’s budget woes end up costing Israel? Growing economic protests in the West Bank could lead to increased regional instability and perhaps even the end of the Palestinian Authority, experts are warning. At this point, however, they say the protests are unlikely… Read more »

A volley of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip was intercepted by the Iron Dome system near the Israeli town of Ashdod area on Sunday morning March 11, 2012. (Flash90/JTA)

JERUSALEM (JTA) –  As southern Israel was barraged by rockets for a fourth straight day, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was hitting back “strongly and decisively,” and its Iron Dome anti-missile defense system was intercepting many of the rockets coming from the Gaza Strip. “The IDF is continuing… Read more »

Zidan Badran, mayor of the Israeli portion of the Arab town of Barta'a, stands on the seam that separates the Israeli part of town from its West Bank portion. (Linda Gradstein)

BARTA’A, West Bank (JTA) — In these days of frozen peace negotiations, most Israelis and Palestinians have little contact. Palestinians need a special permit to enter Israel, and Israelis need army permission to enter the parts of the West Bank controlled by the Palestinian Authority. In fact, just a… Read more »

RAMALLAH, West Bank (JTA) — The delegation of Israelis who traveled last week to the West Bank headquarters of the Palestinian Authority, the Mukata in Ramallah, consisted mostly of the usual suspects. There were a few newcomers, such as Israeli tycoon Idan Ofer, but for the most part they… Read more »