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Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu left the White House after a one-hour and 40-minute meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama Monday night without speaking to reporters -- a rare occurrence. The meeting had been grudgingly scheduled early Sunday morning by the White House just a few hours before Netanyahu was to leave for the U.S. to speak at the 2009 General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America. The ninth-hour appointment was a clear sign that relations between Washington and Jerusalem remain strained; Netanyahu had requested the meeting weeks ago. Also in attendance for part of the meeting was Defense...

Middle East peace hopes were dealt a blow on Thursday when Mahmoud Abbas, the moderate Palestinian leader, announced he would stand down within weeks. He expressed frustration over shifts in the White House's policy on Israeli settlement construction as he told colleagues he was not prepared to seek a second term in elections in January. The loss of one of the Palestinian hierarchy's most conciliatory voices left President Barack Obama's Middle East peacekeeping efforts floundering and raised questions about his handling of negotiations in the region. Critics say the US president has fatally undermined Mr Abbas by conceding political ground...

RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Palestinian president said Thursday he does not want to run for another term in January elections, blaming a stalemate in Mideast peace talks on Israel and the United States. In a televised speech to the Palestinians, Mahmoud Abbas said he has told his "brothers" in the Fatah movement of his "desire not to run in the upcoming elections." But Abbas' careful wording left room for the possibility that he could be persuaded to change his mind, especially if he perceives the United States as backing his position on demanding an end to Israeli construction in...

JERUSALEM – The Palestinian president's political party says all hopes in the Obama administration have "evaporated," accusing the White House of caving in to pressure from the pro-Israel lobby and backing off a demand to freeze Jewish settlement. Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party also accused the U.S. of failing to set a clear agenda for a new round of Mideast peace talks, according to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday. "All hopes placed in the new U.S. administration and President Obama have evaporated," the document said. Obama "couldn't withstand the pressure of the Zionist lobby, which led...

Mohammed Dahlan, the former Fatah leader in Gaza and a senior PA legislator, told Israeli Radio listeners Sunday that a Jewish presence in eastern Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria is equivalent to Arab terrorist suicide bombings. "What is the difference between blowing up a bus in Tel Aviv and taking over Palestinian land?" he asked rhetorically. Dahlan also warned Israel that violent riots in the capital will continue as long as Jews visit the Temple Mount, which was re-opened to Jews on Sunday.

Israel “will pay a heavy price" if it does not break the new axis between the Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and the Islamic Movement, whose northern branch is headed by Sheilkh Raad Salah, Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer warned Monday morning. National Union Knesset Member Dr. Michael Ben-Ari said he is sponsoring a bill that would declare the Islamic Movement to be a terrorist organization.

President Barack Obama's first personal foray into Middle East mediation produced an unenthusiastic handshake between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders in New York yesterday but no commitment on when they would meet again. The US president held separate meetings with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, before hosting a joint meeting with both men. It was the first encounter between the two since Mr Netanyahu formed his rightwing coalition in March and took place despite his refusal to meet US and Palestinian demands for a total freeze on Israeli settlement -activity... Despite rumblings...

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have been brought together in New York for their first face-to-face meeting since the Gaza war eight months ago. US President Barack Obama is keen for the men to discuss ways of achieving Middle East peace but neither the Israeli Prime Minister, nor the Palestinian President appeared to want the meeting at all. Mr Obama summoned both of them anyway and before the meeting began he made it sound like he was about to bang some heads together. "We cannot continue the same pattern of taking tentative steps forward and then...

President Obama is expected to moderate a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in late September, a discussion that could lead to the resumption of peace negotiations, Israeli President Shimon Peres told FOX News. In an exclusive interview, Peres said plans are for Abbas and Netanyahu to meet at the end of September at the United Nations. "Yes, I think they will meet by the end of September. President Obama will chair it, and I think that at least there is a chance that they will decide they are going to reopen negotiations," Peres...

Abbas has several stakeholders in and around him: Israel, Hamas, Fatah, the moderate Arabs, the militant Arabs/Persians, and the United States. The challenge for the duplicitous Abbas is that the stakes of these several holders conflict, and he is summarily falling short on every count. He pleases and crosses every one of them as time goes on. The end result is coming into focus: Abbas isolated and expendable. He'll be the last to know and the one most harshly affected.

Note: The following text is a quote: MULTI-NATIONAL FORCE-IRAQ PRESS DESK BAGHDAD, Iraq http://www.mnf-iraq.com Press Release A090804-02 August 4, 2009 Iraqi Army, Police and Coalition advisors arrest 10 Ansar Islam operatives BAGHDAD – Mosul Special Weapons and Tactics and Iraqi Army soldiers, with Coalition advisors, conducted a series of raids on July 24 that targeted and successfully captured key leaders and operatives of Ansar al Islam in Mosul. Fakri Hadi Gari, also known as Abu ‘Abbas and Mullah Halgurd, assessed to be the deputy commander for Ansar al Islam was arrested during this raid. He is believed to be responsible...

(IsraelNN.com) Senior members of Fatah have announced that their group will never recognize Israel, and will continue to call for war against Israel. “Fatah does not recognize Israel's right to exist, nor have we ever asked others to do so,” said senior Fatah member Rafik Natsheh, a close associate of Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. Media reports, according to which Fatah has recognized Israel and has called on Hamas to do the same, are false, Natsheh said in an interview with the pan-Arab daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi. “It's all media nonsense. We don't ask other factions to recognize Israel; we...

Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas [ Abu Mazen] ordered Al-jazzera in the PA area be shut down. Charging that the  Arab network station was being "unbalanced" and "inciting" against the Fatah PA government: "Abbas's security forces have been systematically targeting journalists over the past few years. In the past year, at least seven Palestinian journalists and writers were arrested and held without trial in PA detention centers for allegedly criticizing the performance of Abbas and his prime minister, Salaam Fayad." Now when the Abbas Palestinian Authority controlled media engages in the glorification of terrorists and murderers as "heros" [Samir Kuntar], and incitement against Israel, they...

Earlier this week the President met with leaders of some of the major Jewish Organizations (the ones that helped to elect him). The President used the time to reassure, his Jewish supporters that he is being as tough on the Palestinians as he is on the Israelis. The facts prove otherwise. Obama has made Israel his public "whipping boy" because of the settlements. His administration has even lied, denying the fact that there was an agreement in place permitting Israel to expand existing settlements. Foolish Israel, expecting Barack Obama to live up to agreements made by previous administrations. The president...

Farouk al-Kaddoumi, a senior Palestine Liberation Organization leader, claims that Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas was directly involved in the murder of former PA chairman and terrorist leader Yasser Arafat.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman disregarded Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's provocative statements on how he would have constructed the Israeli government, were he prime minister, as an attempt by an illegitimate leader to gain ground by extreme declarations. "Abu Mazen [Abbas] isn't exactly legitimate, hence neither is his new demand, or suggestion, to replace Lieberman with Tzipi Livni. I see such advice as a blessing. His demand to cease settlement construction is nothing more than an expression of his distress and incompetence," he told Israel Radio on Monday, noting that the lower Abu Mazen's legitimacy drops, the harsher his demands...

Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu declared Sunday that the recognition by the Palestinians of Israel as a Jewish state was key to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "I am convinced that the root of the solution is in the refusal to recognize the Jewish state," said Netanyahu at a state ceremony to mark the 105th anniversary of the death of Theodor Herzl, the father of political Zionism. "Therefore, the key to peace is the explicit recognition by the Palestinians of Israel as a Jewish state." The premier made the same demand in a key policy speech he delivered a month ago at...

There is only one difference between Hamas the terrorist group that control's Gaza and Fatah, the terrorist group perceived as moderate by the United States Fatah controls Judea and Samaria. Hamas is open about it terrorist goals, Fatah (the party that is controlled by Palestinian President Abbas) tries to maintain a shroud of "moderation" Of course their moderation belies the truth. Both President Bush and President Obama have worked to "prop up" Abbas and the Fatah Party, former Prime Minister Ehud (Mr. Comb-Over) Olmert also worked to "prop up" the terrorist leader. In doing so, they all ignored the continued...

BELGRADE -- Boris Tadić and Mahmoud Abbas agree that the Kosovo question and the Israeli-Palestinian crisis can be resolved by upholding international law. Abbas and Tadić are seen in Belgrade (Tanjug) The presidents of Serbia and the Palestinian Authority agreed that conflicts around the world, including in Kosovo and the Middle East, could be settled through negotiations and without imposed solutions. Abbas, who is in Belgrade at Tadić’s invitation, said that the two countries had several decades of good relations behind them, forged through the Non-Aligned Movement, adding that he hoped that the movement’s 50th anniversary in 2011 would be...

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has ordered the release of 'all' Hamas prisoners, including those held on security charges, a senior aide told al-Jazeera from Ramallah on Monday. Azzam Ahmed, the head of the parliamentary bloc of Abbas’ Fatah party charged with holding reconciliation talks with the rival Hamas movement ruling Gaza, told the Doha-based channel the release would get underway in the coming days. The Palestinian Ma’an news agency, however, quoted sources close to Abbas as saying Hamas prisoners would only be released on “condition they do not pose a threat to general security and law and order.” Abbas had...

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton watch from the side as President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak speak in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, June 16, 2009. US Vice President Joe Biden (C) shares a laugh with US Middle East envoy George Mitchell (2nd L), US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (L) and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel (2nd R), alongside Saeb Erekat (R), the chief Palestinian negotiator, during meetings in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC.

'U.S. told us don't take Netanyahu seriously' Senior Palestinian official declares Obama's promises are 'what counts' June 15, 2009 By Aaron Klein © 2009 WorldNetDaily JERUSALEM – The Palestinian Authority has received signs from the U.S. that it should not take seriously Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent major address, according to a top PA official speaking to WND. Nimer Hamad, senior political adviser to PA President Mahmoud Abbas, also said the PA is not concerned about Netanyahu's policies since Abbas relies on American support for key Palestinian demands. During Netanyahu's speech Sunday, the Israeli leader called for a demilitarized Palestinian...

JERUSALEM – The Palestinian Authority has received signs from the U.S. that it should not take seriously Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent major address, according to a top PA official speaking to WND. Nimer Hamad, senior political adviser to PA President Mahmoud Abbas, also said the PA is not concerned about Netanyahu's policies since Abbas relies on American support for key Palestinian demands. During Netanyahu's speech Sunday, the Israeli leader called for a demilitarized Palestinian state and said Jerusalem would always be united under Jewish sovereignty.

World powers should isolate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after he unveiled tough terms for a Middle East peace accord, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday. In a major policy speech on Sunday, Netanyahu responded to weeks of pressure from Washington by finally giving his endorsement -- with conditions -- to the establishment of a demilitarised Palestinian state. Palestinians were dismayed by his demand they first recognise Israel as a Jewish state and his failure to heed a call they and U.S. President Barack Obama have voiced to halt Jewish settlement construction in the occupied West...

Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah on Sunday expressed outrage and shock over Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's call for the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state and his demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The officials said that the speech which Netanyahu delivered at Bar Ilan University was much worse than they had expected. They also warned that Netanyahu's policies would trigger a new intifada. Some of Abbas's top advisors accused Netanyahu of "burying the peace process" and said the ball was now in the court of US President Barack Obama.

The Palestinian Authority on Sunday criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's highly anticipated foreign policy speech, in which he called for immediate peace talks and endorsed the creation of Palestinian state without military capabilities. An aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that the speech "sabatoges" regional peace efforts, due to Netanyahu's refusal to accept an influx of Palestinian refugees into Israel and his unwillingness to compromise on the status of Jerusalem.

President Obama seemed visibly moved during his trip to Buchenwald the other day. "More than half a century later, our grief and our outrage over what happened have not diminished." Obama said after witnessing the crematory ovens, barbed-wire fences, guard towers and the clock set at 3:15, marking the moment of the camp's liberation by the U.S. Army in the afternoon of April 11, 1945. To this day, there are those who insist the Holocaust never happened," Obama said. "This place is the ultimate rebuke to such thoughts, a reminder of our duty to confront those who would tell lies...

Sunday's confrontation between an armed Hamas cell and Palestinian Authority policemen in Kalkilya shows that the Islamic movement still has a military presence in the West Bank - one that it is hoping to use to topple Mahmoud Abbas's regime there. PA security officials said the two Hamas operatives who were killed in the clash, Muhammad Samman and Muhammad Yassin, headed a cell that possessed large amounts of weapons, including explosives and automatic rifles, some of which had been hidden in a basement of a mosque in the city. The weapons, according to the officials, were supposed to be used...

President Barack Obama says he doesn't have time to watch cable television news. We sure hope he hasn't given up reading The Washington Post, and that he made time for Jackson Diehl's remarkably illuminating column, "Abbas's Waiting Game" (May 29). Paradigm shift When American decision-makers denigrate painful Israeli sacrifices and disregard the commitments of their predecessors, they are not fostering peace. Diehl interviewed the Palestinian leader prior to his White House meeting with Obama on Thursday. The columnist, not a known Zionist apologist, labeled Mahmoud Abbas's thinking "hardline." If the president wants to know why leaning on Israel while basically...

QALQILYA, West Bank, May 31 (Reuters) - Three Palestinian policemen, two Hamas gunmen and a bystander were killed in a clash in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Sunday, Palestinian security officials said. The incident was among the bloodiest internal Palestinian confrontations since U.S.-backed President Mahmoud Abbas pressed a security drive and revived peace talks with Israel after breaking with Hamas over its 2007 takeover of the Gaza Strip. Security officials said police raided Qalqilya town before dawn to arrest Hamas members, touching off gunfights. They named the dead Hamas men as Mohammad Yasin and Mohammad Samman. The names of the...

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will not resume negotiations with Israel unless the Netanyahu government agrees to a complete settlement freeze and publicly accepts a two-state solution, Abbas has told The Washington Post in an interview. And since he does not believe Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will lift his opposition on these issues, Abbas and his leadership expect American pressure to gradually force Netanyahu out of office, the paper reported on Friday. "It will take a couple of years," it quoted one of Abbas's officials as saying.Abbas was interviewed the day before his Thursday meeting at the White House with...

Mahmoud Abbas says there is nothing for him to do. ... Until Israel meets his demands, the Palestinian president says, he will refuse to begin negotiations. He won't even agree to help Obama's envoy, George J. Mitchell, persuade Arab states to take small confidence-building measures. "We can't talk to the Arabs until Israel agrees to freeze settlements and recognize the two-state solution," he insisted in an interview. "Until then we can't talk to anyone." ... What's interesting about Abbas's hardline position, however, is what it says about the message that Obama's first Middle East steps have sent to Palestinians and...

Palestinian Authority officials expect U.S. pressure on Israel to restart the Peace Process will slowly force Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from office, the Washington Post reported on Friday. The article quotes an unnamed Palestinian Authority official as saying that "it will take a couple of years" but in the end, the pressure to comply with U.S. demands as well as Netanyahu's desire not to alienate his right-wing coalition partners will force him to step down as prime minister. The article quotes Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as saying that "The Americans are the leaders of the world," adding "they can use...

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will not resume negotiations with Israel unless the Netanyahu government agrees to a complete settlement freeze and publicly accepts a two-state solution, Abbas has told the Washington Post in an interview. And since he does not believe Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will lift his opposition on these issues, Abbas and his leadership expect American pressure to gradually force Netanyahu out of office, the paper reported on Friday. "It will take a couple of years," it quoted one of Abbas's officials as saying. Abbas was interviewed the day before his Thursday meeting at the White House...

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas plans to pitch a pan-Arab peace when he meets Thursday with President Obama, who has hopes that a “Land for Peace” agreement will end the 100-year-old Zionist-Arab conflict.

US President Barack Obama has drawn a line on Israeli settlement expansion before he meets with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas as part of his urgent quest to revive peace talks. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Obama made it clear, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited here last week, that he wants "no natural growth exceptions" to his call for a settlement freeze.

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas welcomed Pope Benedict XVI in Bethlehem in Wednesday morning, where his gift to the Catholic leader was a part of the cement separation-security barrier that Israel built to stop suicide bombers from blowing up soldiers and civilians.

TEL AVIV, Israel - Just days before he is scheduled to meet President Obama in Washington, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas today declared his U.S.-backed organization will not recognize Israel as a Jewish state. "Jewish state, what is that supposed to mean?" Abbas asked in a speech before student delegates of his Fatah party. "You can call yourselves as you like, but I don't accept it, and I say so publicly," he said. "Name yourself, it's not my business," said Abbas. He was responding to calls by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the Palestinians to accept Israel as a Jewish...

Yasser Abbas, the son of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, revealed this week that he's a self-made millionaire who started his own business shortly after the signing of the Oslo Accords. In an interview with the Dubai-based Al-Aswak.net economic magazine, Abbas's son, who was named after former PA leader Yasser Arafat, also declared that "a majority of Palestinians," including himself, "collaborate with Israel." Yasser Abbas's remarks raised many eyebrows in Ramallah, where one PA official described the interview as "scandalous and harmful." "It would have been better if Yasser did not speak out, especially about his wealth," the official told...

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - U.S. President Barack Obama has invited the leaders of Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian Authority to Washington for separate consultation meetings on the Middle East peace process. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters Tuesday that the dates of Obama's meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas are being worked out. "With each of them, the president will discuss ways the United States can strengthen and deepen our partnerships with them, as well as the steps all parties must take to help achieve peace between Israelis...

There are more fools in the world than there are people. ---Heinrich Heine (1797 - 1856) While the world is pushing Israel to give away the farm along with Jerusalem and the the Temple Mount, the Palestinian Authority has yet to make concession one. George Mitchell is touring the Middle East practically stopping strangers on the street to exclaim that a "two state solution" is in America's best interests. The sad part is that all the pressure is on Israel, while the Palestinians refuse to recognize the most basic of understandings, recognizing Israel as the Jewish homeland. In fact, today,...

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas telephoned Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday morning and wished him a happy Passover. The telephone conversation was the first between the two since Netanyahu entered office as prime minister. Netanyahu reminded Abbas that the two men had cooperated in the past and said he was planning to do so again toward the goal of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Abbas said that both sides must make moves to promote peace. Netanyahu's office said Sunday's conversation was initiated by Abbas. Abbas' office said the call was a gesture of courtesy to the new Israeli prime...

Moscow has promised to supply the Palestinian Authority security forces in the West Bank with new weapons, including two helicopters. The Russians have also agreed to supply the PA with more than 5,000 AK-47 assault rifles, 300 armored vehicles, 100 pistols and large quantities of ammunition, a senior PA official in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the PLO ambassador to Russia, Afif Safieh, has been sacked for attending a photo exhibition in solidarity with the Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, the official in Ramallah said. The PA is an organ of the PLO. PA President Mahmoud...

BAGHDAD (AP) — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas won assurances Sunday that Iraqi leaders will protect Palestinians living in Iraq — including thousands stranded in desert refugee camps — during his first visit to the country since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003. The visit marked a major step in improving ties between the Shiite-led government of Iraq and the Palestinian leadership, which had warm relations with the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein. "We would like to thank the Iraqi government for its concern about Palestinians living in Iraq," Abbas told reporters after a meeting with President Jalal Talabani. Abbas, who also...

When was the last time you saw so many members of Congress so upset over $165 Million in spending? Are these not the same people who a few weeks ago said that the FEW BILLIONS OF DOLLARS of earmark spending in the Omnibus Spending Bill was "an insignificant amount of money?" Indeed, they are! So, I ask again, what's the big deal? Simple! It's a smoke screen, a diversion and another attempt to shred the Constitution. They want to distract us from the fact that language was placed into the Stimulus Bill at the last minute which required these bonus...

Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas has conducted an international campaign in recent weeks aimed at the diplomatic isolation of a right-wing government headed by Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu. Abbas has been trying to convince the international community that such an Israeli government must face conditions similar to those faced by the Hamas government. A senior political source in Jerusalem said yesterday that the leaders of France, Britain and Italy have promised Abbas that they would not allow any new Israeli government delay or freeze the peace process. The same source said that Netanyahu's statements on continuing the peace process and...

HERZLIYA, Israel – With Hamas signaling it is willing to enter a cease-fire with Israel, it was the U.S.-backed Fatah party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas whose so-called military wing took responsibility for a barrage of rockets and mortars fired from the Gaza Strip today.

Less than two weeks after Israel ended its Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, terrorists once again launched rockets at civilians in southern Israel early Sunday morning with a barrage of short-range Kassams. This time, the Fatah faction led by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is involved in the attacks. Fatah's military wing, the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade terrorist group, claimed responsibility for firing one of three short-range rockets at the Gaza Belt region, according to the Hebrew-language Yediot Acharonot's Arab affairs reporter Ali Waked. Source Arutz Sheva Moderate Terrorist and PA President Mahmoud Abbas claims that he if he could, he...

RAMALLAH, West Bank: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has criticized the Hamas leadership for bringing destruction to Gaza. At a press conference here Tuesday, Abbas blamed Hamas for violating a six-month cease-fire with Israel. He said they provoked the massive Israeli response that killed nearly 1,300 people in Gaza, including hundreds of civilians. Abbas says Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal could be taken to court in another country for "drawing his people to this destruction." He said he had warned Hamas against violating the truce "but they didn't listen."

Palestinian Authority (PA) court has sentenced a 28-year-old PA policeman to death for allegedly spying for Israel, and the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel thinks the United States envoy to the Middle East should be aware of this human rights violation. The convict, a resident of the El Aroub neighborhood, was found guilty of assisting the IDF in the elimination of a terrorist in 2002, during the siege of the Church of Nativity. The convict served in the Presidential Guard in Bethlehem at the time. In addition, he allegedly assisted the IDF to arrest other terrorists. In an...