Free Republic

Israel’s president has hit back at Benjamin Netanyahu after the prime minister said in reference to the country’s Arab minority that Israel was “not a state for all its citizens”. Less than a month before the 9 April election in which the prime minister hopes to win with the support of far-right politicians and voters, Netanyahu wrote on Instagram that: “Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people – and only it.” While not mentioning the prime minister – a long-time political foe – by name, Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, criticised what he said were recent “entirely unacceptable remarks...

The Palestinians will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said in a speech at the Muqataa government compound in Ramallah on Saturday. Abbas made the speech ahead of his planned trip to Paris for the Arab League conference, where he will ask for support for U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's emerging framework peace proposal. The Palestinian leader added another two stipulations regarding a future peace agreement in his speech: There will be no deal unless east Jerusalem becomes the capital of a future Palestinian state and the right of return for Palestinian refugees...