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When Israel announced it was in negotiations with Syria, Abbas countered with his intended talks with Abbas. Neither the US or Israel objected. A week ago, Israel agreed to a "lull" with Hamas for stated reasons which were incomprehensible. Perhaps the real reason was to enable the reconciliation between them. Two days ago I reported that Shlomo Brom who is very connected to leftist government circles argued that because of the split, Israel must negotiate with Hamas. Even more telling, Peres recently said at an official dinner ""There is no chance of reaching an agreement between Israel and the PA,"...

Israeli President Shimon Peres, the primary proponent of Israel’s land-for-peace process with the Palestinian Authority, very pragmatically announced at a dinner party last weekend that he no longer believes a genuine peace can be achieved.

On the eve of Israel's 60th Independence Day, President Shimon Peres cites the country's achievements but he is also aware of the public's sense of cautious joy, and how that feeling exists despite the government, not because of it. "So what?" he says in an interview this week at the President's Residence. "It's not terrible that there is no rejoicing at the government. Governments all over the world are losing their strength. Besides, the Jews gave the world dissatisfaction. Celebration is not a Jewish thing. Still, I'm optimistic, though I'm not satisfied." Such an expression uses the plays on words...

Steiner and those like him miss the tragic element regarding the state of the Jews. Israel is the only country in the world that sees other countries calling, either bluntly or meekly, for wiping it off the map. Not only do he and his colleagues fail to recognize this, they also fail to note that Israel is actually the one that adopts limitations and restraint on using its defensive force, and even on addressing it, more than any other defensive democracy. Perhaps it does so precisely because of its moral heritage and Jewish values. However, on Holocaust Memorial Day, we...

(IsraelNN.com) President Shimon Peres said recently that he hoped to reconcile the secular and religious communities in Israel in honor of the state’s 60th Independence Day. “There is no Israeliness without Judaism,” he said, according to the weekly paper Mishpacha. Peres denounced scorn for religious and hareidi-religious Jews, saying, “There is no place for condescension, derision, or mockery.” Peres said just weeks earlier that secular Israelis “must stop treating the ultra-Orthodox public with contempt.” In addition, he called on the secular community to “return to our roots” by studying the Torah.

Peres praises 'Israel's best friend in Europe' By GREER FAY CASHMAN WARSAW - Anyone who expected a political dissertation from President Shimon Peres when he addressed the Polish Senate on Thursday, before returning to Israel, was disappointed. His was a message of Polish-Jewish reconciliation and the peace that Israel seeks for itself and the world. A positive attitude to Jews and the State of Israel had developed in Poland's new democracy, and today the country was Israel's best friend in Europe, Peres said. The Iranian nuclear threat, the terrorism of Hamas, the economic opportunities of "Peace Valley" and other subjects...

A group of young Parisian Jews interrupted Israeli President Shimon Peres's speech before a crowd of thousands in a gala evening Thursday and blamed him for the deaths of yeshiva students at Mercaz HaRav a week earlier. The incident occurred towards the end of a gala evening held in honor of Mr. Peres at the Palais des Congrès in Paris. The evening consisted of a series of speeches by Jewish functionaries and French government officials, as well as artistic interludes. France's Chief Rabbi Joseph Chaim Sitruk implored Peres to keep Jerusalem united and whole. Peres got up to speak at...

Israel will not consider unilateral action to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, President Shimon Peres was quoted as saying on Saturday. In an interview with France's Le Figaro newspaper ahead of a trip to Paris next week, Peres said, however, if economic sanctions failed to persuade Iran to stop its contested nuclear program then "non-military options would be used up." The United Nations recently approved a third round of sanctions against Iran to pressure it to suspend uranium enrichment. The United States and other major powers suspect Iran is enriching uranium as part of a covert effort to develop...

President stresses time is running out in negotiations with Palestinians. 'We can’t spend the entire year just talking. We must negotiate, openly and secretly,' he says at Geneva Accord conference Attila Somfalvi Published: 01.13.08, 22:11 / Israel News President Shimon Peres feels that time is running out in terms of the peace process. "We have a year, and that's very little time," Peres said Sunday evening at a Geneva Accord conference in Herzliya. "Both (Prime Minister Ehud) Olmert and (Palestinian President Mahmoud) Abbas want peace," the president added. Although the discussion on the core issues between Israel and the Palestinians...

Peres: This won't be like Oslo President says current peace initiative enjoys US-support while Israel's concerns are addressed in full. Meanwhile Olmert is hoping a Syrian presence in Annapolis will lead to successful negotiations with Damascus Roni Sofer "Annapolis is a tremendous opportunity, it won't be an instantaneous solution to everything, but I have spoken to the Arab leaders and there is a spirit of trust and optimism there," said President Shimon Peres on Tuesday following a briefing with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. "Our starting point for the negotiations is far better than anything we could have expected," said Peres....

Israeli President Shimon Peres met with Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer on Monday and discussed with him the effects of the continued Qassam attacks on Sderot saying, "The situation is intolerable and there is one address – Hamas. I ask myself today, why did Israel leave Gaza?" Peres criticized Hamas' motives for the attacks, saying, "Why do they fire and what are their goals? There is only one answer. Hamas is a religious-fanatic organization that does not want a state for its people. It wants to destroy Israel."

(IsraelNN.com) Hevron activists Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben-Gvir have asked Attorney General Menachem Mazuz to investigate the motives behind President Shimon Peres's decision to reduce the prison sentences of five Arab murderers. Peres announced his decision Tuesday to quantify the sentences of five Israeli-Arabs from the north who brutally murdered 12-year-old Danny Katz of Haifa in 1983. The five were twice convicted of the murders, after then-Chief Justice Aharon Barak ordered a second trial in 1999 - against the opinions of two lower courts, ex-Chief Justice Meir Shamgar, and the police. The murderers were sentenced to life in prison, which...

(IsraelNN.com) President Shimon Peres has signed a letter allowing five Israeli Arabs to apply for a reduced sentence. The five are serving lengthy sentences for the 1983 murder of Haifa teenager Danny Katz. Two of the five were convicted for the 1987 murder of female IDF soldier Daphna Carmon as well. The murderers admitted that they killed Katz because he was a Jew. Peres signed a document reducing the killers’ sentences shortly after a meeting with MK Taleb El-Sana (Ra’am Ta’al), who recommended the move. El-Sana expressed satisfaction with the decision, and urged Peres to pardon Suliman Al-Abid as well....

PM, Peres deny report of 'Palestinian state plan' JPost staff, THE JERUSALEM POST Aug. 7, 2007 The offices of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Shimon Peres vigorously denied a report in Tuesday's left-leaning Ha'aretz newspaper alleging that they crafted a plan to establish a Palestinian state on the equivalent of 100 percent of the land in the West Bank. "We are not aware of any such plan described in the article," Olmert's office said in the most strongly worded denial the office has ever issued. "It is not being considered or discussed. We are amazed by the false report,...

JERUSALEM--Shimon Peres had not even been sworn in as Israel's ninth president last Sunday when he began making news. While vowing to use his new post to "unify" his deeply polarized country and "speak to all Israelis," Mr. Peres told the Associated Press only hours before his induction that Israel must "get rid of" the territories it has occupied for 40 years and, by implication, the Jewish settlements he helped create. A majority of Israelis agreed with him, he asserted. "Even before entering his job, he is doing everything to divide the nation . . . and playing into the...

Just hours before being sworn in as Israel's ninth president on Sunday, Shimon Peres said the time had come for his nation to surrender its biblical heartland in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) to the Palestinian Arabs.“We have to get rid of the territories,” Peres said in an interview with The Associated Press. The elder statesman insisted, contrary to recent opinion polls, that an overwhelming majority of Israelis agree with him on this issue. In his inauguration speech later in the evening, Peres expounding upon his vision of peace for the Middle East, but Israel National News pointed out...

'It's all a joke. It's just a joke." That's how the Palestinian terror commanders in Judea and Samaria explained the show they made of handing in their weapons to Fatah commander Mahmoud Abbas's official militias over the weekend. "This is all a big joke," they told reporters while posing for pictures. "Abbas asked us to sign a declaration saying we won't attack Israel and so we are." And why not? The Palestinian Authority Chairman agreed to pay them thousands of dollars in exchange for the photo opportunities. There is also the non-financial incentive. In exchange for their propaganda photos and...

Never before in Israel has there been such yearning for what Peres represents Orly Azoulay Published: 07.16.07, 22:17 / Israel Opinion Shimon Peres was sworn into the presidential office on Sunday and realized a lifetime aspiration through resolve and perseverance: He gained recognition. Not only recognition for a man who could always see the entire picture and not only the parts that made up the whole, but recognition for everything he has ever done for the State – things that were not always understood in advance and generally preceded his time, presenting him in Israeli eyes as an man of...

Rightists slam Peres despite his instrumental role in the settlement enterprise Published: 07.16.07, 14:24 / Israel Opinion Shimon Peres entered the presidential residence Monday riding a wave of consensus. The humiliation of the Katsav affair managed to do what the guilt feelings regarding his past defeats did not. And what the Katsav affair didn't do, his ripe old age did: His age has turned into an advantage in the eyes of the public. Just like our forefathers, even modern-day Israelis have begun to believe that old-age is synonymous with wisdom (with one difference: The elderly at the time of our...

New president sworn in Shimon Peres sworn in as Israel's ninth president before hundreds in festive ceremony at Knesset. ‘President must call on religious, secular public to find common ground, and urge Palestinians, Arab countries to take part in the great journey towards world built on logic, not just land’ Peres says Amnon Meranda Shimon Peres was sworn in as Israel's ninth president in a festive ceremony at the Knesset Sunday evening. Hundreds of people arrived at the Knesset including former politicians, foreign ambassadors, and artists, in order to witness the event. In his acceptance speech, Peres said, “I never...