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Ireland is close to formally recognizing a Palestinian state and would like to do so in concert with Spain and other like-minded countries, its new prime minister Simon Harris said on Friday after meeting his Spanish counterpart Pedro Sanchez, reported the Reuters news agency. “Let me this evening say our assessment is that that point is coming much closer and we would like to move together in doing so,” Harris said after meeting Sanchez, the first premier to visit Dublin since Harris became prime minister this week. “When we move forward, we would like to do so with as many...

Ireland, Spain, Malta and Slovenia standing ready to recognize the Palestine state has given Palestinians “hope,” its ambassador has said. Earlier, in a joint-statement, the four countries’ prime ministers said they were ready to recognize the Palestine state when the “circumstances are right”. The Palestinian ambassador to Ireland, Dr. Jilan Wahba Abdalmajid, welcomed the statement, describing it as “promising news”. She said it might only be a few EU countries, but that Ireland is “leading” the way and she expressed thanks for “all the Irish efforts”. …

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Saturday that he will propose that Spain’s parliament recognizes a Palestinian state. “I will propose granting Spain’s recognition to the Palestinian state,” Sánchez said. “I do this out of moral conviction, for a just cause and because it is the only way that the two states, Israel and Palestine, can live together in peace.” Sánchez added his voice to a chorus of other European leaders and government officials who have said that they could support a two-state solution in the Middle East as international frustration grows with Israel’s actions in the Palestinian territories.

The moment when the UK formally recognises a Palestinian state at the end of Israel’s war with Hamas might be drawing nearer, the Foreign Secretary David Cameron suggested Monday. The diplomatic initiative would come despite the fact doing so would reward Hamas for the terror attack of October 7 and defy Israel’s opposition to any such move. Cameron, speaking ahead of his fourth visit to the region since being appointed Britain’s top diplomat in November, claimed Palestinians had to be given a political horizon to encourage peace in the Middle East.

If you’re a leftist in the Washington establishment, it doesn’t matter how often your fail or how frequently you’re proven wrong. That’s how we ended up with Old Joe Biden as president and Antony Blinken as Secretary of State. Blinken was in Davos Wednesday for the big Commie shindig, uh, that is, the World Economic Forum, and he was peddling the same faulty analysis and failed remedies that have caused so much trouble in the world already as the cure-alls for the world’s problems. He has done this before. And he’ll do it again. Blinken unveiled his grand plan for...

President Joe Biden told the United Nations on Wednesday the Palestinians are “entitled” to their own state, a day after the U.S. State Department announced $64 million in aid to the U.N. agency for so-called Palestinian refugees. “We will continue to advocate for a lasting, negotiated peace between the Jewish and democratic state of Israel and the Palestinian people,” Biden said during his address at the U.N. General Assembly.

Once it becomes clear the two-state solution is finally dead, Jordan should again be asked to exercise control over suitably delineated portions of the West Bank and have the monarchy's religious role for holy sites like the Temple Mount reaffirmed President Trump’s National Security Adviser - John Bolton - has exposed the fiction that there is a legally-constituted “State of Palestine”—shredding United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and United Nations (UN) resolutions misleadingly recognising such a state when none - in fact—exists. Bolton was unequivocal in his statement:

Hamas is reportedly planning to endorse a state of Palestine along the 1967 borders — a move that would be a monumental shift from the group’s long-held policy of reclaiming all of historic Palestine — though it won’t recognize Israel’s legitimacy. […] Talk of “the 1967 borders” generally refers to the pre-1967 lines between Israel and the territory it captured in that year’s Six-Day War from Jordan (in Jerusalem and the West Bank), Egypt (Gaza and the Sinai) and Syria (the Golan Heights). The amendments to the charter were reportedly worked out during a meeting in Doha, Qatar, which was...

On Thursday United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sent the Security Council a letter nominating as the new head of the UN's mission to Libya a former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad -- who was described in the letter as "Salam Fayyad (Palestine)." America's new ambassador, Nikki Haley, said no. Having thus blocked Fayyad's appointment, Haley then put out a statement explaining why: For too long the UN has been unfairly biased in favor of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel. The United States does not currently recognize a Palestinian state or support...

Organization of Islamic Cooperation rejects actions that could undermine PA's ability to claim Jerusalem for a state. Foreign ministers from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Thursday indirectly condemned plans by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to move the embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, reports The Associated Press. A statement issued after a meeting in Kuala Lumpur did not specifically mention the United States or Trump by name, but said the OIC rejected any actions that could undermine the ability of Palestinian Arabs to claim part of Jerusalem in a future state. It also called on governments...

US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro addressed the 2016 Herzliya Conference on Wednesday, noting the close social, economic, and political ties between the US and Israel. “Israel is home to over 2,500 US firms,” Shapiro said, pointing out that there “are more Israeli companies listed on the NASDAQ exchange than Indian, Japanese, and Korean listings combined.” Looking to shore up President Barack Obama’s pro-Israel bona fides after more than seven years of diplomatic tensions with the Israeli government, Shapiro claimed the US President admired Israel for its many accomplishments. “’Americans admire a people’, said President Nixon, “who can scratch a...

State Dept. Spokesperson John Kirby’s daily press briefing on Thursday touched on the ominous possibility that the Obama Administration will wait until after the November election, so as not to steer Jewish votes away from the Democratic candidate, and then, in a final splash of power, just before going down from the world’s stage, blow up a landmine in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s face and support or fail to veto a UN Security Council resolution creating a Palestinian State and ordering the hasty removal of all Jewish presence on the “wrong” side of the 1967 border. We redacted and edited the...

For the first time, Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas has admitted that he rejected "out of hand" an Israeli offer for a PA state on nearly 95% of Judea and Samaria. In 2008, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered to agree to the creation of an independent PA state including all of Gaza, nearly all of Judea/Samaria, and parts of Israel – a total area equal to 99.5% of the size of Judea and Samaria. In addition, a tunnel would connect Judea/Samaria to Gaza, and the PA state would have its capital in eastern Jerusalem. Not only that: Olmert...

A former national security adviser to President Bill Clinton wrote an email to Hillary Clinton in 2009 advising the then-secretary of state how to deal with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he continued to “be the obstacle” in negotiations with Palestinians. The email from Samuel Berger advised Clinton on how to navigate the waters with Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Abu Mazen. “Going forward, if Bibi continues to be the obstacle, you will need to find the ground from which you can make his politics uneasy,” the September 22 email said. “I think you can do that even with current...

The Middle East and North Africa region is in turmoil from Iraq to Yemen and from Syria to Libya, but French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius warned Sunday of an “explosion” unless the deadlock in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is broken. Speaking in Ramallah, he said both Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah had expressed that view to him during talks with them over the weekend. Fabius was speaking after meeting with Palestinian Authority (P.A.) chairman Mahmoud Abbas during an intensive regional trip designed to push a French initiative to secure a U.N. Security Council resolution laying out the basis...

The international community does not believe that Israel is serious about a two-state solution, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has placed so many conditions to its establishment that it is unrealistic to think it could come into existence in the near future, US President Barack Obama said Tuesday. Obama, in a Channel 2 interview, said that Netanyahu was “fairly unequivocal” in his statement the day before the election that a Palestinian state would not emerge under his watch. Since then, Obama said, Netanyahu has made comments indicating that there is a possibility of a Palestinian state, but added so many...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's waffling on the idea of a Palestinian state comes as the idea is less popular in the United States than it has been in at least two decades. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that the idea of establishing a new Palestinian state alongside Israel in the Middle East is more divisive than at any point in the past 20 years, as a long period of generally bipartisan support for the concept has passed. The idea is still slightly above water, with 39 percent in support and 36 percent in opposition. But that's a...

WASHINGTON — The White House is stepping up its antagonism toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu despite his victory in this week’s elections, signaling that it is in no rush to repair a historic rift between the United States and Israel. The sharpened tone indicates that the Obama administration may be re-evaluating its relationship with its closest ally in the Middle East, having lost patience with Mr. Netanyahu in the closing days of an election campaign in which he spotlighted deep disagreements with President Obama over a Palestinian state and a nuclear deal with Iran. “You reach a tipping point,” said...

RAMALLAH, March 20 (Bernama) -- The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) urged the international community to economically and politically isolate the Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The appeal was made Thursday by the PLO executive committee which convened in the West Bank city of Ramallah and chaired by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Xinhua news agency reported. "The rightwing's success in the Israeli elections should urge all regional and global powers to be more firm towards the Israeli manner which aims to destroy chances of achieving peace," the PLO said in a statement. The committee accused Netanyahu of leading...

<p>Ugh. Our petulant man-child Muslim president and his Israel-hating administration are now threatening that they just might agree to a UN Security Council resolution that would call for Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and push them into negotiations to create a palestinian state.</p>