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The Palestinian Authority rejects the American claim that it is not interested in returning to the negotiating table with Israel and calls a senior American official’s statement on the issue "irresponsible" and "incitement." PA spokesman Nabil Abu Rudaina said in response that "we do not reject in principle any proposal for negotiations aimed at implementing the two-state solution." "We are sticking to serious negotiations that will lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state with its capital in the 1967 borders, as President Mahmoud Abbas pointed out in his address to the Palestinian National Council and at his last...

The time has come to reveal the Palestinians’ true colors. While world leaders attempt to cajole and nudge the two sides into negotiations, only one side consistently says it is ready to sit face to face without preconditions—Israel. The Palestinians, on the other hand, refuse to meet unless Israel agrees in advance to several demands. This should be a red flag indicator of their disingenuous intentions. … The Palestinians do not wish to see a Jewish state of Israel as their neighbor. In fact, if they had their way, Israel would cease to exist altogether in favor of one Arab...

Palestinian Authority chief negotiator Saeb Erekat denied on Thursday that PA and Israeli representatives would meet in Jordan to discuss restarting peace talks on January 23. "It was said that there are meetings and calls for meetings in Jordan between an Israeli and a Palestinian delegation with the Quartet. This talk is not true. We did not receive anything from them," Erekat told Voice of Palestine radio on Thursday. "My view is that anyone who tries to get around the point that Israel must halt settlement and accept the '67 borders is only wasting their time," Erekat added. The Quartet...

Abbas, after rebuffing President Barack Obama, now has taken on the Quartet and rejected its proposal for resuming talks with Israel because it does not include pre-conditions. The Quartet – the United States, United Nations, Russia and the European Union – set a timetable for an agenda for peace talks within a month and concrete proposals within three months. It also set the end of 2012 as a new deadline for an agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. PA Foreign Minister Riad Maliki quickly rejected the idea as “incomplete” because it does not call on Israel to halt all...

The Israelis are never even offered half a loaf of bread, let alone a whole loaf. For Israel, the old saying “Half a loaf is better than none,” is something that Israel would find as an improvement as they have always received none. On the other side of the conflict, the Palestinians are examples of the saying, “They would not be happy with a loaf of bread under each arm.” This was exemplified by the Palestinians refusing to come to the negotiating table until the last moment of the Israeli ten-month building freeze. In addition, the Palestinians, with the support...

Over the past year and a half, Hezballah has been restocking their inventory of rockets storing many in the Bekaa Valley. Hezballah has also been in violation of the United Nations resolution that ended the conflict between them and Israel back in 2006 by rebuilding military positions and bunkers and storing rockets and other war supplies south of the Litany River. Further acts in violation of the so-called rules of law have been manifest by Hezballah having placed their weapon caches within hospitals, schools, mosques, and residential homes. Through all of this, Europe, the United States, the United Nations, Russia,...

KABUL, Afghanistan – Taliban officials have engaged in periodic, discreet contacts with Afghan and U.S. officials for months but are unwilling to move to formal peace negotiations until the U.S. agrees to a timetable for the withdrawal of all foreign troops, according to a Pakistani intelligence official and members of a newly formed Afghan peace council. The White House said Wednesday that President Barack Obama supports attempts by the Afghan government to open peace talks with Taliban leaders, but still wants the insurgents to renounce violence and their support of al-Qaida. However, press secretary Robert Gibbs said the United States...

After months of attempting to arrange a meeting with President Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was finally about to secure one. There was a delay, however, in the date of the meeting as the Obama Administration sought to establish pre-conditions on the part of Israel before actually holding the meeting.

Response stiffens on nuclear sites The Obama administration plans to tell Tehran this week that the nation has three months to open its numerous nuclear sites to inspection, turn over notebooks and computers, and answer detailed questions about its suspected efforts to build a nuclear weapon, according to US officials. The demands, following the revelation Friday of a secret nuclear enrichment facility at a military base near the holy city of Qum, set the stage for the next chapter of a diplomatic drama that has shifted the West’s posture and heightened tensions with Iran, even drawing rebukes from such allies...

Barack Obama has said that he'd be willing to meet with Iranian leaders without preconditions. But apparently, the Iranians do not share that same sentiment. According to recent news reports coming out of Tehran, lawmakers in congress have put forward a request for initiating parliamentary dialogue between the US and Iran. While attending the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in October, Iranian officials reportedly received a letter from lawmakers in Washington, asking for a meeting. However, Huseyn Ibrahimi, a member of the National Security Commission of the Iranian parliament, says "not so fast"!...

TEHRAN (FNA)- Vice President for Media Affairs Mehdi Kalhor said on Saturday that Iran has set two preconditions for holding talks with the United States of America. In an exclusive interview with the Islamic Republic News Agency, he said as long as U.S. forces have not left the Middle East region and continues its support for the Zionist regime, talks between Iran and U.S. is off the agenda. It is the Americans who are in dire need of reestablishing ties with Iran, he underlined. Iran is not obliged to reestablish ties with the U.S., he said. "If they take our...

Will Obama Debate John McCain Without Preconditions? July 7, 2008 The world of Presidential candidate Barack Obama must be a strange and fascinating place. You get to be the "post-racial" guy while dealing the race card from the bottom of the deck like an old time poker cheat. Along with this political slight of hand, your solution to solving the fuel crisis involves punishing the people who actually produce the gas while raising taxes on the people who buy gas. When it comes to gas, Mr. Obama is having a sort of political dyslexia. On the campaign trail he said...

Nearly four years have elapsed since the Oslo process (1993-2000) between Israelis and Palestinians foundered in bloodshed. Over that period, two U.S. administrations have tried to forge policies that would reduce the violence and point toward a solution to the conflict.It has not been a single-minded pursuit. Since September 11, 2001, the prime focus of Washington has been the management of unprecedented U.S. military interventions in the region, which removed regimes from power in Afghanistan and Iraq. The notion of Israeli-Palestinian peace as the key to regional stability has been replaced by the war on terror and the insistence on...