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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.

What’s going on in Area C? That was the question we posed to Gilad Ach, director of the Ad Kan non-profit organization, and the answer we received was shocking indeed. According to Ach, while Jewish construction in Area C has been severely curtailed if not outright frozen during recent years, Palestinian construction under the auspices of the Palestinian Authority is going right ahead, funded by member countries of the European Union. Area C is under effective Israeli control and in the event of a future peace deal will likely be included within Israel’s sovereign borders. This hasn’t stopped countries like...

A 2,000-year-old mikvah (ritual bath) was recently uncovered in the Lower Galilee. Most people probably would never have heard about the discovery if not for the dramatic photos of the entire structure being carried by truck to a nearby kibbutz for preservation. The remarkable sight of a truck-borne mikvah, however, also makes one pause and reflect on the remarkable implications of the archeological find. It means that 2,000 years ago, the residents of the Lower Galilee were practicing the exact same religious rituals that Orthodox Jews throughout the world practice today. Those Galileans, in other words, were Jews. They weren't...

Slovenia’s Foreign Minister Miro Cerar said on Wednesday that there is consensus in Slovenia on the issue of recognition of the State of Palestine and that Slovenia will do that once a group of European Union member states are ready to do so, the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) Wafa news agency reports. Speaking during a meeting with the PA “foreign minister” Riyad Malki at the headquarters of the Slovenian Foreign Ministry in the capital, Ljubljana, Cerar expressed his government’s willingness to develop bilateral relations with the PA in all fields, especially in the economic sphere. A report last year indicated that...

An Israeli government study shared with Washington argues that Palestinian refugees number in the thousands, not the millions designated by a U.N. aid agency whose funding has been slashed by the Trump administration, an Israeli official said on Friday. The fate of Palestinians displaced by the 1948 war of Israel’s founding and their descendants has long clouded U.S.-sponsored peace efforts. Frustration over the issue is among factors fuelling often violent weekly protests at the Gaza border over the last half year, during which around 200 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces. Palestinians demand a refugee right of return to...

National security adviser John Bolton is expected to announced Monday that the U.S. will shutter the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) office in Washington, D.C., The Wall Street Journal reported. “The Trump administration will not keep the office open when the Palestinians refuse to start direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel,” Bolton is expected to say, according to a draft of his speech reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Bolton will reportedly threaten the International Criminal Court with sanctions if it carries out investigations into the U.S. and Israel. ADVERTISEMENT The action against the PLO, which serves as the main entity...

The Trump administration has decided to cancel all U.S. funding of the United Nations aid program for Palestinian refugees, part of its determination to put its money where its policy is as it seeks a recalculation of U.S. foreign aid spending and prepares its own Israeli-Palestinian peace plan. In an announcement to be made within the next several weeks, the administration plans to voice its disapproval of the way the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, spends the funds and to call for a sharp reduction in the number of Palestinians recognized as refugees, dropping it from more than...

At a time when the Trump administration’s robust defense of Israel at the United Nations is shaking up an institution that has long been hostile to the Jewish state, the biggest bloc of developing nations at the U.N. has decided to bestow its presidency on the “State of Palestine.” The move looks likely to increase pressure on the U.S. and Israel in the U.N. General Assembly, where the U.S. already invariably loses Israel-related votes by heavily lopsided margins. There is no sovereign state of Palestine, but the self-rule Palestinian Authority chaired by Mahmoud Abbas has since 2012 enjoyed the status...

Preparations are underway for the grand opening of the new United States embassy to Israel in Jerusalem. While the President won’t be able to attend as he prepares for his summit with North Korea, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have arrived to do the honors along with a number of other delegates. But not everyone is quite so thrilled with this development, particularly in some parts of the European Union. They were preparing to put forward a resolution condemning the embassy move, delivering a statement which was explicitly designed to “embarrass and isolate the Trump administration” ahead of the ceremony....

The Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit urged Guatemala to cancel its decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem on Thursday, according to the official Palestinian Authority news site Wafa. In an urgent letter to Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, Aboul-Gheit expressed his dissatisfaction with the president's decision to relocate its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Spokesman for the Secretary-General Mahmoud Afifi said in a statement. Guatemala was one of a handful of countries that backed a UN vote on US President Donald Trump's December 6 recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Last Sunday, President Morales confirmed at AIPAC...

Arab diplomats quoted as saying yet-to-be revealed plan will nix refugees' right of return, raze far-flung settlements, place Jerusalem's Old City under international protection The Trump administration’s plan for peace in the Middle East may include US and international recognition of a Palestinian state and acceptance of East Jerusalem as its capital, the London-based Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat reported on Wednesday. The plan, the report said, calls for placing the Old City of Jerusalem under “international protection.” The report quoted “knowledgeable Arab diplomatic sources” in Paris as saying that the US is planning to present its plan in the framework...

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday urged the member states of the European Union to “swiftly” recognize the state of Palestine, arguing such a move would preserve the Palestinians’ hope for peace. “We truly consider the European Union as a true partner and friend, and therefore we call its member states to swiftly recognize the state of Palestine and we confirm that there is no contradiction between recognition and the resumption of negotiations,” Abbas said in an address in Brussels. The Palestinian leader argued that such a move “would encourage the Palestinian people to keep hoping for peace, and...

Slovenia is expected to recognize the “state of Palestine” in the coming weeks in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, senior officials in Jerusalem told Israel’s Channel 10 News on Sunday. According to those officials, three other European countries are considering the same move. About a week ago, according to the report, the Slovenian government convened to promote the recognition of “Palestine” as a state, and the Slovenian government passed the issue to parliament, which is the body authorized to recognize other countries. On January 31, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Slovenian Parliament...

Iran declared Jerusalem the "capital of Palestine" on Wednesday following a parliamentary vote, according to the country's semi-official Fars news agency. Iran's announcement to recognize the holy city as the “Palestinian capital forever” comes in direct response to President Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. “It comes in response to the recent U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in hopes of dealing a blow to Muslims,” said Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, according to Turkey's Anadolu news agency.

Norway’s biggest trade union voted Friday in favor of a boycott against Israel, a decision immediately condemned by Israeli diplomats who judged it “immoral”. The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) went against a recommendation from its leadership and voted 197 to 117 in favor of an international economic, cultural and academic boycott against Israel because of the current impasse over the Palestine issue. LO, which also called for Norway to recognize a Palestinian state according to the 1967 borders, was criticized by the government. ”Norwegian government strongly opposes Norw Labor Union’s decision: #boycott of #Israel. We need more cooperation...

Trump planning to launch new round of talks during his upcoming visit. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has crossed the Rubicon and voiced “unprecedented” readiness to reach a peace deal with Israel, sources close to the efforts to renew talks between Israel and the Palestinians have told The Jerusalem Post. Abbas, according to the sources, made this clear to President Donald Trump during their meeting at the White House last week. The president plans to use his trip to Israel later this month to receive assurances from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he, too, is committed to a peace agreement.

A new report by the British Parliament’s upper chamber declared President Donald Trump unfit to lead the West’s foreign policy in the Middle East, and called upon the UK to lead the way in recognizing Palestine as an independent, sovereign state. The report was produced by the House of Lords’ International Relations Committee after six months of study, and reflects the anxiety some European leaders have felt towards President Trump’s campaign pledge to alter Washington’s approach to the NATO alliance, the United Nations, the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and other hot-button issues. The committee’s findings call for the UK to...

Russia on Thursday publicly recognized West Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel. The announcement was made in a statement by Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs that addressed the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In the statement, Moscow reaffirmed its "support for the two-state solution" while acknowledging that East Jerusalem should be the capital of the future Palestinian state.

Russia’s unexpected announcement recognizing Israel’s eternal capital of Jerusalem, a dramatic decision that places Vladimir Putin against Donald Trump in a totally new big-power rivalry – the race to Jerusalem. Many American and Israeli Jews have waited with mounting impatience for Trump to keep his campaign promise to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Against an atmosphere of US equivocation, Putin suddenly announced, without preamble or restricting conditions, the recognition of Israel’s capital, to take effect immediately.

A new sheriff arrived in town with the appointment of Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina, as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. In her first speech, she indicated the disproportionate contribution by the United States -- 22% of the UN budget and 28% of UN peacekeeping operations -- to the world organization. The UN budget should be subject "strategic cutting," and sometimes withholding of dues. In picturesque language, Haley spoke of the need for a strong U.S. role at the UN. She had already made clear during her testimony on January 18, 2017, to the Senate Foreign Relations...