Mr. Kushner, on something of a crash course in diplomacy, has been speaking with Arab leaders in recent weeks. But he is a mystery to most Middle Eastern officials. He has no experience in government or international affairs. His up-close exposure to the Arab world amounts to little more than trips to a handful of Persian Gulf countries and a star-studded jaunt to Jordan. Continue reading the […]
By Eli Berlzon | AMONA, West Bank AMONA, West Bank Israeli police moved into an outpost in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday to remove settlers who Israel’s Supreme Court ruled have been living illegally on privately owned Palestinian land. Settlers and dozens of pro-settlement activists who flocked to the Amona outpost to protest against the evacuation burned tyres and piled makeshift barricades at its entrance. But […]
“Strange how in the Middle East making peace looks so similar to waging political war,” he lamented in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times in 1989. In 1986, Mr. Cohen was the catalyst for the first three clandestine sessions in Paris and Brussels between Israeli and Palestinian representatives, two from each side. Ostensibly, those talks were limited in scope to missing or captured soldiers, but […]
JERUSALEM Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian motorist who drove his car into a bus stop near a settlement in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, the Israeli army said. The Palestinian health ministry did not immediately release details of the dead man but Palestinian social media posts said he was a resident of the Qalandia refugee camp near Ramallah. No one was hurt as a result […]
By Luke Baker and Matt Spetalnick | JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump’s team spoke often about moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. But since taking office, the contentious issue has become more nuanced and may already be moving to the backburner. In a statement issued before a first post-inauguration phone call between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu […]
CAIRO Eight people were killed on Saturday after a shell landed on a house in southern Rafah, in the north of Sinai, eye witnesses and medical sources said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack and witnesses and medical sources said the source of the shell was unknown. Rafah is on the border with Gaza. Egyptian forces have been fighting an Islamist insurgency in […]
Your daily guide to community and cultural activities across the Emirates for January 20, 2017, including performances, festivals, art exhibitions, film screenings, health and fitness events, talks, classes, workshops and family fun. newslide Abu Dhabi Theatre festival Short+Sweet Abu Dhabi is a festival of 10-minute plays encompassing various genres, which will be staged over two nights by UAE-based actors, directors and playwrights who are members of the […]
An electricity crisis that has caused protests and unrest in the Gaza Strip eased on Monday after Qatar donated $12 million to buy fuel for the Palestinian enclave’s lone power plant, officials said. For weeks, Gaza’s population of 2 million has been making do with barely a few hours a day of electricity – less than half its usual supply. The Energy Authority run by the enclave’s […]
There is no guarantee that all will go according to plan, of course. Israel struggled for years to develop regulations to manage its newfound wealth. The international energy firms that Israel is now courting have other options in an evolving global market. And the politics of a new era, as President-elect Donald J. Trump encourages assertive Israeli action in Jerusalem and the West Bank, could kindle fresh […]
Photo About 10,000 Palestinians took to the streets in the Jabaliya refugee center on Thursday. Credit Khalil Hamra/Associated Press JABALIYA, Gaza Strip — The nearly two million residents of Gaza have been suffering through a cold winter of crippling power cuts, receiving electricity for only three or four hours a day. The popular anger over the cuts erupted on Thursday in a large protest. In a rare […]
By Nidal al-Mughrabi | GAZA GAZA For weeks, Gazans have been making do with less than half their usual electricity supply – barely a few hours a day – with no sign of the shortages alleviating anytime soon, fuelling distress and frustration among the population. Normally, Gaza’s power alternates on eight-hour cycles, with generators providing electricity to those that can afford it in the down times. But […]
Photo Israeli soldiers in an exercise with laser-equipped rifles and an interactive screen at the Camp Tsur training base in southern Israel last year. Credit Amir Cohen/Reuters TEL AVIV — It usually started with a bit of cyberflirting. A direct message was sent through Facebook or another social network from an unknown woman to an Israeli soldier’s smartphone. Then, according to Israeli military officials, it developed into […]
By Maayan Lubell | TEL AVIV TEL AVIV Using photos of young women and Hebrew slang, the Palestinian militant group Hamas chatted up dozens of Israeli soldiers online, gaining control of their phone cameras and microphones, the military said on Wednesday. An officer, who briefed reporters on the alleged scam, said the Islamist group that runs the Gaza Strip uncovered no major military secrets in the intelligence-gathering […]
The military, security experts and soldiers at the scene quickly rejected that notion. “Those who ran from the scene were not concerned about Azaria, but about their own well-being,” said Yehuda Ben Meir, an expert in national security and public opinion at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. Continue reading the main story Still, the argument — unfolding in full volume on Israeli […]
“This is part of the same pattern inspired by Islamic State, by ISIS, that we saw first in France, then in Germany and now in Jerusalem. This is part of the same ongoing battle against this global scourge of the new terrorism,” he added. Continue reading the main story Mr. Netanyahu has often made the comparison between local attacks against Israelis and those in the rest of […]
Foreign financial support to the Palestinian budget is running at about half the forecast level, the Palestinian prime minister told local media on Tuesday, meaning deep cuts will have to be made to the budget this year. At its cabinet meeting, the government said it expected to run a budget deficit of 4.12 billion shekels in 2017 ($1.06 billion), approaching 15 percent of gross domestic product. “We […]
He was released on his recognizance, but arrested 10 days later. He was accused of acting as an undercover liaison between Fatah, the dominant faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization, and guerrilla cells in the West Bank. Continue reading the main story The authorities also said he had smuggled gold, whiskey and television sets across the border. In addition, investigators said the archbishop had been involved in […]
JERUSALEM Israel said on Sunday it will withhold the bodies of Palestinian militants killed in attacks against its citizens as it seeks to pressure the Islamist movement Hamas to return the remains of soldiers and hand back missing Israeli civilians. Hamas says it is holding two Israeli soldiers whom the army declared dead after they were lost in action in the 2014 Gaza war. The group also […]
Photo John Kerry speaking at the State Department on Wednesday. Credit Zach Gibson/Getty Images In a speech this week laying out the Obama administration’s parameters for a final peace agreement between Israel and Palestine, Secretary of State John Kerry stated what has been obvious to most observers for many years: that Israel’s construction of Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land has all but destroyed the two-state solution. […]
The two-state solution would establish an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel — two states for two peoples. In theory, this would win Israel security and allow it to retain a Jewish demographic majority (letting the country remain Jewish and democratic) while granting the Palestinians a state. Continue reading the main story Most governments and world bodies have set achievement of the two-state solution as official policy, including […]
Israel is clearly now on a path toward absorbing the West Bank’s 2.8 million Palestinians. There are already 1.7 million Arabs living in Israel, so putting these two Arab populations together would constitute a significant minority with a higher birthrate than that of Israeli Jews — who number 6.3 million — posing a demographic and democratic challenge. Continue reading the main story I greatly sympathize with Israel’s […]
By Lesley Wroughton and Yeganeh Torbati | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned on Wednesday that Israel’s building of settlements in occupied territory was endangering Middle East peace, expressing unusually frank frustration with the longtime American ally. In a swiftly issued statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Kerry of showing bias. He said Israel did not need to be lectured to by foreign […]
Orthodox Jews in black coats and skullcaps danced with Arabs in flowing robes and checkered kaffiyehs at a Hanukkah celebration over the weekend in Bahrain, a Muslim-majority monarchy whose king has sanctioned celebrations of the Jewish holiday. Video of the celebration, which included a Jewish delegation giving a large silver menorah to Arab dignitaries and members of both groups dancing together, appeared on Monday on YouTube, where […]
By Jeffrey Heller | JERUSALEM JERUSALEM The Jerusalem municipality, undeterred by a U.N. anti-settlement resolution, is due to consider on Wednesday requests for construction permits for hundreds of new homes for Israelis in areas that Israel captured in 1967 and annexed to the city. Israel is still fuming over the resolution approved last Friday by the United Nations Security Council that demands an end to settlement activity […]
