Reuters – A private door opens from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office in central Jerusalem directly into a long, modestly furnished, half-paneled room decorated with modern paintings by Israeli artists and a copy of Israel’s 1948 declaration of independence. It contains little more than a long wooden table, brown leather chairs and a single [...]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called African asylum-seekers “infiltrators” who are a “concrete threat to the Jewish and democratic character of the country”. Speaking to IRIN, Ministry of Interior spokeswoman Sabine Hadad said most of the country’s “infiltrators” are work migrants who do not meet the definition of a refugee. The country’s laws define [...]

Israel’s Tireless Efforts to Conceal the Historical Events Leading to Its Creation by NEVE GORDON Be’er-Sheva, Israel. I first heard about the Nakba in the late 1980s, while I was an undergraduate student of philosophy at Hebrew University. This, I believe, is a revealing fact, particularly since, as a teenager, I was a member of [...]

For the second day in a row, the European Union issued a document that had some harsh words for Israel, saying a spate of “potentially discriminatory or even anti-democratic bills” were tabled in the Knesset, and blasting Jerusalem for not prosecuting those responsible for settler violence. For more on this story, visit: EU issues second [...]

The Real Threat to Israel is Not Iran, But It’s Own Cozy Relationship With Arab Dictators and Monarchs by PATRICK COCKBURN There has always been something stagey and contrived about Israel’s blood-curdling declarations that it is going to bomb Iran, but as a strategy it has worked astonishingly well, at home and abroad. Benjamin Netanyahu [...]

Italy and the Netherlands toned down a statement on the Middle East by EU foreign ministers Monday that, even with their intervention, sharply criticized Israel and settlement violence. According to Western diplomats, the two countries – led this time by Italy – moderated some of the language in the three-page “Conclusions on the Middle East [...]

RAMALLAH/TEL AVIV, 14 May 2012 (IRIN) – Israeli settlers east of the separation barrier in the central West Bank occupy the land most critical for any future final status agreement under a two-state solution. But instead of limiting settlement expansion, critics say the Israeli authorities are setting a dangerous precedent by legalizing new outposts and [...]

The surprise agreement between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Shaul Mofaz, leader of the Kadima party, offers some glimmer of hope for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, because a government that includes Mofaz’s centrist party is more likely to seek a peace deal than a government involving only the Israeli right. But the greater consequence [...]

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled a revamped coalition government on Tuesday, forming a broad alliance with the chief opposition party that could free his hand to take bold action on peace with the Palestinians and decide whether to attack Iran. In a stunning reversal, Netanyahu called off plans to hold early [...]

The advent of a new unity government in Israel provides a fresh opportunity to revive the peace process. Kadima party leader Shaul Mofaz is on record favoring immediate recognition of a Palestinian state with provisional borders that would give them sixty percent of the West Bank, (to be followed by final status negotiations). However, it [...]