Outgoing Israeli President Shimon Peres told an Israeli television interviewer earlier this week that three years ago he nearly had an agreement with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The Palestinians seized on this interview to claim that it is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has been an obstacle to peace....

Yossi Cohen, Israel’s national security adviser, recently sent a letter to “to the White House, the EU and numerous ambassadors” offering evidence that last month’s failure of peace negotiations was deliberately planned by the Palestinian Authority. The Times of Israel reports: In the April 22 letter, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security...

Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) on Wednesday told the Jerusalem Post that existing U.S. law is sufficient to curtail assistance to the Palestinian Authority (PA) should a government emerge drawing ministers from both the rival Palestinian Fatah and Hamas factions, as reportedly envisioned by a recently-announced unity agreement between the two...

Voice of America (VOA) on Wednesday conveyed statements from Edward Kallon, the U.N.’s resident humanitarian coordinator for Jordan, calling on the international community to boost its support for the Hashemite kingdom in order to forestall a potential domestic backlash against the tens of thousands of Syrian refugees that have flooded...

Syrian rebel groups on Wednesday began clearing out of the strategic city of Homs under a deal that the Washington Post described as “loaded with poignancy for the opposition,” with hundreds of fighters allowed to carry only a single weapon as they boarded buses conveying them to the countryside. The...

National Security Advisor Susan Rice arrived in Israel for consultations with top Israeli security and political figures on Wednesday. The White House had clarified that the planned discussions would focus significantly on negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 global powers over the former’s atomic program, but also that – per...

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, a former prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC), warned the Palestinian Authority that if it becomes a party to the ICC in order to pressure Israel, the decision could backfire. As reported in Ynet: When he was the court’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo turned down a request...

The ongoing unrest in Ukraine is encouraging more Ukrainian Jews to seek a new home in Israel. According to the Jewish Agency, immigration to Israel from Ukraine spiked 142% in the early months of 2014. The number of Jews emigrating to Israel from increasingly volatile Ukraine has jumped by 142...

Tiny with few natural resources, Israel was forced to develop an export-based economy when it was founded in 1948. Now, 66 years later, Israel’s exports have enjoyed robust growth, driven in recent years by products and services resulting from scientific advances. The Times of Israel reports: With a relatively minuscule domestic...

A recent European Union audit of the Palestinian Authority found systemic problems in the PA’s finances, calling into question the ways the PA has corruptly spent its foreign aid. These revelations could possibly endanger continued generous levels of aid, which have been given over the past twenty years to facilitate the peace process....