Israelis overwhelming favor pursuing a regional peace deal, and would even support an Israeli prime minister who formed a new political party aimed at securing such an accord, according to a new poll conducted by the Israeli Peace Initiative Group. According to the survey, a majority of the respondents – some 72...

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Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas reportedly “exploded with rage” at Secretary of State John Kerry over what he termed “insane” proposals from Washington designed to facilitate a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, according to descriptions of a meeting between the two published in the leading Palestinian...

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Palestinian figures have again publicly rejected Israel’s calls to recognize the country as a homeland for the Jewish people in the context of a comprehensive peace deal, with top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat squashing rumors that Ramallah had shifted from its oft-repeated rejection of the condition. “I told minister Livni in Munich recently that we won’t...

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A series of recent reports and developments have refocused attention on links between weak Palestinian institutions and endemic Palestinian corruption, underlining decades-old worries that internal structural barriers that may hamper the creation of a viable Palestinian state. Analysts have long called attention to at least four fundamental dynamics that risk rendering any Palestinian state...

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Israeli officials this weekend reemphasized Jerusalem’s insistence that Israeli security forces remain along the border with Jordan in the context of any final status arrangement with the Palestinians, a counter-terrorism stance that has reportedly been endorsed by among others Jordan, but that has been repeatedly rejected by Palestinian negotiators. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has no intention...

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The Palestinian Hamas faction is content to let its rivals in the Fatah faction reach out to Iran – despite a decades-old proxy relationship between Hamas and its Iranian sponsors – according to a report published last week by Al Monitor. Hamas officials who spoke to the outlet emphasized that any rapprochement...

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Last December Israel conducted the third of four planned prisoner releases, part of a basket of confidence building measures designed to coax Palestinian diplomats into peace negotiations and keep them there. Each release has proven more controversial than the last, with the Palestinian public and Palestinian leaders staging spectacles celebrating...

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A top official from the Palestinian Fatah faction declared on Wednesday that his organization may move to bolster ties with Iran, after years in which Tehran had largely eschewed backing Fatah and had opted instead to provide military, financial, and diplomatic support to the more radical Hamas faction. Speaking in an interview with...

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Earlier this month both the New York Times and the Washington Post published articles focusing on anti-Israel and anti-Jewish demonization by Palestinian leaders. Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) earlier this week introduced Congressional legislation that would tie future aid to an end to calls and exhortations to violence. It is an...

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New House legislation proposed by the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee would make $400 million in annual U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) contingent upon the President certifying that the PA among other things “no longer engages in a pattern of incitement against the United States or Israel.” Rep....

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