“No president since the modern state of Israel [was formed] has failed to stand by our ally Israel — only President Obama. …The president spurned the president of Egypt when he took his first foreign trip to Cairo… In May he even said that Israel should retreat to its indefensible 1967 borders… Obama’s State Department now designates Jerusalem as an international city and in a bizarre move our State Department will not even acknowledge that Jerusalem belongs to Israel.” Read full article > >

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Michele Bachmann at CPAC: History through a partisan lens

JERUSALEM – Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Wednesday that Israel was “very far off” from making a decision on a possible strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. The remarks appeared to be part of an effort to allay American concerns that Israel is preparing for an attack despite Washington’s objections. Read full article > >

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Barak says Israeli decision on Iran strike remains ‘far off’

JERUSALEM — Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was indicted Thursday on new corruption charges for allegedly seeking bribes in a wide-ranging real estate scandal that dwarfs the other cases in which he’s accused. According to the indictment, millions of dollars illegally changed hands to promote a series of real estate projects, including a controversial housing development in Jerusalem that required a radical change in zoning laws and earned the developers tax breaks and other benefits. Read full article > >

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Ex-Israeli leader Olmert indicted on new corruption charges in Jerusalem real estate scandal

An ultra-Orthodox demonstration in Jerusalem drew outrage after young boys wore yellow stars and striped prison camp uniforms.

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Holocaust Images in Ultra-Orthodox Protest Anger Israeli Leaders

KHAN AL-AHMAR, West Bank — A plan by the Israeli authorities to relocate about 2,000 Palestinian Bedouins living in the desert hills east of Jerusalem is raising concerns among U.N. officials and human rights advocates about Israel’s aims in a strategic area of the West Bank. The hills are dotted with more than 20 encampments of Bedouins, formerly nomadic goat and sheep herders who migrated from Israel’s southern Negev region in the early 1950s to the West Bank. Their hamlets, consisting of groups of corrugated metal and wooden shacks covered with plastic sheeting, are visible from roads crisscrossing the area. Read full article > >

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Israeli plan to move West Bank Bedouin stirs controversy

JERUSALEM — Israel’s navy boarded two small protest boats trying to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip on Friday and towed them to an Israeli port just north of the Palestinian territory, officials said. The military said no one was hurt. Troops boarded the boats without incident after repeated calls for them to turn around were ignored, the military said. Read full article > >

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Israeli navy boards 2 protest boats approaching blockaded Gaza, tows them to Israeli port

JERUSALEM — Israeli aircraft struck at Palestinian militants in Gaza on Saturday who responded with a volley of rockets which rained on southern Israeli towns, Israeli and Palestinian officials said. Palestinian officials said seven militants were killed, while on the Israeli side one civilian was killed and four others were wounded. Read full article > >

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Israeli airstrikes kill 7 militants in Gaza, Palestinian rockets kill 1 Israeli, wound 4

JERUSALEM – Egypt will release a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen held since June on suspicion of spying in exchange for 25 Egyptians jailed in Israel under a deal reached with the help of Washington, Israeli officials said Monday. A statement from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Egypt had agreed to release Ilan Grapel, who has been held in Egypt since June 12. The Egyptian government had said Saturday that it was close to finalizing the prisoner swap. Read full article > >

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Ilan Grapel, American-Israeli accused of spying, to be released by Egypt

JERUSALEM — Israel on Sunday released the names of 477 prisoners it intends to swap Tuesday in exchange for a soldier abducted by the militant group Hamas, while some Israelis opposed to the deal asked the Supreme Court to intervene. News of the imminent swap, which includes the release of more than 1,000 prisoners in two phases, elated Israelis who have followed the plight of Staff. Sgt. Gilad Shalit as their own. But it also has reopened old wounds for Israelis who have lost loved ones in attacks and reignited the debate over whether Israel should negotiate in cases of kidnapped citizens. Read full article > >

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Gilad Shalit release: Israeli terror victims’ families seek to halt prisoner swap

JERUSALEM – Israeli authorities say they believe Jewish extremists are responsible for setting fire to a mosque in northern Israel early Monday and leaving behind scrawled messages similar to those written after attacks on mosques in the West Bank. The arson in the village of Tuba-Zangaria caused extensive damage to the mosque and set off clashes between angry villagers and police. Read full article > >

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Mosque torched in northern Israel

JERUSALEM – Israel on Sunday agreed to a proposal by international mediators to resume peace negotiations after the initiative was positively received by the Palestinians, but there were no signs that a dispute over Israeli settlement building that has blocked talks was any closer to being resolved. Read full article > >

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Israel welcomes peace talks plan

JERUSALEM — The Palestinian leadership on Thursday cautiously welcomed a proposal by international mediators to resume peace negotiations but said Israel had to first halt settlement building on occupied land, a demand rejected by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Palestinian position, issued after a meeting in Ramallah chaired by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, underlined the continuing impasse that has prevented a resumption of talks, even as the United Nations Security Council considers a Palestinian application for U.N. membership . Read full article > >

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Palestinians link talks plan to settlement freeze

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Thousands of Palestinians rallied in cities across the West Bank on Wednesday in support of their leadership’s bid for recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations, with only scattered incidents of violence in the first test of the move’s impact on the streets. About 2,000 people gathered in Ramallah, many of them civil servants, schoolchildren and private-sector workers given time off to participate. A downtown square was filled with a sea of Palestinian flags as speakers called for a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with its capital in Jerusalem. Read full article > >

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Palestinians rally to back U.N. statehood bid

JERUSALEM — After a week in which Israel’s diplomats were forced out of Turkey and Egypt, for years its regional allies, and facing a possible United Nations vote recognizing a Palestinian state, the country is experiencing a deepening sense of siege. Televised scenes of Egyptian protesters storming the Israeli embassy in Cairo on Friday, and dramatic media accounts of the threat faced by six security men that were trapped for hours inside, summoned up for many Israelis nightmare scenarios of a lynch by an Arab mob. Read full article > >

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In Israel, Cairo attack deepens sense of siege

JERUSALEM — Two senior White House envoys arrived Tuesday for meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in a last-ditch effort to head off a Palestinian bid for recognition of statehood at the United Nations this month. David Hale, the Obama administration’s acting special envoy to the Middle East, and Dennis Ross, the president’s Middle East adviser on the National Security Council, are pressing for a resumption of peace negotiations that were broken off a year ago. But their prospects for success appear dim, with aides to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas ruling out any change of plans to seek recognition of a Palestinian state at the U.N. General Assembly session beginning Sept. 20. Read full article > >

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U.S. envoys press Palestinians to drop U.N. statehood bid