Middle East diplomacy - Page 23

Dozens of US State Department employees have endorsed an internal document that advocates for US military action to pressure Syria’s government into accepting a cease-fire and engaging in peace talks, officials said Thursday.

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, threatened on Tuesday to “set fire” to the nuclear deal sealed with world powers if U.S. presidential candidates reneged on the agreement.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Likud ministers Monday that he will never accept the original Arab Peace Initiative as a basis for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, according to two sources at the meeting.

US Secretary of State John Kerry prevented France from successfully launching a strong new peace initiative last week that could have impacted the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi said on Monday.

Multiple Turkish news agencies on Saturday compared German Chancellor Angela Merkel with Adolf Hitler after the Bundestag earlier this week declared the Armenian massacre of 1915 a genocide.

The head of Israel’s foreign ministry said Thursday that France’s bid to revive Israel-Palestinian peace talks was doomed to failure, like a 1916 colonial effort to carve up the Middle East.

In first remarks as Israel’s designated defense minister, right-wing settler Avigdor Lieberman joked about his fiery reputation: “I have undergone surgery to lengthen my fuse.”

TEL AVIV – Egypt is in the final stages of planning a large-scale campaign against the Islamic State in the Sinai, an Arab intelligence official told Breitbart Jerusalem.

TEL AVIV (AFP) – French Prime Minister Manuel Valls was Sunday in Israel to advance his country’s plan to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts in the face of opposition from his counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Jerusalem Post reports: Chairman of the Zionist Union party and lead opposition figure in the Knesset MK Isaac Herzog revealed on Saturday that both he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a number of discussions over the past several months concerning the so called “Arab Peace Initiative,” expressing his desire to move on favorable aspects of the plan that “would have undoubtedly changed the face of the region.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry held brief talks with Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo on Wednesday, a day after the Egyptian leader proposed new efforts to try to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

JAFFA, Israel – Riyadh has yet to issue an official response to the U.S. Senate resolution that would allow families of 9/11 victims to sue the Saudi government for any role in the attacks, but the unanimously-passed resolution has been met with sweeping condemnation on Saudi social media.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi promised Israel on Tuesday warmer ties if it accepts efforts to resume peace talks with the Palestinians, urging Israeli leaders not to waste an opportunity to bring security and hope to a troubled region.

Israel is a “beacon of stability and freedom” in the strife-torn Middle East and it is proud of its strong links to the UK. That was the simple message delivered by Israeli Ambassador Mark Regev in London last night as he helped celebrate Israel Independence Day.

A conference on the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, due to be held on May 30 in Paris, has been postponed, French President Francois Hollande said Tuesday.

The Jerusalem Post reports: French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault was set to arrived in Israel Saturday night to update Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on a new peace initiative his country plans to launch at the end of this month.

More than 20 percent of Syria’s Palestinian refugees have fled the country and its five-year war, the head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency said on Thursday.

The Jerusalem Post reports: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked heads of diplomatic missions and religious communities on Thursday to encourage Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to accept his offer to talk peace.

The Jerusalem Post reports: While Jerusalem remains adamantly opposed to the French diplomatic initiative, enshrining Palestinian recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people would be an important step, Foreign Ministry director-general Dore Gold told The Jerusalem Post.

On a podium decorated as a bunker from the Iran-Iraq war, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad woos a crowd of hundreds with an anti-Western speech reminiscent of his fiery addresses as Iran’s president.

The Times of Israel reports: For once ignoring Israel, a top Iranian military chief told foreign diplomats on Wednesday that America is Iran’s sole enemy, and that it is getting weaker.

JERUSALEM (AFP) – US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will visit Israel “soon”, he told an Israeli newspaper in an interview published on Wednesday.

Long-running efforts to fully restore Israeli-Turkish ties strained after an Israeli raid of a Turkish boat in 2010 must now await the formation of a new government in Ankara, Israel’s top diplomat in Turkey said.

The Jerusalem Post reports: The Anti-Defamation League walked back a statement from last year implying MK Michael Oren (Kulanu) used racist stereotypes to describe US President Barack Obama, ending what Oren called a painful experience Sunday.

The Times of Israel reports: Kuwait’s minister of information, Sheikh Salman a-Sabah visited the Temple Mount on Saturday to pray at the al-Aqsa Mosque, later meeting with Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah.

CNN reports: Washington (CNN) In a reflection of the change and churn in the Middle East, former high-level officials from Saudi Arabia and Israel — nations that have no formal diplomatic ties — spoke publicly about their shared sense of Iran as a threat, their differences on Palestinians and the role the United States plays in their chaotic region.

The Jerusalem Post reports: there is no basis to reports that Germany wants to reassess the nature of its ties with Israel, Foreign Ministry Director-General Dore Gold said Wednesday following a day of talks in Berlin with top German foreign policy officials.

JAFFA, Israel –  The power cable of Kuwait’s Patriot air defense missile system has been stolen, Al Rai newspaper reported on Tuesday. The stolen cable is the main, but not only, source of electric power to the device. “Though it shouldn’t

Fox News reports: Israel, Egypt, and Hamas agree on at least one thing: their mission to prevent the Islamic State terrorist group from expanding its grasp.

BERLIN (Reuters) – A German government official denied on Sunday a magazine report which said Berlin might end its unconditional support for Israel due to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s increasing frustration with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday he hoped to make progress in talks in Geneva over the next two days toward renewing a cessation of hostilities agreement throughout Syria and resuming peace talks to end the fighting.

The Times of Israel reports: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday that his envoys will meet with their Israeli counterparts next month in a final push to reach a reconciliation agreement between the two former allies, whose relationship soured over five years ago.

TEL AVIV – Saudi Arabia will open an embassy in Israel if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepts the Arab Peace Initiative, an influential retired Saudi major general said in an interview with Al Jazeera.

JAFFA, Israel – One of the leading columnists in Saudi Arabia believes that President Obama’s visit to the kingdom last week did little to mend the rift between the two countries. Abdulrahman Al-Rashed, the former editor-in-chief of the influential Asharq al

TEL AVIV – Saudi Arabian and other Gulf press lashed out at President Barack Obama prior to his visit to Riyadh, accusing a “schizophrenic” Congress of being in cahoots with Iran in its attempt to pass a bill that would hold the kingdom responsible for involvement in the 9/11 terror attacks.

Russian forces in Syria have fired at least twice on Israeli military aircraft, prompting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seek improved operational coordination with Moscow, Israel’s top-selling newspaper said on Friday.