JTA - Jewish & Israel News

Before Clinton meeting, Cantor's one-on-one with Bibi
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York this morning, following yet another bumpy few days in U.S.-Israeli relations. While the Obama Administration has been scrambling to find a way to try to salvage Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks which have come to an impasse over resumed Israeli settlement building, Netanyahu has been sounding a triumphant note since he arrived in New Orleans over the weekend following the GOP gains in last Tuesday...

Eric Cantor Decides We Shouldnt Speak With One Voice On Foreign Policy
If a Democratic Member of Congress promised a Foreign Leader he or she would side with that Leader against a Republican president, can you imagine the hell that would break loose? When the administration criticized Israel for Settlements in East Jerusalem, Republicans were critical. In a highly unusual one-on-one meeting between a sitting congressman of the president’s opposing party and a Foreign leader, incoming Majority Leader Eric Cantor promised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netan...

Sundown: White House Becalms Jewish Leaders
• A senior White House official assured Jewish-American leaders that the administration was not trying to force a confrontation with the Israelis over settlements. Read the need for that assurance as you wish. [Ben Smith] • On Eric Cantor’s assurances to Prime Minister Netanyahu, James Traub writes: “It’s extraordinary to think that any country’s security can be ‘synonymous’ with that of the United States.” [FP] • Glenn Beck and Iran se...

Don't Call it Treason
What do you call it when the (soon-to-be) House Majority Leader sits down with a visiting head of state and assures him that he and his party can be counted on to side with his country against the president of the United States? This isn't a hypothetical, by the way. It's not like I'm asking what would have happened if Joachim von Ribbentrop had sat down in Sam Rayburn's office in 1939 and received assurances that Rayburn and the Dems could be counted on to support Germany and block anything R...

Clinton Offers Netanyahu Security Pledge
Yahoo! Buzz U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has assured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel's Security requirements will be fully taken into account in any future peace deal with the Palestinians. The two sides said in a joint statement that direct negotiations, which have hit an impasse over Israel's resumption of settlement construction, could yet yield an independent Palestinian state living next to Israel with secure and recognized borders "that meet Israeli securit...

Obama: Pelosi is 'outstanding partner' - The Oval: Tracking the Obama presidency
President Obama didn't formally endorse Nancy Pelosi's bid to remain House Democratic Leader today, but he sure did say nice things about the outgoing Speaker. "I think Speaker Pelosi has been an outstanding partner for me," Obama told reporters today in South Korea. He did not address reports that some Democrats -- who saw their party lose at least 60 House seats in last week's Elections -- are leery of seeing Pelosi stay in Leadership. Republicans who take control of the House early next year ...

Obama lauds Pelosi as an 'outstanding partner'
President Obama lent his support to outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), calling her an "outstanding partner" in advancing his agenda. The president praised the top House Democrat and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) for their work on behalf of his White House, seemingly backing both in their Leadership roles for the next two years. "I think Speaker Pelosi has been an outstanding partner for me. I think Harry Reid has been a terrific partner in moving some very difficult legisl...

Hillary Clinton works to save Mideast peace talks
(11-12) 04:00 PST Washington - -- With tensions between the United States and Israel flaring again over Jewish Settlements, the Obama Administration and its allies worked feverishly on multiple fronts Wednesday to put Middle East Peace Talks back on track. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reiterated President Obama's criticism of Israel's new housing plans in East Jerusalem, calling them counterproductive to the Peace process. But she discouraged the Palestinian Authority from unilat...

In An Unusual Meeting, Cantor Tells Netanyahu The GOP Majority Will Serve As A Check On Obamas Israel Policy
Earlier this week, President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sharply criticized the Israeli government after it announced plans to build more than 1,000 Jewish Settlements in East Jerusalem. “This kind of activity is never helpful when it comes to peace negotiations,” Obama said, while Clinton called the move “counterproductive.” Indeed, the Israelis in 2003 agreed to freeze all settlement activity to jumpstart the peace process and the Palestinians refuse to e...

Obama: Pelosi an 'outstanding partner'
President Barack Obama indicated Friday he didn’t believe Democrats needed new Leaders in Congress, even after his party took what he has called a “shellacking” in the Midterm Elections. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who wants to remain the top Democratic House leader even as some moderate Democrats urge her to step aside in the wake of the new Republican Majority, “has been an outstanding partner for me,” Obama said at a News Conference in Seoul. Continue Reading Text...

The roadmap to nowhere
When Prime Minister Ariel Sharon accepted the road map in 2003, which is the official and only acceptance of the road map by the government of Israel, he did so subject to 14 reservations, one of which was that things in the road map were supposed to happen sequentially. Until the 'Palestinians' fulfilled their obligations under Phase 1 - ending incitement and disbanding the terror groups - we were not to move to Phase 2. The Bush Administration gutted the sequencing by insisting that we go st...

U.S. Struggles to Restore Middle East Talks
WASHINGTON — With tensions between the United States and Israel flaring again over Jewish Settlements, the Obama Administration and its allies worked feverishly on multiple fronts Wednesday to put Middle East Peace Talks back on track. Construction Workers in Har Homa, a district of southern Jerusalem where Israel plans about 1,000 new housing units. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reiterated President Obama’s criticism of Israel’s new housing plans in East Jerusale...

Clinton Announces Aid to Palestinian Authority, Meets with Egyptian Counterpart
Yahoo! Buzz U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced new funding to the Palestinian Authority and held Talks with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Wednesday, a day before her scheduled meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York.   Clinton said that she and her Egyptian counterpart discussed several issues here in Washington, ranging from Israeli-Palestinian issues to the international tribunal investigating the 2005 Assassination of former Leba...

The Hate Process
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is reported to have told Vice-President Joe Biden this week that “Israel has made enough efforts to reach a peace settlement [with the Palestinians] and has not received sufficient gestures in return.” If so, it was a great understatement. Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has published an overview of anti-Israeli incitement in the Palestinian Authority during July and August of this year. That was the time of the Israeli-Palestinian proximity ta...

The Hate Process
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is reported to have told Vice-President Joe Biden this week that “Israel has made enough efforts to reach a peace settlement [with the Palestinians] and has not received sufficient gestures in return.” If so, it was a great understatement. Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has published an overview of anti-Israeli incitement in the Palestinian Authority during July and August of this year. That was the time of the Israeli-Palestinian proximity ta...

Lengthy Clinton, Netanyahu meeting fails to revive Mideast peace talks
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met in New York with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu over a seven-hour period Thursday in an unusually lengthy but apparently unsuccessful attempt to rekindle moribund Middle East Peace Talks. No breakthroughs were reported. Clinton and Netanyahu's offices issued a joint statement reiterating the two sides' diplomatic boilerplate on Peace efforts. Direct Talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, launched by President Obama with great fan...

Boehner offers sweeteners to tea party
If Michele Bachmann’s bid for GOP conference chair was meant to be an early test of the Tea Party’s newfound power in the House, it’s time to put a score on the board. Advantage: establishment. Continue Reading Text Size - + reset Politico 44 Even after a historic pick-up of 60 seats built on the frustration of the Tea Party movement—which looks at Bachmann as a sort of benevolent royalty — it took about a week for her to see the writing on the wall. But while ...

The Clay County Progress - "News You Can Trust" - News
North Carolina congressman seeks minority House Leadership position. Wednesday, November 10, 2010 2:12 PM CST U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) said Monday he will challenge Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for the House minority Leadership position. “At this point, no one has come forward, no one in Leadership for a long time,” Shuler said. “It will be very tough. It is probably a race we can’t win. But we need a moderate voice in the Democratic Party.” ...

Obama Says Middle-Class Tax Cuts No.1 Priority
President Barack Obama points to members of the Korean media as he answers questions during his news Conference at the G-20 summit in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Nov. 12, 2010. At a Press Conference in Seoul, South Korea, on Friday, President Obama said he was committed to working with Democrats and Republicans during the Lame Duck session to guarantee the extension of Middle-class Tax Cuts, but denied that meant he was necessarily willing to cave on the matter of extending those Cuts for wealt...

Rebuffed abroad
Sharp rebuffs by two Middle Eastern leaders this week may offer a glimpse at the way in which the sense that Obama's presidency is weak at home affects his stock abroad. Eli Lake reports today that President Obama called Iraqi Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish leader and close American ally, and asked him to give up his seat in the interest of a the power-sharing deal the U.S. prefers. Talabani, Lake reports, "rebuffed" Obama, and the piece includes a jab at the White House from Talabani's...

Officials say tension in Lebanon is increasing
Lebanon is at the center of a brewing political hot spot. There are many sides and different points of view on the situation. Its location on the border with Israel creates a great deal of interest to the Netanyahu government. The U.S. and Israel want to contain the situation with Diplomacy but all sides are hedging their bets.  Recently Hizbullah Secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah announced that his organization would chop off the hand of anyone who tried to arrest his men on suspicion of ...

Clinton Makes Additional Security Pledges to Israel Over Peace Talks
Though for all intents and purposes the Peace Talks appear to be fully dead, the Obama Administration is continuing to make additional pledges to visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, assuring him of further US largesse in return for a Peace deal that is seemingly not coming. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was up to make promises today, assuring Netanyahu of America’s “unshakable commitment to Israel’s security.” She assured that the borders of any Pal...

Pelosi Gives Bush Tax Cut Compromise The Big N-O
Speaker Nancy Pelosi will not give ground on her opposition to extending the Bush Tax Cuts on the wealthiest Americans, even as the White House and other Democrats have signaled that it might be time to Compromise. "It's too costly. It's $700 Billion," Pelosi told NPR this morning. "One year would be around $70 Billion. That's a lot of money to give a Tax Cut at the high end. And I remind you that those Tax Cuts have been in effect for a very long time, they did not create Jobs." Pelosi's stro...

Pelosi Gives Bush Tax Cut Compromise The Big N-O
Speaker Nancy Pelosi will not give ground on her opposition to extending the Bush Tax Cuts on the wealthiest Americans, even as the White House and other Democrats have signaled that it might be time to Compromise. "It's too costly. It's $700 Billion," Pelosi told NPR this morning. "One year would be around $70 Billion. That's a lot of money to give a Tax Cut at the high end. And I remind you that those Tax Cuts have been in effect for a very long time, they did not create Jobs." Pelosi's stro...

Why GOP Must Back Obama on Iran
But there’s also reportedly now been an Iranian offer to resume negotiations over its Nuclear programme. This offer should be taken up and Republicans should avoid exerting pressure to reject them. Why? Not because the talks are likely to produce any sudden change in heart on the part of the regime. Quite the contrary—with each offer of talks, and each conference held, the Iranian government has done a better and better job of convincing the West and the international community that ...