President Donald Trump invited Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to the White House.
Abbas and Trump spoke on Friday and a Palestinian Authority spokesman soon after reported the invitation, saying the meeting would be aimed at reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which has been dormant since 2014.
Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman, confirmed the invitation later Friday but did not add details.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) meets with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson in London,
Britain will reportedly seek to bolster economic ties with Israel following the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union last year.
Israel and Britain will set up a working group to negotiate trade deals between the two countries, the UK’s Guardian newspaper reported on Sunday.
According to the report, a team of two to four officials from each country will meet by the end of March, and the group is expected to continue meeting two or three times a year to hammer out economic agreements.
Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres denounced in a periodic report on the implementation of resolution 1701, the recent statements made by Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah against Israel, rejecting “deterrence” justifications which “increases the risk of tension and could lead to renewed war,” An Nahar daily reported on Friday.
The report encouraged President Michel Aoun to resume national dialogue among political parties until a defense strategy is agreed to remove weaponry from Hizbullah and other armed groups, according to the daily.
The report, which consists of 91 paragraphs and prepared by the Special Coordinator for the United Nations in Lebanon Sigrid Kaag citing a comprehensive assessment of the implementation of Security Council resolution 1701, is the first for Guterres since he took office on the first of January.
In the report, Guterres welcomed the “institutional and political progress” made in recent months in Lebanon, saying it “represents an opportunity to further strengthen the Lebanese state’s authority and expand it.” Nevertheless it added that “Retention of arms by Hizbullah and other groups undermines the state’s authority and contradicts with the duties of the country under resolutions 1559 and 1701.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Moscow on Thursday seeking reassurance from Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country’s presence in Syria would help Israel block arch-nemesis Iran from taking advantage of the chaos to position itself permanently on Israel’s northern border.
Until now, the Israeli government has stayed relatively quiet about developments in the six-year-old conflict raging in neighboring Syria, acting militarily only when it feels its security threatened. But now, as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad receives a boost from the strategic alliance between Russia and Iran, Tehran’s expanding influence across the region is causing alarm in Israel.
At the start of his meeting with Putin, Netanyahu noted the significant progress made by Russia and other players in the region in fighting Islamist militant groups, including the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. He added, however, that “the victory over the terrorism of ISIS cannot lead to an upsurge in terrorism by Iran and its proxies. We will not exchange terrorism for terrorism.” ISIS is an alternative acronym for the Islamic State.
Jonathan Haidt, Dan Senor (center) and Frank Bruni on the Charlie Rose show
Identity politics are leading to the indoctrination of university students to view Jews and Israelis as “bad” and Palestinians as “victims,” a prominent American social psychologist warned on Monday.
Jonathan Haidt — professor of ethical leadership at NYU’s Stern School of Business — made this assertion during a panel discussion on PBS‘ “Charlie Rose,” with guest moderator Dan Senor — co-author of Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle — and New York Times columnist Frank Bruni.
The “old idea of education,” Haidt said — of encouraging students to consider various perspectives — has been replaced with a “totalizing perspective,” according to which “all social problems get reduced to [a] simple framework.” This, he said, has been detrimental to discussion on the issue of Israel.
Airlines that omit Israel from their route maps — as well as those that don’t offer kosher meal options — appear to do so to play to the prejudices of their customer bases, a new academic research paper reported on by The Economist this week found.
According to the study, authored by Joel Waldfogel and Paul Vaaler of the University of Minnesota, carriers that leave solely Israel off their maps — making clear it was an intentional move — include Flydubai, Kuwait Airways, Middle East Airlines, Qatar Airways and Saudia.
Leaders of the U.S. Reform movement met with Palestinian Authority President President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.
The delegation of around 30 leaders from the Union for Reform Judaism, led by its president, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, met with Abbas and other Palestinian officials Thursday afternoon.
Former IRGC general and current secretary of the Expediency Council has warned President Rouhani of ‘little dynamism’ to save an economy already in trouble, since a new president in the White House would decide differently than had Obama in the past.
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“The current language of diplomacy and peace should be changed to signal to Trump that Iran was not too weak and compromising to be easily molded in the hands of the White House; nor should Tehran act in a manner to tantalize Trump administration into even more dangerous adventurism such as military option; this is the art of the foreign policy and diplomacy to keep a safe distance from Trump, yet to prevent him from going too farther afield and into the wilderness,” the letter recommended.
A new law that would ban entry to Israel of foreigners who publicly support boycotts of the Jewish state is Israel’s “sovereign decision,” a State Department spokesperson said.
In a briefing to reporters on Wednesday, Mark Toner said that while the United States opposes boycotts of Israel, it is up to Israel to make decisions regarding its borders.
“While we oppose boycotts and sanctions of the state of Israel, we also support firmly freedom of expression,” Toner said. “That said, it’s – this is a sovereign decision for Israel to make regarding its borders.”
The law, adopted Monday by the Knesset, bans entry to foreigners who publicly call for boycotting the Jewish state or its settlements.
President Trump’s controversial pick to serve as U.S. ambassador to Israel earned the support of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday with all but one Democrat opposed to his nomination.
David M. Friedman’s bid to serve as the next ambassador to Israel will now go to the full Senate.
But the 12 to 9 split over his nomination in committee is a sign that partisan divisions will hang over Friedman’s confirmation process going forward, and possibly his expected tenure as ambassador as well.
Only one Democrat — Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey — voted in favor of Friedman’s nomination Thursday. The others argued that Friedman’s record of incendiary comments made him unfit for the post, despite his efforts to retreat from some of his more fiery statements during last month’s confirmation hearing.
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