While the leaders of several Arab countries expressed enthusiasm for future cooperation with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris following the November 3 US election, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh called on a Biden administration to “correct” what he described as “discriminatory American policy toward the Palestinian people that has caused instability in the region and the world,” the Jewish Press reports.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced citizens of the United States born in Jerusalem can now list their birthplace as “Israel” on their passports.
A former Israeli communications minister has stated that the manner in which Israel treated Bahraini princess Fatima bint Khalifa in 2010 helped open the door for normalizing relations with Bahrain this year, the Jerusalem Post reports. Speaking at the second annual Israeli- Palestinian Economic Forum Tuesday, Israeli-Druze Ayoub Kara said he had helped the princess receive treatment at Israel’s Rambam Hospital in Haifa, and that this had been an opportunity to foster good relations with the Gulf states.
The Saudis say they are increasingly ready for a peace treaty with Israel and view the recently-signed “Abraham Accords” as a “positive” development. Their first priority, however, is getting the Palestinians and Israelis back to the negotiating table.
The European Union has told the Palestinian Authority that it cannot have extra EU funding while Ramallah refuses to accept its own tax money collected by Israel, the Jerusalem Post reports. Anticipating Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced in May that he would cease all cooperation with Israel.
After numerous public pledges to bring about the first Palestinian national elections in 14 years, the possibility that residents of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip will head to the ballot boxes appears to have petered out, again.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday called on United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to convene an international conference early next year to launch “a genuine peace process” between Israel and the Palestinians.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of abusing the Palestinian people and lashed President Trump and Persian Gulf nations as “collaborators” during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday.
Less than a month after the Second Intifada erupted in September 2000, the Arab heads of state held an extraordinary meeting in Nasr City, a district of Cairo.
A leading Jewish commentator and politician says the agreements that Israel signed this week with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain are of “biblical proportions” and foretold in prophecy. Dov Lipman, a former legislator of Israel’s centrist Yesh Atid (“There Is a Future”) party, noted that Scriptures detail the tensions between the two sons of the Biblical patriarch Abraham.
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner said on Wednesday that he is “very confident” the recent Middle East peace agreements brokered by President Trump between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Israel and Bahrain will make an ultimate resolution with Palestine “more likely.”
Writing history, U.S. President Donald Trump presided over a signing ceremony at the White House establishing formal ties between Israel and two Arab nations, the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) and Bahrain.
In light of Bahrain’s recent decision to join the United Arab Emirates in normalizing relations with Israel, analysts have been considering whether Saudi Arabia, the Arab world’s largest economy, is likely to follow suit, Ynet News reports. Analysts say Bahrain was unlikely to normalize its Israel relations without the private endorsement of Saudi Arabia, because Riyadh sent troops to support Bahrain’s ruling family during the Arab Spring of 2011 and pledged to give the country $10 billion in financial aid in 2018.
On the anniversary of the worst-ever Islamic acts of terrorism, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a hopeful “historic breakthrough to further peace in the Middle East” with Bahrain establishing full diplomatic relations with Israel.
Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner said on Wednesday that the Trump administration’s peace plan is an attempt to “save the two-state solution” because it stops Israel from further expanding its presence in the West Bank.
The Arab League rejected on Wednesday a Palestinian proposal condemning the normalization agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, a Palestinian diplomatic source said on Wednesday according to Middle East news agencies.
The European Union has warned Serbia and Kosovo that they may not become members of the bloc if they move their embassies to Jerusalem.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas hosted a meeting in Ramallah Thursday night which included the leaders of terror groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that there are “many more unpublicized meetings with Arab and Muslim leaders to normalize relations with the state of Israel” following its historic peace agreement with the United Arab Emirates brokered by the United States earlier this month.
White House adviser Jared Kushner on Sunday trumpeted the recent agreement by Israel and the United Arab Emirates to establish diplomatic relations as a historic breakthrough and said “the stage is now set” for other Arab states to follow suit, but he gave no indication that any new deals were imminent.