Eye on "Palestine"

The State Dept. press director Patrick Ventrell said, "We’ve seen the reports ... but we do not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity."

UNHRC on Friday named three women to the panel, one accused Israel of "total discrimination," another's sister served on the Goldstone commission.

Once again, the BDS movement did not have a victory to claim. But we must not ignore Jewish organizations and individuals dreaming of strangling Israel's economy.

Israel is praising the Palestinian Authority for cracking down on crime and corruption in Arab territories in Judea and Samaria, following the arrest of 150 suspects.

Hamas official Izzat Al-Rishiq announced on his Facebook page on Wednesday announced that one of its senior members, Kamal Hussein Ranaja, was assassinated at his home outside Damascus. The perpetrators? Israel’s Mossad.

The 10 rockets launched by Hamas in the past 24 hours represent its first rocket barrage in some months, and its claim of responsibility and timing suggests that the escalation is linked to Muhammad Morsi's putative victory in the Egyptian presidential elections.

45% of Palestinian respondents believe that the first most vital Palestinian goal should be to end "Israeli occupation" and build a state, and 32% believe it should be to obtain the right of return. 28% believe the first problem confronting Palestinians today is poverty and unemployment, while 25% think it is the continuation of "Israeli occupation" and 23% think it is the absence of national unity.

“I couldn’t imagine raising my kids anywhere else,” says Itay Harel, one of Migron’s founders who established the community 13 years ago. But an unexpected battle began after the Israeli anti-settlement movement Peace Now, which aims to eliminate any Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria, to be replaced by a Palestinian state, claimed that Migron was settled on privately owned Arab land.

In the wake of Israel's transferal last week of the remains of 91 terrorists to the Palestinian Authority, PA TV used its youth programming as a platform to lionize the terrorists as "the greatest role models." Palestinian Media Watch reported that the program, called Speak Up, is co-produced by PA TV and PYALARA, a youth-focused NGO funded in part by the EU.

The Palestinian Authority will attempt to register the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem as a world heritage site in the country of Palestine when the World Heritage Committee meets in Russia from June 24 to July 6.

A Jewish gay and lesbian group has submitted a request to the Pride Toronto arbitration panel, asking the gay pride parade organizers to ban anti-Israel group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid from the festival. The dispute resolution committee will review the complaint, but may not be able to render a decision in time for the event.

IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Yair Naveh said Monday night that “Syria has the world’s largest arsenal of chemical weapons, along with rockets and missiles that can reach all of Israel." But Palestinian officials criticized the amplified Israeli criticism on Sunday as a tactic to deflect attention from Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and the "moribund peace process."

Top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat says Arab nations will pay the Palestinian Authority $100 million a month if Israel stops monthly tax payments to the group in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.

Despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's commitment not to seek the evacuation of five homes in Beit El's Ulpana Hill neighborhood, as required by a Supreme Court ruling, It appears that the premier has now come up with a creative solution, to evacuate and reconstruct the buildings on a nearby lot.

The "warnings" coming these days from Netanyahu and Barak do not threaten Israel's Palestinian partners that—should they fail to negotiate in good faith—they would lose their chance for a state. Both leaders seem to have embraced the two-state option as the only possible course of action.

The bodies of terrorists killed during terror attacks which murdered hundreds of Israelis will be transferred to the Palestinian Authority this week as a gesture to President Mahmoud Abbas, according to Ynet on Tuesday.

An Israeli military court Tuesday sentenced  Bassem al-Tamimi, a 45 year old Palestinian man who encourages Palestinian youth to attack Israeli soldiers with projectiles,...

The revelation is particularly disturbing because Israel recently agreed to ease restrictions on Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails so that they would end their hunger strike. An explicit term of the agreement required the prisoners to sign a pledge forswearing terrorist activity.

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday urged Israeli leaders to surrender large swaths of Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority if they want peace. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat disagree.

Today's' revelation by Israel's security forces, about a Palestinian terrorist cell comprised of nine Arabs from the Ramallah area who were recently indicted on several failed abduction attempts of Israeli civilians in the Benjamin region of Judea and Samaria last March, is reminiscent of Jimmy Breslin's comic novel "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight."

Hundreds of youths who rode from Hebron to Jerusalem on Sunday, Jerusalem Day, were struck on their way by the nightmare sight of an Arab attacking an IDF officer with a knife. Luckily, the attacker was overcome and ended up stabbing himself.

According to the Israeli extreme left, Jerusalem Day is "a holiday only to settlers and racists, who get a license to provoke and harass Palestinians." In the march of Jerusalem Day, tens of thousands of Israelis go from the western part of the capital through the Muslim Quarter, ending in front of the Wailing Wall. The parade has received the greatest amount of criticism on the Left.

According to a Tuesday report, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not see a way to prevent the court-ordered demolition of the Ulpana Hill neighborhood in Beit El, in the Benjamin region of Judea and Samaria. The neighborhood' spokesman thinks the PM must be helped out of the entanglement of his own doing.

On Monday night, hundreds of Palestinian prisoners agreed to end their hunger strike after winning concessions from Israel to improve their conditions, both sides announced. Earlier in the week, concern had been rising about the effect the death of one of the strikers might have on Tuesday's 'Nakba Day' protests.

The unintended consequence of the hostile cancellation of Egypt's natural gas contract with Israel may result in increased blackouts in Gaza. Benjamin Netanyahu's Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan says Israel should consider cutting its supply of electricity to the Gaza Strip this summer in face of predicted power shortages.

AG Weinstein warned Netanyahu that expropriation of Palestinian land could lead to war crimes charges against senior Israeli officials. Harel Koren, representing the residents of the Ulpana Hill, urged the PM to disregard fear and save thousands of homes from demolition.

Early this week, the Obama administration was ready to give up on its "haggling" with Netanyahu's government, abandoning its effort to renew the freezing of Jewish settlement construction. Then came the Netanyahu-Mofaz deal, guaranteeing the PM the support of 94 MKs. Hours later, a call came from Secretary of State Clinton, urging Netanyahu to use his new clout to advance the two-state solution.

Hamas's Islamic Endowment Ministry has been known to deploy a special committee known as the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice to enforce Muslim codes of behavior. Members preach at public places to warn of the dangers of immodest dress, card playing and dating.

A report titled "The Emperor Has No Clothes: Palestinians and the End of the Peace Process" was issued this week by the International Crisis Group, asking: "Does anybody still believe in the Middle East Peace Process?" It claims the current process, even if it yields some local progress, "will not bring about a durable and lasting peace.

Hamas Official: "Who are the Palestinians? We have many families whose roots are Egyptians! We are Egyptians. We are Arabs. We are Muslims. We are a part of you".