Pope Francis navigated the minefield of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and humbly bowed to kiss the hands of Holocaust survivors on Monday, the last day of a successful Mideast trip laden with bold personal gestures.
With a Rabbi and a Muslim leader in tow, Pope Francis makes his first visit to the Middle East on Saturday, a delicate mission to push his vision of inter-religious dialogue as a vehicle for peace in the region.
Several hundred Palestinian prisoners in Israel went on a one-day hunger strike in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners who have refused food for three weeks.
Danny Glover and others featured in a documentary about a 98-year-old Asian-American activist are protesting the film’s screening at a Tel Aviv film festival.
Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki said on Monday he had asked world powers to classify Israeli settler groups who attack Palestinian communities and holy sites as terrorist organizations.
The talks between Israelis and Palestinians are finally on ice — and the silence is deafening.
After nine months of behind-the-scenes diplomacy, Secretary of State John Kerry’s Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative hit its deadline last week with few outward signs of progress.
Israel’s national security adviser said in a letter sent to ambassadors to Israel from around the world that the Palestinians had been planning to foil the peace process long before the breakdown occurred.
On Yom HaShoah this year, when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called the Holocaust “the most heinous crime to have occurred against humanity in the modern era,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brushed off the unprecedented statement as “damage control” for failed peace talks.
National Security Adviser Susan Rice will travel to Israel on Wednesday and Thursday for regularly scheduled meetings with Israeli counterparts, the White House said on Tuesday.
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