Israel News

Israel’s Foreign Ministry was “shocked” to learn that members of the US-led Mitchell fact-finding committee had visited the Temple Mount on Sunday without Israeli knowledge and accompanied by Islamic Waqf officials.

On his last full day in office, US President Bill Clinton gave the incoming Bush administration some unsolicited advice on how to handle foreign policy, but with the Middle East still sliding towards conflict, clearer heads are urging a complete reassessment of the Clinton approach to regional peace-making.

After Prime Minister Ehud Barak gave his approval, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators launched an intense round of peace talks in Sinai on Sunday to try to reach a framework agreement before the February 6 election in Israel. Barak is playing down expectations and blaring his “red lines” to Israeli voters, but his negotiating team seemed a bit surprised by the Palestinian side’s sudden willingness to quickly ink an accord.

Hamas staged a roadside bombing in Gaza on Monday that harkened back to the IDF’s long fight against Hizb’Allah in Lebanon, while the Arab woman believed to be part of a Fatah terrorist cell that lured Jewish teenager Ofir Rahum to his death in an ambush near Ramallah last Wednesday has been captured by Israeli security forces.

In a serious replay of past “archaeological crimes,” the Muslim Waqf on the Temple Mount has once again recklessly dug in areas rich with ancient artifacts, this time on the raised platform around the Dome of the Rock, and Israelis are upset that Prime Minister Ehud Barak refuses to stop it.

JERUSALEM, Israel, 11 October 2000 (Newsroom) — With more than 90 deaths and the destruction of synagogues and mosques, observers increasingly are describing the recent strife between Palestinians and Israelis as a religious war.

Israel has frozen cooperation with the Mitchell Committee appointed to investigate the causes of the current violence, following an unauthorized visit by the committee’s technical team to the Temple Mount last week.

In the latest instance of Israelis being brutally murdered in Palestinian areas, masked Arab gunmen grabbed two owners of a Tel Aviv restaurant who were shopping in Tulkarm on Tuesday and executed them on the edge of town.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell revealed on Tuesday the Bush Administration will not appoint a new Middle East peace envoy to replace Dennis Ross, signaling that America will play a less active role in the peace process than in the past. US President George W. Bush also plans to begin the “process” of moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as promised in the recent campaign.

A new political tempest erupted in Israel after it was learned that representatives of Likud prime ministerial candidate Ariel Sharon secretly met in Vienna on Thursday with a key economic adviser to PLO chief Yasser Arafat, raising the ire of Prime Minister Ehud Barak and even members of Sharon’s own Knesset faction caught off guard by the meeting.

In a decisive showdown in the Sinai on Monday, key regional and world leaders will goad Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and PLO chief Yasser Arafat to meet face-to-face to discuss terms for ending the lethal Palestinian uprising over the past two weeks. There appears to be little reason for optimism that a truce can be concluded quickly, or that the Oslo peace process can be revived anytime soon.

In his first official communication with new US President George W. Bush on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak declared that handing over the Temple Mount to the Palestinians would be an act of “betrayal.”

This past weekend, the last open hotel in the town of Nazareth, an important place of Christian pilgrimage, closed its door, a sign of the sagging fortunes of the tourism business in Israel since the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada.

The week-long Taba peace talks concluded on Saturday with an upbeat assessment from Israeli negotiators – backed up by a joint statement with the Palestinians – that the two sides were “closer than ever” to a final agreement, and just needed a little more time to close the deal.

There has been a marked increase in Palestinian attacks following the premature break-up of peace talks in Taba on Saturday evening, while the IDF managed to intercept an armed Palestinian squad infiltrating from Lebanon, leaving two terrorists dead.

Palestinian gunmen shot dead an Israeli motorist near Ramallah on Monday in what security sources believe may have been the latest attack traceable to Force 17, an elite commando unit that guards PLO chief Yasser Arafat.

Senior Israeli defense officials are concerning that Iran and Iraq are training and equipping terrorist factions for joint operations across Israel’s northern border.

The four-month-old Palestinian intifada that has slowly toppled Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak from power, plagued him right up to the eve of the election, which promises to be yet another “day of rage.”

Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh dismissed weekend reports of an imminent prisoner swap with Hizb’Allah as disinformation on Sunday, quashing rumors of an election eve surprise.

A Palestinian policeman was to be charged by an Israeli military court on Monday with intentional manslaughter for his part in the lynching of two IDF reservists in Ramallah last October.