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The article reports that on March 22, 2013, U.S. President Barack Obama helped Israel and Turkey reach a resolution to a dispute over Israel's 2010 raid on a Turkish ship aiding Palestinians in Gaza. It states that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan following Obama's participation in the reconciliation and both sides have agreed to dispatch envoys. Details of the 2010 attack on the Turkish flotilla ship known as the Mavi Marmara are provided.

The article discusses United States president Barack Obama's diplomatic visit to Jerusalem, highlighting his efforts to encourage peace talks between the Palestinian and Israeli governments as of March 22, 2013. Topics addressed include Obama's position on Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories, his meetings with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and a speech directed at Israeli youth.

The article reports that U.S. President Barack Obama advocates Palestinian politician Mahmoud Abbas to take toughened political risks with peace talks, however Abbas reaffirms denial to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

The article reports on the plan of U.S. President Barack Obama in visiting Israel in March 2013 and mentions that the conversation between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could settle the differences between the two countries.

The article reports on U.S. President Barack Obama's disagreement on the Jewish settlement planned by Israel. Daniel C. Kurtzer, former American ambassador states that U.S. has warned Israel not to build in the area adjoining East Jerusalem known as E1 as it may result to the creation of Palestinian states. Furthermore, Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council adds that the actions are harmful and makes it tougher to resume direct negotiations or attain a two-state solution.

WASHINGTON -- Even before President Obama declared this month that ''I have Israel's back'' in its escalating confrontation with Iran, pro-Israel figures like the evangelical Christian leader Gary L. Bauer and the conservative commentator William Kristol were pushing for more. In a slickly produced, 30-minute video, the group that the two men lead, the Emergency Committee for Israel, mocked Mr. Obama's ''unshakable commitment to Israel's security'' and attacked his record on Iran as weak. ''I'll be brutally honest: I don't trust the president on Israel,'' Mr. Bauer, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, said in an interview. ''I think his record on Israel is abysmal.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- On the eve of a crucial visit to the White House by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, that country's most powerful American advocates are mounting an extraordinary public campaign to pressure President Obama into hardening American policy toward Iran over its nuclear program. From the corridors of Congress to a gathering of nearly 14,000 American Jews and other supporters of Israel here this weekend, Mr. Obama is being buffeted by demands that the United States be more aggressive toward Iran and more forthright in supporting Israel in its own confrontation with Tehran. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- President Obama, speaking days before a crucial meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, stiffened his pledge to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, even as he warned Israel of the negative consequences of a pre-emptive military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. Seeking to reassure a close American ally that contends it has reached a moment of reckoning with Iran, Mr. Obama rejected suggestions that the United States was willing to try to contain a nuclear-armed Iran. He declared explicitly that his administration would use force -- a ''military component,'' as he put it -- only as a last resort to prevent Tehran from acquiring a bomb. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- Among the very first foreign leaders President Obama called after entering the Oval Office on Jan. 21, 2009, was the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. The last time the two men spoke was in February, when Mr. Obama failed, in an awkward, 55-minute phone conversation, to persuade Mr. Abbas not to go to the United Nations to condemn Israel for building Jewish settlements. The 25 months between those calls demonstrate how Mr. Obama's relationship with Mr. Abbas has withered -- and along with it, Mr. Obama's hopes to make Middle East peacemaking one of his signature achievements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- Five days ago, during a closed-door meeting with a group of Middle East experts, administration officials, and journalists, King Abdullah II of Jordan gave his assessment of how Arabs view the debate within the Obama administration over how far to push Israel on concessions for peace with the Palestinians. From the State Department, ''we get good responses,'' the Jordanian king said, according to several people who were in the room. And from the Pentagon, too. ''But not from the White House, and we know the reason why is because of Dennis Ross'' -- President Obama's chief Middle East adviser. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- President Obama, seeking to capture a moment of epochal change in the Arab world, began a new effort on Thursday to break the stalemate in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, setting out a new starting point for negotiations on the region's most intractable problem. A day before the arrival in Washington of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Mr. Obama declared that the prevailing borders before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war -- adjusted to some degree to account for Israeli settlements in the West Bank -- should be the basis of a deal. While the 1967 borders have long been viewed as the foundation for a peace agreement, Mr. Obama's formula of land swaps to compensate for disputed territory created a new benchmark for a diplomatic solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- Six months after the Arab world erupted in a political firestorm, President Obama has been searching for ways to link the region's historic transformation to the long-stymied peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. It is far from clear how he can do that. Mr. Obama will have a chance to reshape the debate on Thursday, when he delivers a major speech on the region at the State Department. The president plans to argue that the political upheaval raises the prospect for progress on all fronts, and will offer ''some specific new ideas about U.S. policy toward the region,'' the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, said Tuesday. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel came to the United States recently for another round of tense talks with the Obama administration, he got a decidedly warmer welcome from one of the rising Republican stars on Capitol Hill, Representative Eric Cantor, the incoming majority leader of the House. But while Mr. Cantor and other newly empowered Republicans are eager to promote themselves as Israel's staunchest defenders in Washington, the reconfigured American political landscape is a more complex and unpredictable backdrop for Middle East peacemaking. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- With tensions between the United States and Israel flaring again over Jewish settlements, the Obama administration and its allies worked feverishly on multiple fronts Wednesday to put Middle East peace talks back on track. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reiterated President Obama's criticism of Israel's new housing plans in East Jerusalem, calling them ''counterproductive'' to the peace process. But she discouraged the Palestinian Authority from unilaterally declaring an independent state, an action that Palestinian officials have threatened to take in recent weeks as the talks have remained paralyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- President Obama's criticism of new Israeli housing plans for East Jerusalem, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's even sharper retort, have thrown the Middle East peace talks into jeopardy, with the dispute over Jewish settlements looming as a seemingly insuperable hurdle. The Obama administration is struggling to restart direct negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians, which stalled last month after the expiration of a partial freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to meet Mr. Netanyahu in New York on Thursday, while Egypt sent two top officials to Washington to discuss ways to salvage the process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration believes it has persuaded Arab states not to scuttle the fledgling Middle East peace negotiations, officials said Thursday, despite the Israeli government's refusal to freeze Jewish settlements and a vow by the Palestinians to walk away if Israel did not. With the Arab League's meeting on Friday expected to deliver a pivotal decision on the future of the talks, the United States has appealed to Jordan and other Arab nations to stop short of pushing the Palestinians to break off the negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- When President Obama reopened face-to-face talks between the Israelis and Palestinians last month, he pledged that his administration would hold their hands but warned, ''The United States cannot impose an agreement, and we cannot want it more than the parties themselves.'' With the negotiations deadlocked over the issue of Jewish settlements, several veterans of Middle East peacemaking said Mr. Obama's warning had come true -- only weeks after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, agreed to sit down. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SHARM EL SHEIK, Egypt -- The leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority held more than two hours of face-to-face peace talks in this Red Sea resort on Tuesday, delving into several of the core issues that divide the two sides but not breaking an impasse over Jewish settlements. President Obama's special representative, George J. Mitchell, said he was encouraged by the overall direction of the talks, but declined to say whether the two sides had made any progress on a dispute over Israel's moratorium on settlement construction, which is scheduled to expire on Sept. 26. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- President Obama began his Middle East peace initiative on Wednesday, as the Israeli and Palestinian leaders committed to work to end the conflict that has endured for six decades. In a remarkable tableau at the White House, Mr. Obama, flanked by the leaders of Israel, the Palestinians and the only two Arab states with whom Israel has made peace, vowed to do everything within his power in the next year to achieve the comprehensive agreement that has eluded negotiators since Israel was established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- President Obama said Tuesday that he expected direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians to begin ''well before'' a moratorium on settlement construction expired at the end of September, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel pledged to take ''concrete steps'' in the coming weeks to get the talks moving. The president's comments, after a 79-minute, one-on-one session in the Oval Office, were the first in which he articulated a timetable for peace negotiations. They also reflected a palpable shift in the administration's approach to a relationship that has been rife with tension since soon after Mr. Obama took office. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- Struggling to navigate a bitter split between two important allies, the Obama administration on Tuesday tried to placate an outraged Turkish government while refusing to condemn Israel for its deadly raid on a flotilla of aid ships bound for Gaza. President Obama telephoned Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey to express his ''deep condolences'' for the deaths of Turkish citizens in clashes with Israeli soldiers on the ship, the White House said. He told Mr. Erdogan that the United States was pushing Israel to return their bodies, as well as 300 Turks who were taken from the ship and being held in Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- It was just a phrase at the end of President Obama's news conference on Tuesday, but it was a stark reminder of a far-reaching shift in how the United States views the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and how aggressively it might push for a peace agreement. When Mr. Obama declared that resolving the long-running Middle East dispute was a ''vital national security interest of the United States,'' he was highlighting a change that has resulted from a lengthy debate among his top officials over how best to balance support for Israel against other American interests. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, under extraordinary pressure from the Obama administration to curb the construction of Jewish housing in Jerusalem, served notice on Monday that his government would not yield easily to American demands. In a speech to a pro-Israel lobbying group, Mr. Netanyahu reiterated that Israel had no plans to freeze housing in Jerusalem, the trigger for a recent dispute between Israel and the United States. He rejected the administration's contention that Israel's policies were impeding the peace process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- For President Obama, getting into a serious fight with Israel carries obvious domestic and foreign political risks. But it may offer the administration a payoff it sees as worthwhile: shoring up Mr. Obama's credibility as a Middle East peacemaker by showing doubtful Israelis and Palestinians that he has the fortitude to push the two sides toward an agreement. The risks at home were on display on Tuesday, as more than two dozen members of Congress, many of them Democrats, implored Mr. Obama to ease the tensions with the Israeli government after its announcement of a Jewish housing plan during a visit by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For the last seven months, the Obama administration has labored in vain to bring the Israelis and the Palestinians together, pushing for a loose quid pro quo under which Israel would freeze construction of Jewish settlements while its Arab neighbors undertook diplomatic steps to bolster Israel's confidence in its security. Now, in the latest acknowledgment that its policy has failed, at least for the moment, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has begun setting the stage for a new phase of Middle East diplomacy, with a more modest goal. She is trying to get the parties talking at any level to avoid a dangerous vacuum until a Plan B emerges. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

President Obama, who has met immovable resistance from Israel over his demand for a full freeze on settlements in the West Bank, is largely setting that issue aside as a first step toward restarting Middle East peace talks. Rather, Mr. Obama, unable to extract that concession from Israel or other confidence-building moves from Arab states, seems intent to press Palestinians and Israelis to negotiate all the difficult issues between them toward a final deal that has eluded negotiators, and bedeviled American presidents, since President Jimmy Carter brokered a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1979. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

President Obama had hoped to go to his first United Nations meeting next week with at least one diplomatic coup: a plan to restart the long-stalled Middle East peace talks, to be announced in a three-way meeting with the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. But after a fruitless week of shuttle diplomacy, his special envoy, George J. Mitchell, returned to the United States on Friday night without an agreement on freezing construction of Jewish settlements and amid fresh signs of differences on the basis for peace negotiations. Mr. Obama now faces the prospect of a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, that some say will be little more than a photo opportunity, one that will only underscore how elusive an Arab-Israeli peace agreement is. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

President Obama's new formulation on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- along with his tough new stance against Israeli settlements in the West Bank -- has rekindled fears among a few American Jewish organizations that Mr. Obama may be fundamentally less pro-Israeli than his predecessors. But several prominent pro-Israeli lawmakers on Capitol Hill indicated that they remained behind Mr. Obama's Middle East push, at least for now. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Obama administration reiterated emphatically on Wednesday that it viewed a complete freeze of construction in settlements on the West Bank as a critical step toward a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians. Speaking of President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said, ''He wants to see a stop to settlements -- not some settlements, not outposts, not 'natural growth' exceptions.'' Talking to reporters after a meeting with the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, she said: ''That is our position. That is what we have communicated very clearly.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After the much anticipated White House meeting on Monday between President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, one question being asked in diplomatic circles is this: Did Mr. Obama give up more than he got? The meeting between the two, their first as leaders, was mainly an exercise in breaking the ice. But at the early stages of a relationship between the nations' leaders that is likely to be more strained than it was during the Bush years, their dealings are being analyzed for signs of who has the upper hand. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- Few game-changing proposals are emerging to defuse tensions in the Middle East as a busy week of diplomacy unfolds with President Obama's address to the region and his meeting with Israel's prime minister. Against the backdrop of Middle East uprisings that have intensified animus toward Israel and growing momentum for global recognition of a Palestinian state, American and Israeli officials are struggling to balance national security interests against the need to adapt to a transformative movement in the Arab world. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- Israel found itself at odds with its two most stalwart allies on Tuesday as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu culminated a tense visit to Washington with a face-to-face session with President Obama that apparently failed to resolve the impasse between the two over a comprehensive Middle East peace plan. Even as Mr. Netanyahu met with Mr. Obama at a session during which the White House pointedly withheld the usual trappings of a visit by the head of a government, Israel's other ally, Britain, expelled an Israeli diplomat. It was a rare move by a friendly government, meant as a rebuke for what appeared to be the use of a dozen fake British passports by assassins suspected of being Israeli agents in the killing of a Hamas official in Dubai. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]