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The article reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government in August 2019 barred two members of the U.S. Congress, namely, Representatives Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, vocal supporters of the Palestinians, from entering Israel, reversing a previous decision. Topics covered include the political implications of the move, U.S. President Donald Trump's response to Israel's decision and the plans of both congresswomen to visit Israel.

The article reports on U.S. President Donald Trump's selection of Orthodox Jewish bankruptcy lawyer David M. Friedman as ambassador to Israel. Topics discussed include Friedman's lack of diplomatic experience, his disregard of bipartisan American policy, and Friedman's representation of Trump's personal interests in the bankruptcies of the casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

The article discusses a meeting of Russian, American, Israeli national security advisors, and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for providing advance stability in region, particularly in Syria.

The article discusses the shift in Israeli people and government to the right amid an upsurge of Palestinian stabbings and other attacks and military's role. It presents views of Shlomo Avineri, a professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, on army. It states that Palestinians and human rights groups are accusing the military of excessive use of force in the West Bank.

The article reports on the dissatisfaction of Israel over the recent nuclear deal signed between the U.S. and Iran in 2015 in which it demands modifications.

The article reports on the acceptance of the nuclear agreement signed between Iran and the U.S. by the supporters of disarmament and reconciliation in Iran, and criticism of the deal's framework by Israel.

The article reports that American journalist Steven J. Sotloff, a U.S. hostage who was killed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) on September 3, 2014, was a citizen of Israel and has also lived and studied in the country.

The article reports on the focus of the leadership of Palestine on its diplomatic and legal struggle for the international recognition of the country as a state under occupation with the collapse of negotiations with the U.S. with the Middle East.

The article offers information on the Iron Dome, which is the anti-rocket interceptor system of Israel. It states that the rocket was described as a multi-layer shield which shoots down rockets and includes radar-guided missile Arrow system and Magic Wand. It mentions that Israel received $204 million from the U.S. to pay for the third to sixth mobile units as well as received $70 million for immediate support for four more batteries.

The article focuses on the Jewish Americans living in Israel who will be voting for presidential candidate Mitt Romney in the November 2012 elections. It is inferred 75,000 Americans in Israel have registered to vote for the 2012 presidential elections. Issues concerning the efforts of iVoteIsrael in supporting the Republican Party are highlighted.

WASHINGTON -- After a winter of alarm over the possibility that a military conflict over the Iranian nuclear program might be imminent, American officials and outside analysts now believe that the chances of war in the near future have significantly decreased. They cite a series of factors that, for now, argue against a conflict. The threat of tighter economic sanctions has prompted the Iranians to try more flexible tactics in their dealings with the United States and other powers, while the revival of direct negotiations has tempered the most inflammatory talk on all sides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

JERUSALEM -- Addressing his home audience after talks with President Obama in Washington this week, the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, acknowledged that differences still existed in the Israeli and American timetables for contending with the Iranian nuclear program. In taped interviews to be broadcast this weekend on the three main Israeli television channels, Mr. Netanyahu told Israelis that he hoped that international pressure and economic sanctions would succeed in persuading Iran to abandon its nuclear program, which Israel and the West suspect is a cover for Iranian efforts to achieve the capability to make nuclear weapons. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The International Atomic Energy Agency said on Wednesday that its inspectors, who had just completed a three-day visit to Iran, would return there in three weeks. The inspectors will hold further discussions about the ''clarification of possible military dimensions'' to Iran's disputed nuclear program, the agency said, signaling that both sides were seeking ways to defuse rising tensions over the issue. The agency's statement was its first about the discussions since the inspectors left Iran on Tuesday. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

JERUSALEM -- Israel and the United States have agreed to postpone major joint missile-defense exercises that had been scheduled for the spring because of regional tensions and instability, according to Israel's foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman. The move appears intended to avoid further escalating tensions with Iran, which is under intense international diplomatic and economic pressure to curb its nuclear program out of fears that it is seeking to make a nuclear bomb. Iran itself recently held 10 days of naval exercises near the Strait of Hormuz, and Israel has kept open the possibility of a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

JERUSALEM -- One video advertisement shows a Jewish elderly couple distraught that their Israeli granddaughter in the United States thinks Hanukkah is Christmas. Another shows a clueless American boyfriend who does not get why his Israeli expatriate girlfriend is saddened on Israel's memorial day. A third shows a toddler calling ''Daddy! Daddy!'' to his napping Israeli expatriate father, who finally awakens when the child switches to Hebrew: ''Abba!'' For many American Jews, the Israeli government-sponsored ads, intended to cajole Israelis living in the United States to come home, smacked of arrogance, ignorance and cultural disrespect of America. Jewish groups in the United States expressed outrage, saying they were causing a rift with American Jews who support Israel. On Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu aborted the campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

JERUSALEM -- Israel announced Monday that it had reached an agreement with Egypt, with American assistance, for the release of Ilan Grapel, an American law student from Queens who also holds Israeli citizenship. Mr. Grapel, who was arrested in Egypt in June and charged with spying for Israel, is to be exchanged for 25 Egyptians, including three minors, held in Israeli jails. Egypt's state television had a similar announcement Monday, Agence France-Presse reported. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- The Palestinian decision to apply for full United Nations membership at the Security Council, announced Friday by President Mahmoud Abbas, was the most viable of the only options possible: surrender, return to violence or appeal to the international community, a senior Palestinian official said Saturday. The official, Nabil Shaath, spoke to journalists before leaving for New York as part of the Palestinian delegation heading to the United Nations. He said that the appeal would change the ground rules of the conflict, and that although the Obama administration had vowed to veto the request and Israel had threatened punitive countermeasures, the Arab uprisings should make them reconsider. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KALANDIA, West Bank -- It is far from clear what will happen when the Palestinians go to the United Nations next week to seek recognition of statehood. But the initiative is engaging a Palestinian public that had become deeply cynical after 20 years of intermittent Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Many Palestinians here in this refugee camp between Ramallah and Jerusalem said that they were excited by the prospect of their territory's being declared a state, but that they recognized that it would not immediately improve their lives. Instead, they braced for possible punitive steps by the United States and Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said Thursday that last-ditch American and international efforts to prevent the Palestinians from applying for membership in the United Nations this month were ''too late.'' He said the Palestinians still intended to submit an application for recognition of Palestinian statehood to the Security Council as a first step, at risk of a confrontation with the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HORASHIM, Israel -- When 20 people gathered for a modest ceremony in the tranquil cemetery of this kibbutz in central Israel last month, the intimacy and quiet dignity of the event belied the tumultuous historical forces coursing beneath it. The occasion was the reinterring of the remains of Samuel Merlin, a founder of a small but brazen band of militant Zionists and Holocaust rescue activists who shook America and challenged the Jewish establishment in the 1940s, but who until recently have been largely excluded from official Holocaust history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel told President Obama on Friday that he shared his vision for a peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and then promptly listed a series of nonnegotiable conditions that have kept the two sides at an impasse for years. Sitting at Mr. Obama's side in the Oval Office, leaning toward him and at times looking him directly in the eye, the Israeli leader bluntly rejected compromises of the sort Mr. Obama had outlined the day before in hopes of reviving a moribund peace process. Mr. Obama, who had sought to emphasize Israel's concerns in his remarks moments earlier, stared back. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

GAZA -- Hamas officials here condemned on Monday the American operation that killed Osama Bin Laden, with Ismail Haniya, the leader of the Hamas government, calling it a ''continuation of the United States policy of destruction.'' Ismail al-Ashqar, a Hamas lawmaker, described it as ''state terrorism that America carries out against Muslims.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

UNITED NATIONS -- The Obama administration vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution on Friday condemning Israeli settlement building in occupied territory as illegal, choosing not to alienate Israel and risking the anger of Arabs. The lopsided vote in the Council, where among the 15 members only the United States voted no, as well as the more than 100 co-sponsors of the measure, underscored the isolation of the United States and Israel on the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

JERUSALEM -- Israeli bulldozers demolished part of a landmark building in a predominantly Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem on Sunday to make way for a Jewish housing project, prompting condemnation from Palestinian officials and symbolic claims to the site from both sides. Plans for development at the landmark, the Shepherd Hotel, have been in the works since the 1980s. But Jerusalem officials did not give the final go-ahead for the project until March, at the height of tensions between Israel and the Obama administration over construction in contested East Jerusalem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel will officially and publicly appeal to President Obama in the coming days for the release of Jonathan Jay Pollard, the American serving a life term in a North Carolina prison for spying for Israel, Mr. Netanyahu's office announced Tuesday. A public request, as opposed to Israel's discreet efforts in the past, would constitute a new approach in the campaign for Mr. Pollard's release and an additional twist in a long and painful chapter in Israeli-American relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

JERUSALEM -- After nearly two years of frustration and failure, the Obama administration began its Middle East peace efforts anew on Monday with its special envoy, George J. Mitchell, holding talks here on ways to improve the atmosphere between Israel and the Palestinians and ultimately negotiate over the core issues that separate them. Last week the administration ended its effort to persuade Israel to freeze settlement building in the West Bank as a precursor to direct talks. Instead, there will be no direct talks for now. Rather, Mr. Mitchell will ask both sides to lay out their negotiating positions to the United States separately and the Americans will seek ways to bridge the gaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

JERUSALEM -- When it became clear a month ago that American and Israeli officials were negotiating a partial, one-time, 90-day Israeli settlement construction freeze in exchange for American military hardware and diplomatic guarantees, few analysts applauded. Instead, they asked: Would pro-settler Israeli cabinet ministers accede to another freeze? Would the Palestinians accept a freeze that did not include East Jerusalem? And beyond that, how could the two sides solve enough in 90 days to prevent the talks from collapsing and, in the worst case, setting off violence? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- After three weeks of fruitless haggling with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Obama administration has given up its effort to persuade the Israeli government to freeze construction of Jewish settlements for 90 days, a senior administration official said Tuesday. The decision leaves Middle East peace talks in flux, with the Palestinians refusing to resume direct negotiations absent a moratorium, and the United States struggling to find another formula to bring them back to the table. It is another setback in what has proved to be a star-crossed campaign by President Obama. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

JERUSALEM -- The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said Sunday that any American proposal for restarting Israeli-Palestinian negotiations must include East Jerusalem as part of a complete halt in Israeli settlement building. It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Abbas's position, which is consistent with Palestinian policy, would scuttle a proposed deal that the Americans hope will lead to resumption of the negotiations. In the past the sides have found ways to surmount such difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

JERUSALEM -- Israel has published plans for some 1,000 new housing units in a hotly contested area of Jerusalem, advancing the approval process at a delicate time when the United States is pressing Israel to renew a freeze in settlement construction and get stalled peace negotiations with the Palestinians back on track. The plans were published for public review in the advertising sections of local newspapers on Friday, shortly before the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, left for a trip to the United States. The advertisement of the plans, a necessary step ahead of final approval, was picked up and given prominent exposure by the Haaretz news site and other Israeli news media on Monday. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PARIS -- Just two years ago, the election of President Obama resonated far beyond American shores, inspiring euphoric assessments in Europe in particular that American politics had embarked on new and enduring change after years of the Bush administration. It took the midterm elections this week to finally persuade some among Mr. Obama's global fan club to think otherwise. The Democrats' loss of control of the House of Representatives and their reduced majority in the Senate have left many outsiders pondering whether the open hand of the newly inaugurated president -- extended to Iran, Russia and the Middle East in 2009 -- will close, replaced by an introspective and distracted White House, prone to protectionism abroad while maneuvering at home with Republicans eyeing their enhanced prospects for the 2012 presidential election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

JERUSALEM -- Israeli officials have tried to float a trade-off in which they would extend the temporary moratorium on settlement construction in exchange for the release by the United States of Jonathan Jay Pollard, the American who pleaded guilty to spying for Israel and is serving a life term in an American jail, Israel's Army Radio reported Monday. The idea would be that the exchange might help Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to sell an extension of the partial settlement freeze on the West Bank to his rightist ministers, the radio said. The moratorium is due to expire on Sunday, and Palestinian leaders have threatened to halt the fledgling American-sponsored peace talks with the Israelis if construction resumes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TEL AVIV -- Amar'e Stoudemire loped into the lobby of his Tel Aviv seaside hotel, bouncing an orange basketball, wearing a gray T-shirt with the legend ''Jerusalem-Israel'' and side-by-side flags of Israel and the United States, a two-flag pin he said he was given as a gift, and a large black crocheted skullcap on his head. Among the many tattoos he considers ''like artwork'' was a small but prominent Star of David on the top of his left hand that he said he had had for a while. ''I look at the Star of David as a symbol of righteousness,'' he said. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

JERUSALEM -- A macabre legal wrangle is under way over who should pay the hospital bill for an American art student who lost an eye after being struck by a tear-gas canister fired by an Israeli border police officer at a Palestinian-led protest in the West Bank. The student, Emily Henochowicz, 21, was injured on May 31 after she joined Palestinian and foreign activists protesting that morning's deadly raid by Israeli naval commandos on a Turkish boat trying to breach the blockade of Gaza. Israeli security forces fired tear gas to disperse the demonstration after a few Palestinian youths threw rocks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

JERUSALEM -- In the upbeat atmosphere after their recent meeting in Washington, the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, and President Obamaexpressed hopes of an imminent resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and of achieving a peace deal -- within a year, according to Mr. Netanyahu, or in Mr. Obama's case, before the end of his term. There has been vague talk in Washington about a narrowing of gaps in the weeks since the indirect, American-brokered negotiations started in May. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

JERUSALEM -- Israel on Monday announced details of the easing of its blockade of Gaza, and the Israeli defense minister held a rare face-to-face meeting here with the Palestinian prime minister in a flurry of activity apparently intended to show diplomatic momentum ahead of the Israeli prime minister's meeting with President Obama, scheduled for Tuesday in Washington. After a rocky few months in Israeli-American relations, officials on both sides seemed eager to move to a smoother footing and show progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, in which the Obama administration has invested heavily. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration considers Israel's blockade of Gaza to be untenable and plans to press for another approach to ensure Israel's security while allowing more supplies into the impoverished Palestinian area, senior American officials said Wednesday. The officials say that Israel's deadly attack on a flotilla trying to break the siege and the resulting international condemnation create a new opportunity to push for increased engagement with the Palestinian Authority and a less harsh policy toward Gaza. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

JERUSALEM -- The prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, stood firm Friday on his government's policy of continued building in East Jerusalem, a major point of contention with the Obama administration. His office said the policy remained unchanged. The prime minister then met for about five hours with his top ministers to discuss the government's next moves, but there was no indication that the differences with the United States had been resolved. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- With Israeli officials saying that construction on a contentious Jewish housing project in East Jerusalem could begin at any time, President Obama seemed to have failed on Wednesday to persuade Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to give a written commitment to rein in any further building and to move ahead on peace talks with the Palestinians. Mr. Netanyahu left the United States early on Thursday. But before departing for Jerusalem, he said that he thought some progress had been made in healing the rift with Washington, The Associated Press reported. ''I think we have found the golden path between Israel's traditional policies and our desire to move forward toward peace,'' he said, according to The A.P. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- With Israeli officials saying that construction on a contentious Jewish housing project in East Jerusalem could begin at any time, President Obama pressed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday to give a written commitment to rein in any further building and to move ahead on peace talks with the Palestinians. Israeli and American negotiators huddled in Washington for a second straight day, after two sessions at the White House on Tuesday night ended in an impasse. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

JERUSALEM -- With strains still high between Israel and the United States over the issue of Jewish settlements, construction of a contentious Jewish housing project in a predominantly Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem could start at any time, Israeli officials and experts said Wednesday Jerusalem city hall gave the project the final go-ahead on March 18, days after city officials said the landowners had paid the required fees. Once the fees were paid, City Hall said in a statement on Wednesday, ''approval was granted automatically.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

MOSCOW -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, under intense pressure from the United States to settle a diplomatic dispute over Jewish settlements, called Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton late Thursday to propose what he called a package of ''mutual confidence building'' steps to be taken by Israelis and Palestinians to help restart peace negotiations. The Obama administration will ''review the prime minister's response and continue our discussions with both sides,'' Philip J. Crowley, the State Department spokesman, said in a statement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- The angry exchanges between the United States and the Israeli government have rekindled a White House debate over whether -- and when -- President Obama should propose an American plan to form the basis of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, senior administration officials said Wednesday. The move would be a risky one for Mr. Obama at a time that the coalition government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is fragile and the Palestinians are deeply divided. Until now Mr. Obama has deflected calls to put his own plan, with territorial maps, on the table. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

JERUSALEM -- The discord between the United States and Israel over Jewish building in East Jerusalem deepened Tuesday with Israeli officials saying they would reject demands by Washington and expressing anger over the public upbraiding of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by the Obama administration. On a day of scattered disturbances by Palestinians in East Jerusalem, news emerged that Israel was moving ahead with a second building project there. A notice on the Web site of the Israel Lands Authority invited bids on construction of 309 new homes in the Jewish suburb of Neve Yaakov, in northeast Jerusalem. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, said on Thursday that Iran must cease all uranium enrichment, a statement that reflected Israeli concern over a draft agreement taking shape in Vienna, where earlier this week Iran took part in nuclear talks with the United States, Russia and France. Under the tentative agreement, about three-quarters of Iran's known stockpile of nuclear fuel would be shipped to Russia for enrichment to levels suitable for a peaceful reactor but too low for weapons. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In a startling shift, the Palestinian delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Council dropped its efforts to forward a report accusing Israel of possible war crimes to the Security Council, under pressure from the United States, diplomats said Thursday. The Americans argued that pushing the report now would derail the Middle East peace process that they are trying to revive, diplomats said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The White House's Middle East envoy, George J. Mitchell, is set to hold an additional meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu here on Wednesday, according to Israeli and American officials, as part of an effort to pave the way for a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Mr. Mitchell met Mr. Netanyahu for two hours on Tuesday, then headed to Ramallah in the West Bank for meetings with Palestinian leaders. He joined the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, for a meal breaking the daily Ramadan fast. Mr. Mitchell is trying to put together a package of gestures and confidence-building measures that will allow the sides to restart the stalled talks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

President Obama said Tuesday that he saw ''movement in the right direction'' on the thorny issue of Israeli settlement construction in Palestinian areas, and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, a visitor to the White House, said prospects for restarting Middle East peace talks were good. The leaders' cautiously optimistic comments coincided with a sign that the Israeli government was trying to lower tensions with the United States on the settlement issue. That signal was in the form of an announcement by Israel's housing minister that his government had not given final approval for any new housing projects in the West Bank since it took office in late March. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An American-Israeli crime ring conspired to defraud United States tax authorities of tens of millions of dollars for at least five years, according to Israeli and American court documents filed Monday. The suspects filed thousands of fraudulent requests for tax refunds in the names of prisoners in federal penitentiaries, without the prisoners' knowledge, according to an indictment filed in Chicago. They then laundered the money through Israeli bank accounts, the authorities said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

President Obama's Middle East envoy sought Tuesday to allay fears here of a fundamental breakdown in Israeli-American relations while alluding to abiding differences over Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and the formula for Israeli-Palestinian peace. After meeting with Israeli leaders in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, the American envoy, George J. Mitchell, said it was ''beyond any doubt that the United States' commitment to the security of Israel remains unshakeable.'' But he also pressed for a peace effort, saying that Israelis, Palestinians and other parties ''share an obligation to create the conditions for the prompt resumption and early conclusion of negotiations.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]