Benjamin Netanyahu

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany on Monday criticized Israeli plans to expand settlements in the occupied West Bank, in unusually explicit terms a week before the two countries' leaders meet in Berlin. The comments, made by Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman, coincide with German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle's first trip to Israel and are in response to Israel's approval last week of plans to build 900 new homes near Jerusalem. Germany has traditionally been softer than many other nations in its criticism of Israel due to the legacy of the Holocaust in which the Nazis killed 6 million Jews, but politicians have recently adopted a sharper ... Read Full Story

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toured a naval vessel on Tuesday, using the backdrop of his country's military power to warn of the threat posed by the nuclear ambitions of arch-foe Iran. "The threat that Iran poses is very grave for the state of Israel, for peace in the Middle East and the whole world," Netanyahu said aboard the INS Eilat, a missile ship used recently to intercept a weapons-laden cargo vessel Israel said was ferrying arms from Iran to the Lebanese Hezbollah militia. "Without any doubt, we are the first target but not the last," Netanyahu said on the ship anchored off the ... Read Full Story

(IsraelNN.com) Calls for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's resignation were resounding throughout the Nationalist camp Wednesday, following a vote by Netanyahu's Security Cabinet to implement a 10-month building freeze in Judea and Samaria. Likud member and Zionist activist Moshe Feiglin warned that the building freeze, which halts all new housing development, is a sign of Netanyahu's future intention to abandon the Golan and divide Jerusalem. "The writing on the wall is clear," said Feiglin. "Anyone who participates in this objective proves he did not learn a thing from the crime of the expulsion [of Jews] from Gush Katif." More Read Full Story

AP - Israel on Wednesday proposed a 10-month halt to new construction in West Bank settlements as a step toward restarting Mideast peace negotiations. Washington welcomed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's offer, but the Palestinians swiftly rejected it because it did not include a building freeze in Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, the mainly Arab sector of the city they want as the capital of a future state. Read Full Story

AP - Israel on Wednesday proposed a 10-month halt to new construction in West Bank settlements as a step toward restarting Mideast peace negotiations. Washington welcomed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's offer, but the Palestinians swiftly rejected it because it did not include a building freeze in Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, the mainly Arab sector of the city they want as the capital of a future state. Read Full Story