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White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough made clear in a speech to a left-leaning Israel advocacy group that President Barack Obama isn’t letting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu off the hook for his dismissal of a two-state solution. That stance, as well as Netanyahu’s suggestion also made in the closing days before last week’s Israeli elections that he’d approved settlements in contested territory in Jerusalem for the strategic purpose of changing the borders are “so very troubling,” McDonough told J Street’s annual conference in Washington. He called the pro-Israel group, which opposes some of Netanyahu’s policies, “our partner.” Story Continued Below McDonough added that the White House isn’t impressed by Netanyahu’s efforts since last Tuesday to backtrack on what he meant when he said there wouldn’t be a Palestinian state established so long as he’s prime minister. “We cannot simply pretend that these comments were never made,” McDonough said.

McDonough said the Obama administration is well aware of the regional security problems Netanyahu referenced in explaining why he didn’t see a two-state solution as an imminent possibility. But he said Obama does not believe that is or could be reason to back off talks — and this is not simply matter of personal “pique” about Netanyahu, the chief of staff said. “The United States will never stop working for a two-state solution and a lasting peace that Israelis and Palestinians so richly deserve,” he said. McDonough then described the alternate to a two-state agreement: a one-state solution based on unilateral annexation and abandonment of democratic rights for Palestinians that, he warned, “would only contribute to Israel’s further isolation.” In other words, he said, more divestment, boycotts and efforts to delegitimize Israel in the international community. “An occupation that has lasted more than 50 years must end,” McDonough said, one of several times he brought the crowd to its feet.

It’s not just Democrats and White House officials who’ve got problems with Benjamin Netanyahu. Blasting “diplomatic missteps and political gamesmanship,” former Secretary of State James Baker laid in hard to the Israeli prime minister on Monday evening, criticizing him for an insufficient commitment to peace and an absolutist opposition to the Iran nuclear talks. Story Continued Below Baker told the gala dinner for the left-leaning Israeli advocacy group J Street that he supported efforts to get a deal with Tehran — but he called for President Barack Obama to bring any agreement before Congress, even though he may not legally be required to do so. Baker, who was the chief diplomat for President George H.W. Bush and is now advising Jeb Bush on his presidential campaign, cited mounting frustrations with Netanyahu over the past six years — but particularly with comments he made in the closing days of last week’s election disavowing his support for a two-state solution and support for settlements strategically placed to attempt to change the borders between Israel and the West Bank.

Baker said while Netanyahu has said he’s for peace, “his actions have not matched his rhetoric.”

As to Netanyahu’s opposition on Iran, Baker warned against seeking only a perfect deal. “If the only agreement is one in which there is no enrichment, then there will be no agreement,” Baker said.

The European Union has issued new guidelines for the labelling of products from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, after years of deliberation and in the teeth of fierce Israeli opposition. Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, made a personal appeal to a number of key European figures in the runup to the decision, in which he said the plan was discriminatory, indicative of double standards, and would embolden those who seek to “eliminate” Israel. The measures will primarily cover fruit and vegetables and should affect less than 1% of all trade from Israel to the EU, which is worth about €30bn. EU officials said existing measures for produce brought into Britain have had no negative economic effect.

On some products, like fruit and vegetables, the labelling referring to settlements will be mandatory, while on others it will be voluntary. Israel sees the move as a political stigma that rewards Palestinian violence and will push consumers away. It immediately summoned the EU ambassador to Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, in protest. The Israeli foreign ministry said the EU has chosen “for political motives, to take an unusual and discriminatory step” at a time when Israel is facing a wave of terror. In a statement, the ministry said it was “surprised and even angered by the fact that the EU chooses to implement a double standard against Israel, while ignoring 200 territorial disputes taking place today around the world, including within [the EU] or right on [Israel’s] doorstep”. The EU’s claim that the decision was a “technical step” was baseless and cynical, the statement added.

Despite insisting in public that the new guidelines provide clarity to consumers, European diplomats have privately made it clear the move is designed to put pressure on Israel over its continued settlement building in the occupied territories and the absence of a peace dialogue; a sharp rise in violence between Israelis and Palestinians has claimed 90 lives in the last month. Announcing the new guidelines, a European commission official said it had “adopted this morning the Interpretative Notice on indication of origin of goods from the territories occupied by Israel since June 1967”. Although the new guidelines are expected to have little real economic impact, they do carry a political significance for Israel, not least because of the widespread agreement among European governments over their implementation. The decision to push ahead with issuing the guidelines also marks the second major defeat in a year for Netanyahu on an international stage, following his defeat over the Iran nuclear accord, amid mounting evidence of Israel’s growing international isolation.

IN A MEETING with President Obama today, Benjamin Netanyahu went through the familiar motions of expressing rhetorical support for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Stating, “I remain committed to a vision of peace of two states for two peoples,” Netanyahu said that he wanted “make it clear that we have not given up our hope,” for achieving a two-state solution to the conflict. Just a day before this statement, however, the Israeli government took steps to ensure such a vision could never become reality, moving to authorize the construction of an additional 2,200 housing units in the occupied territories in the face of Palestinian opposition. The reason behind this apparent discrepancy between word and deed is that Netanyahu does not, and has essentially never, supported the creation of an actual Palestinian state. Last year, during the Israeli election, Netanyahu briefly acknowledged this fact himself, explicitly stating to voters that there would not be a Palestinian state during his tenure as prime minister if he was reelected. Despite this, the convenient fiction that the Israeli prime minister supports a “two-state solution” continues to linger in the United States. Why?

In 2009, however, that began to change. In June of that year, newly elected President Barack Obama, who had made rebuilding ties with the Muslim world a part of his foreign policy platform, gave a landmark speech in Cairo in which he said the United States “does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements,” going on to describe them as contrary to previous agreements and an impediment to peace in the region. Israeli media would report at the time that Obama’s words “resonated through Jerusalem’s corridors.” In seeming recognition of shifting American sentiments on this issue, 10 days later Netanyahu gave what was billed as a landmark speech at Bar-Ilan University near Tel-Aviv, dealing in part with the subject of Palestinian statehood. In his address, hailed by the White House as an “important step forward,” Netanyahu endorsed for the first time the creation of what he called “a demilitarized Palestinian state” in the occupied territories. But the same speech added stipulations that, in sum, turned this so-called state into a rebranded version of Netanyahu’s 2000 “Palestinian entity,” with only limited autonomy. In private, just three months before the speech, Netanyahu was even more blunt about the limits he required for a more independent Palestinian territory, stipulating he could only support one “without an army or control over air space and borders,” according to diplomatic cables later released by WikiLeaks.

In a speech two years later to Congress, Netanyahu would go into more detail about the ridiculous conception of Palestinian “statehood” he was imagining, one in which the West Bank would be essentially bifurcated by massive Israeli settlement blocs, the prospective Palestinian capital of East Jerusalem would be surrounded by settlements, and the Israeli Defense Forces would continue to have “a long-term military presence” inside the newly independent “state.” Needless to say, such a proposal was unlikely ever to be accepted by the Palestinians, nor did it bear much resemblance to the independent statehood they had actually been seeking. Netanyahu let the mask drop even further in July 2014, when he stated in a press conference that “there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan,” essentially outlining a position of permanent military occupation of Palestinian territories. In the run-up to the 2015 election, when he publicly disowned the idea of Palestinian statehood, Netanyahu would specifically repudiate his 2009 Bar-Ilan speech, stating that “there will be no withdrawals and no concessions,” and that the speech was “not relevant.” As recently as last week, Netanyahu told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that “we need to control all of the territory for the foreseeable future,” before adding darkly that Israel “will forever live by the sword.”

Friendly relations between US and Israel could turn sour over revelations that the NSA tapped Netanyahu, revealing efforts to block the Iran nuclear deal. The U.S. National Security Agency spied on close ally Israel, exposing how Israelis lobbied U.S. authorities to undermine the Iranian nuclear deal, RT reports.   The monitoring came in spite of a U.S. pledge to tone down surveillance of friendly states, while the latest snooping even included some Congress members private conversations. Former Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Pete Hoekstra called the interceptions an “abuse of power” and called for an investigation into the allegations. “WSJ (Wall Street Journal) report that NSA spied on Congress and Israel communications very disturbing. Actually outrageous. Maybe unprecedented abuse of power,” Hoekstra wrote on his official Twitter account. “NSA and Obama officials need to be investigated and prosecuted if any truth to WSJ reports. NSA loses all credibility. Scary,” he added.

Friendly relations between US and Israel could turn sour over revelations that the NSA tapped Netanyahu, revealing efforts to block the Iran nuclear deal. The U.S. National Security Agency spied on close ally Israel, exposing how Israelis lobbied U.S. authorities to undermine the Iranian nuclear deal, RT reports.   The monitoring came in spite of a U.S. pledge to tone down surveillance of friendly states, while the latest snooping even included some Congress members private conversations. Former Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Pete Hoekstra called the interceptions an “abuse of power” and called for an investigation into the allegations. “WSJ (Wall Street Journal) report that NSA spied on Congress and Israel communications very disturbing. Actually outrageous. Maybe unprecedented abuse of power,” Hoekstra wrote on his official Twitter account. “NSA and Obama officials need to be investigated and prosecuted if any truth to WSJ reports. NSA loses all credibility. Scary,” he added.

Massive surveillance has continued under President Barack Obama’s two terms, and the revelations of Edward Snowden in 2013 over the extent of the data harvested from civilians did little to dent the spy agency’s activities, according to the Wall Street Journal. A “protected list” rapidly pulled together by the Obama administration in the wake of the scandal to safeguard its closest allies from monitoring included countries including Germany and France. Israel, however, was not on this list, and was instead placed as NSA’s top monitoring priority, as was Turkey. A senior US official said told the Wall Street Journal, “Going dark on Bibi? Of course we wouldn’t do that,” using Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s nickname.

Turkey backtracked on a plan to send more troops into Iraq to support its allies there, after the government in Baghdad said it would appeal to the United Nations to force their withdrawal.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told his Iraqi counterpart Haider al-Abadi that Turkey would take no steps that would violate Iraq’s sovereignty or territorial unity, according to an e-mailed statement from his office. Earlier Sunday, Turkish officials had said Iraq invited Turkey to send troops to train local forces combating Islamic State militants. Abadi responded by threatening to take the issue to the UN Security Council. The U.S. also opposed the Turkish deployment. “Our prime minister has stressed in his letter that there will be no transfer of forces to Bashiqa until the sensitivities of the Iraqi government are addressed,” Davutoglu’s office said in the statement. Davutoglu briefed his Iraqi counterpart on the deployed Turkish troops’ training mission, according to the statement, which didn’t specify whether they would be withdrawn.The U.S. opposes any military deployment inside Iraq that doesn’t come with the consent of the Iraqi government, a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.

Secretary of State John Kerry caused consternation in Israel when he said the nation threatens to implode if a two-state solution is not reached with Palestinians, drawing the ire of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.“Israel will not be a binational state,” Netanyahu said emphatically at the opening of his weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, according to the Times of Israel.Kerry warned Israel that the collapse of the Palestinian Authority (PA) threatens to destabilize the nation.ADVERTISEMENT“If there is a risk that the PA could collapse — and it is in Israel’s interest for it to in fact survive, as the prime minister suggested — should more therefore not be done to sustain it?” Kerry said in a Saturday speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., on Saturday.“The one-state solution is no solution at all for a secure, Jewish, democratic Israel living in peace. It is simply not a viable option,” he added.

He said a two-state solution is possible only if both sides want peace.“But in order for there to be peace, the other side must decide that they also want peace, and unfortunately that is not what we are seeing,” he said on Sunday.

Now we can see what moves legislators to take swift action against domestic surveillance. It all depends on who's being targeted. A long-held "gentleman's agreement" that GCHQ would not spy on members of Parliament (with an exigent circumstances exception, naturally) was found to be not legally-binding by the UK's surveillance oversight tribunal. Today, a panel, headed by Mr Justice Burton, made declarations that the Wilson Doctrine applies only to targeted, and not incidental, interception of Parliamentary communications, but that it has no legal effect, save that in practice the Security and Intelligence Agencies must comply with their own guidance. The Wilson doctrine, implemented by prime minister Harold Wilson in November 1966, lay down the policy of no tapping of the phones of MPs or members of the House of Lords, unless there is a major national emergency, and that any changes to the policy will be reported by the prime minister to Parliament.

Once the Parliament members discovered they too could be subjected to GCHQ's "blanket surveillance," they moved quickly. MPs are to hold an emergency debate on the Wilson doctrine, amid fears the convention designed to prevent politicians' communications being spied upon is "dead". [...] Shadow Commons leader Chris Bryant led a successful application in the Commons for an emergency debate in response to Wednesday's judgment. The debate has been allocated up to three hours on Monday, October 19. When it's just the general public and foreign citizens of dozens of nations, politicians generally agree there's a "debate" to be had over dragnet surveillance. The debate then takes place with minimal input from those affected and tends to include large amounts of terrorist fear-mongering and quibbling over how much exactly national security agencies should be allowed to get away with. (As much as possible, usually. Especially when the fear-mongering side has the floor.)

When it's those up top discovering they, too, might be subject to the same surveillance they've inflicted on the rest of the nation (and foreigners who have been granted no rights whatsoever), they step all over themselves in their haste to "debate" the side of the issue that states they should continue to be excepted from the laws that apply to everyone else.

The Iraqi parliament has demanded that its government sets a deadline for the withdrawal of foreign troops, piling pressure on the prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, who is seeking re-election in May. There are believed to be more than 5,000 US soldiers stationed in Iraq to fight Islamic State. American troops make up the largest foreign presence, although Washington formed a 74-country coalition to help fight Isis. The US has been reluctant to significantly reduce those numbers. Mr Abadi declared victory over Isis in December but pockets of militants still operate in the north of the country. The parliament voted yesterday to set a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces.

A Turkish official said anyone supporting the YPG militia will become "a target", a warning likely to rile the United States as its forces work alongside the Kurdish armed group on the ground in northern Syria. Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag's comments on Thursday came after Turkey threatened to attack the town of Manbij as part of its cross-border operation against the Afrin region, controlled by the Kurdish fighters. The US has about 2,000 soldiers based in Manbij - about 100km east of Afrin - who work with the YPG in fighting Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS). If the US wants to "avoid a confrontation with Turkey - which neither they nor Turkey want - the way to this is clear: they must cut support given to terrorists", Bozdag told Turkish broadcaster A Haber. "Those who support the terrorist organisation will become a target in this battle. The United States needs to review its soldiers and elements giving support to terrorists on the ground in such a way as to avoid a confrontation with Turkey," he said. There was no immediate response from the US to Bozdag's comments on Thursday.

A Turkish official said anyone supporting the YPG militia will become "a target", a warning likely to rile the United States as its forces work alongside the Kurdish armed group on the ground in northern Syria. Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag's comments on Thursday came after Turkey threatened to attack the town of Manbij as part of its cross-border operation against the Afrin region, controlled by the Kurdish fighters. The US has about 2,000 soldiers based in Manbij - about 100km east of Afrin - who work with the YPG in fighting Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS). If the US wants to "avoid a confrontation with Turkey - which neither they nor Turkey want - the way to this is clear: they must cut support given to terrorists", Bozdag told Turkish broadcaster A Haber. "Those who support the terrorist organisation will become a target in this battle. The United States needs to review its soldiers and elements giving support to terrorists on the ground in such a way as to avoid a confrontation with Turkey," he said. There was no immediate response from the US to Bozdag's comments on Thursday.

The US military coalition operating in Manbij on Wednesday said American soldiers there have the right to defend themselves against any attack. "The coalition forces that are in that area have an inherent right to defend themselves and will do so if necessary," spokesman Colonel Ryan Dillon said. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday to voice US-Israeli concerns over Iran’s attempts to expand its influence in Syria, Israeli sources reported. Netanyahu’s spokesman said that during the latest phone conversation with US President Donald Trump, the Israeli prime minister coordinated stances towards Iran on the eve of his visit to Russia. A ministerial official with a military background said that Iran’s testing of ballistic missiles was a provocation to both the US and Israel, adding that Tehran’s “vital interests” in Syria could soon be targeted. When asked whether Israel would bomb Iranian forces in Syria, the official said: “Anything Iranian that moves in Syria will be a target”. Threats to target Iranian forces in Syria coincided with heavy raids by the Syrian regime on eastern Ghouta, breaking a fragile truce announced earlier by Russia in the area located near Damascus.

'We know about details regarding the agreement with being put together with Iran, and we feel that Congress members are unaware of these details,' says senior Israeli official in the prime minister's entourage.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived on Sunday night in Washington D.C., where he is scheduled to deliver a speech before Congress on Tuesday. Speaking to reporters during an in-flight briefing, a senior official in the prime minister's entourage said Israel holds a significant amount of trustworthy information regarding the deal taking shape with Iran that points at concessions agreed to by the world...

Soon after the U.S. and other major powers entered negotiations last year to curtail Iran’s nuclear program, senior White House officials learned Israel was spying on the closed-door talks. The spying operation was part of a broader campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to penetrate the negotiations and then help build a case against the emerging terms of the deal, current and former U.S. officials said. In addition to eavesdropping, Israel acquired information from confidential U.S. briefings, informants and diplomatic contacts in Europe, the officials said.

The espionage didn’t upset the White House as much as Israel’s sharing of inside information with U.S. lawmakers and others to drain support from a high-stakes deal intended to limit Iran’s nuclear program, current and former officials said. “It is one thing for the U.S. and Israel to spy on each other. It is another thing for Israel to steal U.S. secrets and play them back to U.S. legislators to undermine U.S. diplomacy,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on the matter.

The U.S. and Israel, longtime allies who routinely swap information on security threats, sometimes operate behind the scenes like spy-versus-spy rivals. The White House has largely tolerated Israeli snooping on U.S. policy makers—a posture Israel takes when the tables are turned. The White House discovered the operation, in fact, when U.S. intelligence agencies spying on Israel intercepted communications among Israeli officials that carried details the U.S. believed could have come only from access to the confidential talks, officials briefed on the matter said. Israeli officials denied spying directly on U.S. negotiators and said they received their information through other means, including close surveillance of Iranian leaders receiving the latest U.S. and European offers. European officials, particularly the French, also have been more transparent with Israel about the closed-door discussions than the Americans, Israeli and U.S. officials said.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is determined to attack Iran before the US elections,” Israel’s Channel 10 News claimed on Monday night, and Israel is now “closer than ever” to a strike designed to thwart Iran’s nuclear drive

He said it seemed that Netanyahu was not waiting for a much-discussed possible meeting with US President Barack Obama, after the UN General Assembly gathering in New York late next month — indeed, “it’s not clear that there’ll be a meeting.” In any case, said Ben-David, “I doubt Obama could say anything that would convince Netanyahu to delay a possible attack.” The report added that Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak believe Obama would have no choice but to give backing for an Israeli attack before the US presidential elections in November.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have “almost finally” decided on an Israeli strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities this fall, and a final decision will be taken “soon,” Israel’s main TV news broadcast reported on Friday evening. Channel 2 News, the country’s leading news program, devoted much of its Friday night broadcast to the issue, detailing the pros and cons that, it said, have taken Netanyahu and Barak to the brink of approving an Israeli military attack despite opposition from the Obama administration and from many Israeli security chiefs.

The German Minister of Economy and Vice-Chancellor, Mr. Sigmar Gabriel, a few days ago has declared that the European Union should not submit to the demands of the United States, referring to the negotiations on the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investments Partnership). He said the negotiations failed. By saying so, he joined French Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, as well as French Secretary of State for External Trade, Mr. Matthias Fekl. Negotiations started in 2013. After 14 ‘rounds’ of talks dealing with 27 points, no agreement has been reached, none whatsoever, leading to the conclusion that the deal is dead. Even though Mme. Merkel defended the treaty with all her heart up to the end of July 2016, both Germany and France now request a definite end to the negotiations.

Emboldened by the Republican sweep of last week’s American elections, right-wing members of the Israeli government have called anew for the abandonment of a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians.“The combination of changes in the United States, in Europe and in the region provide Israel with a unique opportunity to reset and rethink everything,” Naftali Bennett, Israel’s education minister and the leader of the pro-settlement Jewish Home party, told a gathering of the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem on Monday.Mr. Bennett, who advocates annexing 60 percent of the occupied West Bank to Israel, exulted on the morning after Donald J. Trump’s victory: “The era of a Palestinian state is over.”That sentiment was only amplified when Jason Greenblatt, a lawyer and co-chairman of the Trump campaign’s Israel Advisory Committee, told Israel’s Army Radio that Mr. Trump did not consider West Bank settlements to be an obstacle to peace, in a stark reversal of longstanding American policy.

Members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and other rightist politicians jumped to make hay of the change. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Yoav Kish, a Likud member of Parliament, called for the expansion of Israeli sovereignty into the West Bank; Meir Turgeman, the chairman of Jerusalem’s municipal planning committee, said he would now bring long-frozen plans for thousands of Jewish homes in the fiercely contested eastern part of the city up for approval.

Israel’s Supreme Court on Monday rejected a government request for a seven-month delay of the demolition of an illegal West Bank outpost built on privately owned Palestinian land. The court-ordered demolition is slated for Dec. 25, and the government had argued for the delay in part to temper a potentially violent settler response.On Sunday, a ministerial committee of rightists within the Likud party and the governing coalition approved a contentious bill to retroactively legalize illegal settlement on privately owned Palestinian land. Prompted by the effort to salvage the Amona outpost, it may be a precursor of things to come.Although the pro-settler camp was promoting the bill long before Mr. Trump’s victory, the decision was taken, unusually, over Mr. Netanyahu’s vehement objections and despite his exhortations for it to be postponed.