Former US ambassador to the nation Daniel Kurtzer said on Thursday that the Joe Biden administration should warn Israel that its continuous colonization of the West Bank breaches a commitment it made with Washington in 2004. Nine colonies in the occupied West Bank received retroactive approval from the Israeli prime minister earlier this month. Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, later announced... 

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has threatened to end the nation’s relationship with the US after the Trump administration declared Israel’s Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank – illegal under international law – legal. “We are ready to go to a complete breakdown of relations with [the US],” Abbas told Russian journalists on Tuesday. He explained that “almost every country... 

Egypt has withdrawn its support for a UNSC resolution condemning the illegal construction of Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory, amid fears the US would veto it. Mustafa Barghouti, leader of the Palestinian National Initiative party, told Sputnik that he expects things to get more difficult once President-elect Trump steps into office. On Saturday, Egypt announced that it had withdrawn its... 

Germany has censured Israel’s plans to construct more illegal settler units in the occupied West Bank as violating international law. The German Foreign Ministry, in a statement released on Tuesday, said Israel’s plans to build more than 1,000 new housing units on Palestinian territories scuttle the chances for the resumption of the Palestinian-Israeli talks and a possible deal between the... 

Tzipi Hotovely gives speech to Israeli diplomats in which she says she will try to achieve global recognition for West Bank settlements. Israel’s new deputy foreign minister on Thursday delivered a defiant message to the international community, saying that Israel owes no apologies for its policies in the Holy Land and citing religious texts to back her belief that it belongs to the Jewish people. The... 

With politicians around the globe calling on Israel to take action against illegal settlements in the West Bank, the Jewish state has finally taken action. Not against its own communities, but against an EU-funded building for Palestinians. On Tuesday, the Israeli government demolished an EU settlement on Mount Scopus in northeast Jerusalem. The city’s municipality said it undertook the measures... 

The EU Ambassador to Israel has warned that a growing number of EU states are dissuading their citizens from doing business with companies registered in Israeli settlements; France, Italy and Spain have already joined the trend. Ambassador Lars Faaborg-Andersen told a business seminar organized by the Geneva Initiative on Friday that six European nations have already issued warnings to the Israeli... 

An internal report by the European Union has come down hard on Israel’s decision to continue settlement construction in occupied East Jerusalem, threatening to end economic projects that involve the Jewish settlements. The harshly worded 15-page report provides recommendations to the 27 member-states for responding to Israel’s activities in the occupied territories – which the document described... 

Canada’s largest Protestant church has defended it decision to boycott goods produced in the Israeli settlements located within the occupied Palestinian territories, Press TV reports. “The majority of people clearly wanted to send some kind of message that the increased settlements on the (Palestinian) occupied territories are a serious impediment to the peace process. And, part of it is because... 

British supermarket chain announces boycott of products from Israeli settlements. Since 2009, Israeli items that are sold in the country carry a label stating the place of origin… One of the largest supermarket chains in the UK, the Co-op, announced this weekend that they will not import any more agricultural products grown by Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Some years ago, British retailers... 

A German "Dolphin" submarine docks at the port of Haifa in Israel. The German government is threatening to halt the delivery of a submarine capable of firing nuclear warheads in protest of the Israeli government’s recent decision to build new homes in the Arab part of Jerusalem. Earlier this year, SPIEGEL reported that Germany’s subsidized submarine sales program is linked to... 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the cabinet’s approval of a plan to change Israel’s map of national priority areas to include more West Bank settlements did not signify a permanent stance on the future of these areas. “We will determine the future of settlements only within the framework of a permanent agreement [with Palestinians],” Netanyahu said, according...