Slippery Slope

Women are not fairly represented in the higher echelons of political/security decision-making in Israel: the Forum of Eight senior ministers advising the Prime Minister does not include a single woman; the Security Cabinet has a single female member, in the role of an observer; no woman serve in any senior position on the National Security Council.  Furthermore, in the past twenty years, only five Palestinian and two Israeli women were members of the respective peace negotiation teams.

(Hebrew)

The prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, announced he was willing to negotiate with the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), about all the core issues ‘until white smoke comes out”. This announcement contradicts the fact that Israeli representatives, Netanyahu among them, repeatedly reject official documents presented to them by their Palestinian counterparts, which contain the details of the Palestinian positions on the core issues to be negotiated. (Hebrew)

Senior figures in Israel and the United States have announced that negotiations to achieve an additional construction freeze in the Occupied West Bank have come to a dead end. A senior American diplomatic figure is quoted as saying that “we have come to the conclusion that this is not the right time for renewing direct negotiations by means of renewing the construction freeze.”  (Hebrew)

The Foreign Minister, Avigdor Liberman, said that “you have to be a political hypochondriac [sic] to think Syria is a partner for peace”. He further said he objects to negotiations with Syria, and claimed the number of residents in Katrin and the rest of the Golan Heights ought to be increased. (Hebrew)