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Israel's hardline government is deeply worried that the U.S. will try to impose a Mideast peace deal, that the Palestinians might declare statehood unilaterally and that Washington could be moving to end tensions with Syria.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to abruptly cancel a trip to a nuclear conference in Washington spotlighted a key sore point Friday in international nonproliferation efforts: Israel's own atomic weapons.
Following a seemingly chilly reception at the White House, Benjamin Netanyahu is learning the hard way that he can't have it all.
From this Jewish settlement in the West Bank, calls are mounting for Israeli soldiers to cross a sacred line and defy orders to enforce a slowdown of Israeli construction on lands claimed by the Palestinians.
By saying he wants to step down as president, Mahmoud Abbas has highlighted a deep Palestinian despair rooted in decades of failed peace initiatives and fruitless violence.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's long-shot attempt to resuscitate a moribund Mideast peace push is coming up against a firm Palestinian decision not to sit down with Israel, unless it freezes settlement construction on lands the Palestinians seek for a future state.
A U.N. war crimes report against Israel and Hamas meant to promote justice and accountability has instead created new obstacles for the Obama administration's Mideast peace push and deepened an internal rift among Palestinians.
Rather than getting Israelis and Palestinians back to negotiations, President Barack Obama's high-stakes attempt to relaunch Mideast peace talks runs the risk of cementing Israeli intransigence and exacerbating Palestinian weakness.
A nasty diplomatic row with Sweden, Norway's decision to divest from an Israeli defense contractor and rising European condemnation of Israeli settlements point to growing friction in the Jewish state's already tricky relationship with Europe.
Fatah has elected a rejuvenated leadership that will likely bring the mainstream Palestinian movement more in line with President Barack Obama's vision for an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement, according to unofficial results released Tuesday.
In the four months since hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to power, West Bank Palestinians have enjoyed an economic recovery and Israel has experienced a period of relative calm.
Two years after Hamas seized power, the Gaza Strip is a jumble of absurdities: an economy sustained by smuggling through tunnels, a civil service that gets paid on condition it doesn't work, and a population no longer fearful of gangs but feeling muzzled under the thumb of Hamas.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's grudging endorsement of Palestinian independence — couched in layers of stifling conditions — does not necessarily signal the hawk-to-moderate transformation that hard-line Israeli leaders before him have undergone.
President Barack Obama will likely need to apply heavy pressure on Israel's new leader to salvage the goal of an independent state for the Palestinians.
Even if he had said all the right things about the Nazi genocide of 6 million Jews, the German-born Pope Benedict XVI would have had a hard time winning over Israelis on his visit to the Jewish state.
Pope Benedict XVI confronted the dark history of his native Germany on the first day of his visit to Israel on Monday, shaking the hands of six Holocaust survivors and saying victims of the genocide "lost their lives but they will never lose their names."
The fate of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become a collection of moving parts that somehow need to come together in a single package: an Israel-Hamas prisoner swap, a truce for Gaza, and new governments on both sides of the firing line that could pursue peace.
An Israeli politician who based his election campaign on baiting the country's Arab minority, drawing accusations that he is a racist demagogue, now seems likely to become the Jewish state's top diplomat.
Israel's president ushered in a right-leaning parliament Tuesday and gave lawmakers a tall order: conclude an elusive peace deal with the Palestinians by the end of their term.
Israeli hawks have the best chance of forming a new government after Tuesday's national election. But poll results have been narrowing in the run-up to the vote, and pro-peace candidates cannot be counted out. Here's what to look for as Israelis go to the polls:
Israel seems to be moving rightward going into Tuesday's national election, with polls giving the edge to former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a tough stance on Mideast peacemaking that could lead to a collision with the new U.S. administration.
The biggest gains in the Gaza war have gone to the hard-liners on both sides. Hamas is declaring victory, while Israel's leading hawk is the front-runner in elections just over a week away.
Senior officials in the Islamic group Hamas are indicating a willingness to negotiate a long-term truce with Israel as long as the borders of Gaza are opened to the rest of the world.
Postwar Gaza could become a test of President Barack Obama's inauguration speech offer to hard-liners to "extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."
With the guns falling silent in Gaza, stabilizing the war-ravaged territory will require more than just stemming the flow of weapons to Hamas — Israel must also do something for the Palestinians who live there.
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