The ‘grudge match’ between Obama and Israel ‘has finally reached its peak’

The UN Security Council passed a resolution Friday urging Israel to halt building settlements on occupied Palestinian land, in an unexpected vote from which the US abstained. The US's ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, abstained from voting on the resolution, which has been perceived as a slight against Israel.

Photo credit: epa european pressphoto agency b.v. / Alamy Stock Photo

For all eight years of the Obama administration, Democrats have made believe that Barack Obama is a firm and enthusiastic supporter and defender of the Jewish state. Arguments to the contrary were not only dismissed but angrily denounced as the products of nothing more than vicious partisanship.

Official: Israel turned to Trump to head off UN resolution

Israel's prime minister turned to President-elect Donald Trump to help head off a critical U.N. resolution after learning that the White House did not intend to veto the measure, an Israeli official said Friday. The admission marked a final chapter in the icy relations between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama over the last eight years, and signaled an era of close ties between Israel and the incoming Trump administration.

Israel appealed to Trump team to delay U.N. vote on settlements

Under heavy Israeli pressure, Egypt on Thursday indefinitely postponed a planned U.N. vote on a proposed Security Council resolution that sought to condemn Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, diplomats and Western officials said, just a few hours before the vote was set to take place. Israeli officials reached out to President-elect Donald Trump's transition team at the "highest levels" to try to table the UN resolution demanding a halt to Israeli settlement expansion on Palestinian territory, CBS News' Margaret Brennan reports.

Logic

Let's follow these Tweets by Michael Tracey: I love that. But I do realize that logic and supporting proof presented in an solid argument will not convince the delusional and so many are.

Trump’s tweets on nuclear arsenal, Israel signal major policy changes

Before lunchtime Thursday, President-elect Donald Trump said he would expand the U.S. nuclear arsenal , upending a reduction course set by presidents of both parties over the past four decades, and called for the United States to veto a pending U.N. resolution that criticized Israel's settlements policy. The policy prescriptions, communicated in morning tweets, followed calls since last month's election to reconsider the arms-length U.S. relationship with Taiwan and to let China keep an underwater U.S. vessel seized by its navy.

Nation-Now 12 mins ago 3:14 p.m.Trump taps Conway as counselor,…

Donald Trump appointed campaign manager Kellyanne Conway as his White House counselor on Thursday, and tapped long-time Republican Party spokesman Sean Spicer as the next White House press secretary . Conway "has been a trusted adviser and strategist who played a crucial role in my victory," Trump said in a statement.

Lieberman defends Trump’s controversial Israel ambassador pick

Former Sen. Joe Lieberman on Thursday defended President-elect Donald Trump's controversial selection as the next Israel ambassador, explaining that "some of the things he said really don't reflect what he believes." "I think you're going to find in the weeks ahead in the confirmation process on David Friedman that it's going to be very clear that he wants -- he and President Trump want to be a part of achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians -- and that some of the things he said don't really reflect what he believes," Lieberman said in an interview on "New Day."

After violence abroad, Trump meeting with security adviser

President-elect Donald Trump is planning to meet with his incoming national security adviser in the aftermath of a rattling day of violence around the world. Trump appeared to jump ahead of investigators in blaming Islamic terrorists for deadly incidents Monday in Turkey and Germany and vowing anew to eradicate their regional and global networks.

Bank Mergers Spread in Mideast as Low Oil Signals Boom Days Over

Oil's more than 50 percent plunge over the past two years is forcing countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia to cut state spending, tap reserves and combine some of their largest banks to reduce costs and duplication. International Bank of Qatar QSC said this week they are in talks to create the country's largest sharia-compliant bank and the third-largest such lender in the Middle East, with assets worth more than 160 billion riyals . Talks are at an early stage, according to the banks, which didn't give details on the structure of the possible deal.

A Practical Plan on the Israeli-Palestinian Front The next U.S….

Palestinians walk under show umbrellas used to decorate a street in the Old City of the West Bank town of Nablus, Saturday, June 4, 2016. The incoming U.S. administration has an opportunity to increase stability and advance U.S. security interests in the Middle East by outlining a framework for Israelis and Palestinians to make independent, coordinated, and constructive steps toward a two-state solution.

Senate Must Reject Trump’s Pick for Ambassador to Israel

In the machinery of the Holocaust, in the places where Jews and others were murdered by the millions, certain prisoners were compelled or volunteered to help the Nazis in the arduous business of genocide. These people were called Kapos, reviled by Jew and Nazi alike, and few of them survived.

Point by Point Response to Likud Party Propaganda

As Israel's myriad human rights abuses and contraventions of international law have become impossible to deny, one argument that apologists for Israel routinely fall back on is: While Israel has engaged in human rights and other abuses, other countries commit far worse abuses. Therefore, it is wrong - and possibly indicative of anti-Semitism - to focus excessively on Israel's wrongs.

Israeli Squatters at Palestine’s Amona accept relocation to other Palestinian-owned Land

Residents of the illegal settlement outpost of Amona in the central occupied West Bank voted on Sunday to approve a relocation plan put forward by the Israeli government, after weeks of discussions trying to assuage settler anger over the mandated evacuation of the outpost. Israeli news outlet Haaretz reported that the settlers residing in Amona in the Ramallah district - an outpost considered illegal by both the Israeli government and the international community - had decided to accept an evacuation plan which would see the majority of them relocated to a nearby hilltop by Dec. 25 following a ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court stating that the outpost was illegally built on privately owned Palestinian land.

Dershowitz blasts Netanyahu witch-hunts, BDS, and wants a Kotel – for all Jews’

The numerous legal or quasi-legal scandals raised against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are witchhunts which harm democracy, the counterattack against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign is having mixed success, and the Kotel must be "for all Jews," Prof. Alan Dershowitz told The Jerusalem Post in a wide-ranging interview on Thursday.

Donald Trump picks a hardliner as ambassador to Israel

FOR a new American president to pick an ambassador with no experience in trade, cultural or any other form of diplomacy is not particularly remarkable. These appointments tend to be rewards for loyalty, friendship and financial backing during the campaign.