Palestinian Authority

MALEH, West Bank - In remote Palestinian villages of the northern Jordan Valley, children read by gas lamp, and water must be purchased from miles away, even when electricity lines and water pipes to Israeli settlements run directly past their homes. Near Nablus, a Palestinian farmer whose home is nearly surrounded by Jewish communities says settlers frequently harass him, digging up crops, and once poisoning his cow. And in Khader, south of Jerusalem, a carjacker once escaped Palestinian police by simply crossing the street into a part of town under Israeli jurisdiction.

MALEH, West Bank - In remote Palestinian villages of the northern Jordan Valley, children read by gas lamp, and water must be purchased from miles away, even when electricity lines and water pipes to Israeli settlements run directly past their homes. Near Nablus, a Palestinian farmer whose home is nearly surrounded by Jewish communities says settlers frequently harass him, digging up crops, and once poisoning his cow. And in Khader, south of Jerusalem, a carjacker once escaped Palestinian police by simply crossing the street into a part of town under Israeli jurisdiction.

Palestinian looters took irrigation hoses, pumps and plastic sheeting from dozens of greenhouses Tuesday, a month after Jewish American donors bought more than 3,000 of the structures from Israeli settlers and transferred them to the Palestinian Authority. Police commanders complained that they did not have enough manpower to protect the prized equipment in several abandoned settlements. In some instances, police joined the looters, witnesses said. "We need at least another 70 soldiers.

JERUSALEM -- Embattled Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad resigned late Saturday after struggling for years against political rivals and lackluster public support. Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who in recent months had also clashed with Fayyad, accepted the resignation, but asked him to remain in office until a replacement is named, according to Palestinian Authority spokeswoman Nour Odeh. The departure means that a new Palestinian government, the fourth since 2007, could be formed in coming weeks.

Later this month, the Palestinian Authority intends to go before the United Nations to request recognition of an independent Palestinian state. Although there is strong backing for the bid, the United States, in the name of supporting Israel, has stated its willingness to use its Security Council veto power to keep the Palestinians from joining the U.N. as a full voting member. The U.S. has also refused to join in a more symbolic General Assembly vote that could change the Palestinians' status from a "nonvoting observer entity" to a "nonvoting observer state.

JERUSALEM -- Embattled Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad resigned late Saturday after struggling for years against political rivals and lackluster public support. Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who in recent months had also clashed with Fayyad, accepted the resignation, but asked him to remain in office until a replacement is named, according to Palestinian Authority spokeswoman Nour Odeh. The departure means that a new Palestinian government, the fourth since 2007, could be formed in coming weeks.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinian public employees virtually shut down all Palestinian Authority offices and schools in the West Bank on Wednesday, the first day of a two-day general strike to protest the government's failure to pay their November salaries. Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said his government does not have the money to pay salaries after Israel froze the transfer of more than $100 million in tax funds to the Palestinian Authority. He called the Israeli measure “an act of piracy” and urged Palestinians to boycott Israeli products if Israel persists in withholding payment of the tax revenue, which it collects from West Bank importers using Israeli ports.

JERUSALEM -- Israel said Sunday it would withhold more than $100 million in tax revenue this month from the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority, the latest reaction to last week's U.N. vote recognizing the Palestinian territories as a "nonmember observer state. " Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said he would use the money to repay part of an outstanding Palestinian debt -- estimated to be about $180 million -- to Israel's electricity company for power supplied to parts of the West Bank.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - The hostilities in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas have raised sympathy among many Palestinians for the Islamist militant group and elevated its status at the expense of the rival Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, observers say. Abbas, who views himself as the leader of all Palestinians, has been sidelined as Hamas has taken center stage in the struggle against Israel and received a string of...

With Israel and Hamas both claiming victory in the Gaza Strip, there is one clear loser: the U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority, which desperately wants a peace accord with Israel and a unified Palestine in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel's 22-day assault on Hamas-ruled Gaza made the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority look ineffective and marginalized, unable to stop the carnage. Popular support for its peace talks with Israel, already declining, now seems weaker than ever.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - The political future of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad appeared shaky Thursday amid reports that he will resign after growing tired of constant battles with his rivals. Fayyad has come close to stepping down before, only to be pressed by President Mahmoud Abbas to stay on as leader of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority government. Though Fayyad, a Western-educated independent, is popular among donors and the international community, he is resented by many leaders of Fatah, the main political faction in the West Bank.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Violence broke out Tuesday in several Israeli jails and West Bank cities following reports that a Palestinian prisoner died of cancer at a hospital in southern Israel. Palestinians said that Maysara abu Hamdieh, 63, died because of medical negligence and called for an international investigation into the situation of Palestinian inmates in Israeli prisons, who number close to 5,000. A spokeswoman for the Israel Prison Service, Sivan Weizman, denied claims of medical negligence and said Hamdieh, who was serving a 99-year term, received proper treatment by specialized doctors.

With President Obama's visit to Israel and the occupied territories now behind us, attention is likely to turn to how we might restart the peace process. But if the past is any indication, one crucial element will be largely ignored in the discussion: Palestinian politics. In contrast to the almost limitless deference shown to the pressures of Israeli domestic politics (as when Obama abandoned calls for a settlement freeze in 2010 because of the composition of Israel's governing coalition)

JERUSALEM -- President Obama urged Israelis to see the world through the eyes of Palestinians and to “create the change” they want, in order to bring about peace in the region. In a 45-minute address to a hall packed with university students, Obama challenged the crowd to take risks to resolve the conflict with Palestinians. “It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of her own, and lives with the presence of a foreign army that controls the movements of her parents every single day,” he said.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - As Israelis roll out new red carpet and line streets with American flags for President Obama's visit, the U.S. leader faces a decidedly less enthusiastic reception in the West Bank, where the mood ranges from ho-hum to don't come. On Tuesday, dozens of protesters called on Obama to cancel visits to Ramallah and Bethlehem, complaining that the president had failed to do enough to bring them statehood. Posters of Obama that had been hung along the streets of Ramallah in recent days were defaced Tuesday with spray-painted Xs or, in one case, a swastika.

President Obama's visit to the Middle East next month is widely billed as an earnest attempt to double down on diplomacy and revive the moribund peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians. Unfortunately, the odds are stacked against the president. Doves on both sides quietly cede that it would take a miracle to get the two sides back to the business of serious diplomacy. But Obama has an opportunity to aim a little lower and accomplish something that could help safeguard the peace process for years to come.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Grappling with a $100-million monthly budget deficit, the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority is struggling these days to keep the lights on. Until an emergency bank loan late last month enabled the Palestinian administration to temporarily stave off creditors and suppliers, its Israeli electricity provider was threatening to cut power to parts of Ramallah, Bethlehem and other West Bank cities. "The problems are becoming more entrenched," said newly appointed Finance Minister Nabeel Kassis, who spends most of his time trying to scrape together enough cash to pay the monthly bills and salaries.

Representatives of the Palestinian Authority and its chief rival, the Muslim radical movement Hamas, embarked Monday on their first official reconciliation talks since PLO leader Yasser Arafat made peace with Israel in 1993. The Palestinian Authority hopes to persuade Hamas to declare a formal end to the guerrilla war against Israel and to take part in Palestinian elections scheduled for Jan. 20.

Re “ Moving past stalemate ,” Opinion, Feb. 19 Maen Rashid Areikat relies on what has become the standard Palestinian rationalization for refusing to return to negotiations with Israel until the settlement issue is resolved. He relieves the Palestinians of any responsibility to resume negotiations unless either Israel or the United States takes some action.  Israelis haven't become indifferent toward the peace process; successive polls continue to demonstrate their strong desire to achieve a lasting peace.

JERUSALEM - Israeli and Palestinian textbooks get failing grades when it comes to adequately and positively representing each other's people, culture and history, according to a three-year, U.S-funded study released Monday. On the bright side, researchers concluded that most schoolbooks on both sides were factually accurate, even though they usually described each other in negative, unflattering terms and typically cast one another as the “enemy.” Extremely negative material, such as demonization, incitement to violence or depicting the other side as subhuman, were rare in both Israeli and Palestinian books, the report found.