envoy

(AP) JERUSALEM - Israel on Thursday rejected calls from the United Nations and others for an international investigation of its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla but left the door open to foreign involvement.

Israel says the commandos used force, killing nine people, only after activists attacked them with knives, crowbars and clubs, as well as two pistols grabbed from raiders. Activists who had set sail for Gaza with tons of aid, hoping to break Israel's 3-year-old blockade of Gaza, say Israeli commandos fired first.

Controversial US Muslim envoy Rashad Hussein is back in the spotlight over an interview with an Arabic website that carried questionable content.

JERUSALEM — Israel is ready to negotiate the terms of Palestinian statehood, although it wants its security concerns addressed in the initial stages of indirect talks, the Israeli president said Friday after meeting with the U.S. Mideast envoy.

Talks between Israel and the Palestinians, to be brokered by an American envoy, had been delayed in March after a dispute over settlement construction.

JERUSALEM — Israel's prime minister on Thursday rejected U.S. calls to halt construction in disputed east Jerusalem, clouding a new peace mission by Washington's Mideast envoy.

The U.S. Middle East envoy, George J. Mitchell, planned to meet Friday with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

JERUSALEM — Aides to Israel's prime minister said Thursday that he has officially rejected President Barack Obama's demand to suspend all construction in contested east Jerusalem, a move that threatens to entrench a year-old deadlock in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

Israel's Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, on Friday issued a Passover message to the American Jewish community urging it to overcome differences and "unite as a people" at a time when Israel faces monumental challenges.
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According to the Washington Post's Glen Kessler, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a surprising comment to the BBC this week. She said that the recent US-Israel confrontation was "paying off."

According to the Washington Post's Glen Kessler, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a surprising comment to the BBC this week. She said that the recent US-Israel confrontation was "paying off".