Egypt – Features

US credibility in the Arab world has suffered a serious setback after Hillary Clinton dropped demands for a halt to Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank.

By Adrian Blomfield in Jerusalem

(source: telegraph.co.uk)

Signalling an end to the brief flirtation with the Palestinian cause, the US secretary of state flew to Jerusalem to voice full American support for Israel and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

In an effort to repair badly strained US-Israeli relations, she heaped praise on Mr Netanyahu, lauding his offer to limit settlement construction – even though it falls well short of President Obama’s original demands.

She said: "What the prime minister has offered in specifics on restraints on a policy of settlements… is unprecedented in the context of prior to negotiations."

Read More »Us drops demand for Isaraeli settlement freeze

By Seumas Milne

(source: Guardian)

The media may revel in a Mossad hit, yet Britain’s response to a plot that could threaten its own citizens has been craven

Imagine for a moment what the reaction would be if ­Iranian ­intelligence was almost ­unversally believed to have ­assassinated a leader of one of the organisations fighting the Tehran government in a western-friendly state. Then consider how Britain, let alone the US, might respond if the killers had carried out the ­operation ­using forged or stolen passports of ­citizens of four European states, including Britain, with dual Iranian nationality.

You can be sure it would have ­triggered a major international storm, stentorian declarations about the threat of state-sponsored terrorism, and ­perhaps a debate at the UN ­security council, with demands for harsher ­sanctions against an increasingly ­dangerous Islamic republic.

Read More »This is no ripping yarn but a murder to fan more conflict