Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan wants to expand the overseas aid budget in the Coalition’s final months and have Ireland officially recognise Palestine as a state.

Exposing Israelis as serial perpetrators of injustice is not anti-Jewish. Anyone who makes objective, rational observations in advocating basic human rights and civilised dignity for Palestinians is criticised. 

My recent letter on the clear difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism has hit the mark, judging by the urgent flurry of outrage that it has elicited from Israeli government apologists, in the form of Clive Hyman, of London, and Kevin McCarthy (Irish Examiner, June 23).

It’s remarkable how selective apologists for the myth of a Palestinian state are about what offends them.

The parents of a US woman held by Islamic State militants have been notified of her death, President Barack Obama has confirmed.

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has opened a preliminary probe into possible war crimes in Palestinian territories.

A Palestinian Cabinet member died shortly after he and other protesters scuffled with Israeli troops near a West Bank village. The forces also fired tear gas close to the demonstrators, witnesses said.

The UN children’s agency declared 2014 a devastating year for children with as many as 15m caught in conflicts in Central African Republic, Iraq, South Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and the Palestinian territories.

Palestinians are asking the UN Security Council to set a deadline of November 2016 for an Israeli withdrawal from all Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 including East Jerusalem.

Israel launched a large-scale ground offensive in the Gaza Strip yesterday, escalating a 10-day military operation to try to destroy Hamas’ weapons arsenal, rocket-firing abilities, and tunnels under the Palestinian territory’s border with Israel.

Israel has launched a large-scale ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, escalating a 10-day military operation to try to destroy Hamas’ weapons arsenal, rocket firing abilities and tunnels under the Palestinian territory’s border with Israel.

Israel deployed ground troops inside Gaza for the first time to raid a rocket launching site in the Palestinian territory.

The Israeli army has intensified its offensive on the Gaza Strip, striking Hamas sites and killing at least 14 people on the second day of a military operation.

Pope Francis prayed for peace in Ukraine and Syria and for an end to the terrorist attacks in Nigeria as he celebrated Easter Sunday in Rome.

A powerful winter storm sweeping the eastern Mediterranean this week is causing mayhem across the region and inflicting extra misery on Syrians convulsed in civil war and refugees who have fled the fighting.

Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of JFK, began her role on November 18 as US Ambassador to Japan. Kennedy starts her high profile job just days before the 50th anniversary of the assassination of her father.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan today accused the West of ignoring bloodshed in Egypt and called on the United Nations Security Council to meet urgently to discuss the situation after hundreds of people were reported killed.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have agreed to meet again within two weeks to continue negotiations on a so-far elusive peace deal.

A senior Israeli official has accused Google of setting back Middle East peace hopes by putting “Palestine” under the banner of its search page for the Palestinian territories.

Israel has apologised to Turkey for killing nine of its citizens in a 2010 naval raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla.

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has left a New York hospital, three days after doctors discovered a blood clot in her head.

Stagnation over the US budget in Congress will have far-reaching consequences, writes Anne-Marie Slaughter

Egypt's Prime Minister has arrived in Gaza for a brief visit, to try to secure a peace deal.

Pleading our case is lost in translation

Prosecutors are seeking life in prison for an Indonesian militant accused of building the car bomb used in the 2002 Bali nightclub attacks.

The UN’s human rights office has said three men recently sentenced to death in the Palestinian territory of Gaza were executed unlawfully.

Irish MEP Emer Costello is describing her recent visit to East Jerusalem and the West Bank as shocking.

The Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore has said Ireland can play an important role in helping with the Middle East peace process.

Fourteen members of the United Nations Security Council pointed a collective finger at the United States for blocking condemnation of Israel’s stepped-up settlement programme in Palestinian territory.

Attitudes about Muslim-Western relations have become slightly more positive in the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Russia compared with five years ago, but negative views persist on both sides, a survey said.

THE economic infrastructure of the future state of Palestine is based on three pillars: human resources, tourism and agriculture.

THE Greens put pressure on their Government partners last night to come clean on the country’s involvement in the global arms trade.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel wants to keep its troops on the eastern border of a future Palestinian state.

MORE than a billion Muslims around the world began observing the holy month of Ramadan yesterday, with the dawn-to-dusk fast posing a particular challenge for the devout in the sweltering Middle East.

A GOVERNMENT-brokered compromise deal with Israel to safely bring an Irish aid vessel ashore with its cargo and onto Gaza was yesterday rejected by the ship’s crew, just hours before the boat’s expected arrival off the Palestinian coast.

Refugee camps for local populations can cause unrest and even armed rebellion, the Red Cross warned in a report today.

THE EU is anxious to begin negotiations with Syria and Lebanon as part of a new drive for peace in the Middle East.

A roadside bombing has wounded journalists from news organisation the Associated Press.

THE United Nations yesterday revealed a record $4.8 billion (€3.37bn) funding gap for its 2009 aid programmes due to strained foreign assistance levels and a ten-fold increase in needs in Pakistan.

US ENVOY George Mitchell began a new swing through the Mideast yesterday with a call for a rapid resumption of peace talks, as the White House tried to push Israel to halt settlement construction in the West Bank.

Pope Benedict XVI assured his followers in the Holy Land that peace is possible, as he ended his Middle East visit today by putting aside the contentious issues he has confronted and coming as a pilgrim to the site of Jesus’ crucifixion.

Pope Benedict XVI capped his Middle East visit today by putting aside the contentious issues he has confronted over the past week and making a pilgrimage to the site of Jesus’ crucifixion.

Yes, there is public feeling about the Palestinians and their rotten deal. I’ve never heard Chechnya being discussed on the DART, whereas I have heard Israel being trashed on buses as well as at smart dinner parties. Besides, who’s ever heard of a “Sri Lanka out of Tamil Eelam” march through Cork or calls for a boycott of Russia?

POPE Benedict XVI pledged yesterday to remember the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, seeking to repair strains with Jews over one of the most sensitive issues at the start of a visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories.