Iran agreement ‘does not change one iota who our friends and allies are in the region,’ Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz tells Israeli reporters.

More than 40 lawmakers will travel to Israel next month to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of a critical vote in Congress on the nuclear deal with Iran. The two congressional trips — one with Democrats, the other with Republicans — occur every two years and are organized and funded by an educational nonprofit affiliated with the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

“Clear thinking should show the deal to be security boon and its repudiation a security disaster for Israel,” writes James Adler.

Eight years after Israel declared Gaza a “hostile entity”, travel between the Strip and the West Bank is still limited mainly to medical patients and their companions, a quota of approved merchants, and other “exceptional humanitarian cases”. This project tells the everyday stories of families split between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip who have generously agreed to allow us a glimpse into their lives.

Ten years after covering Israel’s Gaza Disengagement from both the Israeli and Palestinian sides, Lisa Goldman recalls four scenes that tell four very different stories and perspectives of those final weeks in Gaza.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should begin a new diplomatic initiative that will prove his commitment to the two-state solution, a group of dovish former senior security officials wrote in a letter released Monday.

The murders of a Palestinian toddler and a teenage girl have shaken Israelis from a willful blindness toward an already deteriorating situation that must be addressed to prevent a slide toward even more violence.

“I have been recently reminded of a truly admirable man whose wisdom was truly astounding. Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz was a brilliant man who saw Judaism through a unique and often controversial lens,” writes Mitchell Plitnick.

The Palestinians are counting on the Obama administration to rein in congressional anger as they take their campaign for statehood to the United Nations.