Chief Palestinian Authority negotiatior Saeb Erekat threatened on Monday to expose documents that show Qatar invested in Israeli settlements, Maan news reported.

“The time will come in future to reveal these documents,” he reportedly said. Read the full story

While Israel and the Palestinian Authority are finally expected to begin US-mediated indirect “proximity” talks in the very near future, concern is growing among some in the Israeli government that the PA is planning to marginalize the diplomatic process and instead unilaterally seek UN recognition for a Palestinian state along the pre-1967 lines. Read the full story

Israeli settlement building anywhere on occupied land is illegal and must be stopped, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said Saturday, after getting a closer look at some of the Israeli enclaves scattered across Palestinian-claimed territories. Read the full story

Arab League chief Amr Moussa has said that Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas had told him he would not enter indirect talks with Israel, only days after the Palestinian side had agreed to the contacts. Read the full story

Israel has rejected the idea of foreign countries recognizing a Palestinian state, after France suggested the recognition could soon take place. Read the full story

The official explained to Bibi Netanyahu that if there was a peace settlement, extra investment would push Israel’s long-term growth rate from 5% a year to 7%. The Israeli prime minister responded that if the country had 5% growth, it did not need peace. Read the full story

Hours before Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu left for Moscow on Sunday evening, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov – on a visit to Nicaragua – called the situation in the Middle East “alarming” and proposed an urgent Quartet meeting. Read the full story

Getting the Israelis and Palestinians to agree to negotiate, or even to agree to the framework in which negotiations will take place, “is just really hard,” US President Barack Obama said in an interview with Time magazine published Thursday, as the president was completing his first year in office. Read the full story