A powerful Congress member says he expects Congress to send President Obama an Iran sanctions bill next month that wlll include tougher enforcement provisions for violators.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden spoke on the phone Tuesday night in a bid to ease tensions between the U.S. and Israel over a plan to construct 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem.
After a morning of violent clashes, during which dozens of masked Palestinians hurled rocks at Israeli police and burnt tires in various east Jerusalem neighborhoods, order seemed to have been restored to the capital on Tuesday afternoon, with the exception of Shuafat, where sporadic clashes were still being reported.
The US Embassy in Tel Aviv on Tuesday morning confirmed that US Special Mideast envoy George Mitchell will not arrive in Israel on Tuesday evening as planned, but denied reports that the trip was postponed because Washington was waiting for a formal Israeli response over its concerns on an east Jerusalem housing plan.
The sharp criticism by the Obama administration of Israel’s announcement to build 1,600 new housing units in east Jerusalem has been rebuked by a number of US senators from both the Democratic and the Republican parties.
Brazilian President Lula da Silva, who is currently on a visit to the Middle East, has not visited the grave of Theodor Herzl in Jerusalem, but does plan to go to the grave of former PLO leader Yasser Arafat in Ramallah.
