JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said there was nothing for peace talks to build on in Benjamin Netanyahu's address to the U.S. Congress.

Abbas, speaking to the Palestine Liberation Organization and also with reporters on Wednesday in Ramallah, asserted that if no progress is made in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians that he will go to the United Nations General Assembly in September seeking recognition of a unilaterally declared Palestinian state.

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Let’s get past this U.S.-Israel relationship thing, so we can get on with important stuff, like the U.S.-Israel relationship.

That seemed to be the message this week at the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. With 10,000 people and both the U.S. and Israeli leaders in attendance – plus 67 U.S. senators and 286 members of the U.S. House of Representatives at the gala dinner on Monday night – this AIPAC parley was the biggest and in many ways the most impressive ever.