West Bank

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- U.S. House of Representatives leaders urged President Obama to veto a proposed U.N. Security Council resolution that slams Israel on settlements and urges a return to direct Israeli-Palestinian talks.

"We are deeply concerned about the Palestinian leadership’s decision to reject the difficult but vital responsibility of making peace with Israel through direct negotiations, and instead to advocate for anti-Israel measures by the United Nations Security Council and other international forums," says the letter sent Thursday.

Naftali Bennett doesn’t fit the perceived profile of a leader of the Israeli settler movement.

He initially believed the Oslo plan would bring peace; he is a man of wealth, having helped found and serve as CEO of a hugely successful computer startup that he and his partners sold for $145 million in 2005; and he lives in Raanana, an upscale modern city of about 80,000, inside Israel proper.

Nothing is as it seems. The promise of Oslo and the two-state solution has collapsed into the equivalent of the honky tonk song in which a young couple dreams of living in a big two-story house. After years of cheating, secrets and small hurts, they get it. She’s got her story, he’s got his story, there’s not much peace in a two-story house.

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- A pro-Israel U.S. think tank released proposals that would reconcile allowing a majority of the settlers to stay in place with a Palestinian state through commensurate land swaps.

The detailed proposal, released Thursday by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, nods to longstanding Palestinian demands for a return to 1967 lines by adhering to one-to-one land swaps.

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- There is no evidence that a Palestinian woman reportedly killed at a West Bank security fence protest died from tear gas poisoning, Israel's military said.

Jawaher Abu Rahma, 36, died on the morning of Jan. 1, hours after she was said to have inhaled tear gas at a demonstration near the West Bank village of Bilin. She reportedly died of complications from inhaling the tear gas.

KRYAT ARBA, The West Bank – The trip from Jerusalem’s Central Bus Station to Kiryat Arba, a settlement next to Hebron, in the southern West Bank, takes just under an hour, including a couple of detours to other outlying settlements, via a public bus with bullet-proof windows.