Cheers and criticism mark Abbas's visit to Washington

Cheers and criticism mark Abbas's visit to Washington
Israel defence minister: Peace ‘impossible’ unless Palestinians recognize Jewish homeland
Why Israel and Gaza militants were fighting again
 Home-made bomb explodes in front of the Israeli embassy in Cairo with no reported injuries. Deborah Lutterbeck reports.
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Video: Bomb explodes near Israeli embassy in Cairo, no one hurt
 
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Video: Three major omissions Stephen Harper made on his trip to Israel
 During a visit to the West Bank city of Ramallah, Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered $66 million in new aid to the Palestinians. Harper says economic
prosperity will bolster stability between Israel and Palestine.
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Video: Harper offers $66-million in new aid to Palestinians
“It’s very hard” to come to such an agreement, Mr. Obama acknowledged. But “we’re going to have to take some tough political decisions and risks.”
Mr. Abbas was in Washington two weeks after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had received a similar message from Mr. Obama. For eight months, the
parties have been engaged in negotiations, led by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, intended to reach a final status agreement on the creation of a
Palestinian state alongside Israel. They have failed to come even close to this, however, and Mr. Obama is attempting to persuade them to agree to at least a
framework structure for such an agreement, and to continue their deliberations.
Mr. Abbas acknowledged Monday he was prepared to take some risks, but that there are some things he cannot do, at least not yet – and one of them is to
recognize Israel as a “Jewish state,” something Mr. Netanyahu has said is a condition for continuing talks.
Through a translator, Mr. Abbas pointed out that the Palestinians recognized Israel’s legitimacy in 1988 and in the 1993 Oslo Accords: “We recognized the
state of Israel.”
But to accept it now as a Jewish state would compromise the claims of millions of Palestinian refugees whose families fled the fighting that followed Israel
’s creation in 1948 and were not allowed to return.