Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defences to enable Israeli jets to make a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, The Times can reveal. Read the full story

Israel has agreed to discuss all core issues, including Jerusalem and refugees, when the proximity talks begin this week, a government official told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday night. 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

Netanyahu warns acceptance of Iran’s annihilatory declarations reminiscent of holocaust. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech at the Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony at Yad Vashem on Sunday focused on the rising Iranian threat, a threat to repeat the holocaust. Read the full story

Israeli will neither change policies that have been upheld by its various governments since 1967 nor halt construction in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stressed at Sunday’s cabinet meeting. 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

The European Union’s top diplomat, Catherine Ashton, has criticized Israel for endangering the fragile Middle East peace process by announcing plans to expand “illegal settlements.” Read the full story

The Obama administration refused to let go of the Ramat Shlomo construction controversy Sunday, with two top aides to US President Barack Obama slamming Israel amid a growing sense in Jerusalem that Washington was using the issue to squeeze diplomatic concessions from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Read the full story

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Tuesday tried to tone down rhetoric against Iran and Syria, less than a week after President Mahmoud Ahamedinejad visited Syria and from a podium flanked by the Syrian president and the leader of Hizbullah thumbed his nose at the United States and Israel. Read the full story

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Sunday that he will press the case for “crippling sanctions” against Iran when he visits Russia this week. Read the full story

Syria’s official newspaper Tishreen said Saturday that while Damascus is ready to make peace with Israel, it is also prepared for war. Read the full story

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who wrote in the guest book of the Warsaw Uprising Museum on Tuesday that “the people of Israel have learned their lesson,” is expected to draw analogies between the Holocaust and Iran’s nuclear ambitions when he speaks at Wednesday’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at Auschwitz. Read the full story

If the border with Egypt is not closed, then al-Qaida may use Sudanese refugees making their way into the country as cover to infiltrate and set up terrorist cells in Israel, senior IDF officials told Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during a tour on Thursday of two observation posts along the Sinai border. Read the full story

Netanyahu was referring to the recent murder near Shavei Shomron of Rabbi Meir Avshalom Hai by members of Fatah’s Aksa Martyrs Brigade. Read the full story

A general who was once in charge of Israel’s nuclear weapons has claimed that Iran is a “very, very, very long way from building a nuclear capability.” Read the full story