Earlier this week, Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a powerful speech advocating Israeli-Palestinian peace (you can read the full text of his speech here). In his speech, he exhorted his audience of prominent American Jews to "send a message...that you are behind this hopeful vision of what can be. Let your leaders and your neighbors alike know that you understand this will be a tough process with tough decisions and that you are ready to back the leaders who make them."

In an impassioned speech at the American Jewish Committee Global Forum in Washington DC on Monday, June 3rd, Secretary of State John Kerry called on American Jews to proactively and wholeheartedly support a two-state solution to Israel's conflict with the Palestinians. "You can help shape the future of this process," he said, and urged America's Jewish community to become "part of the great constituency for peace."

Following is the full text of his speech, as posted on the State Department's web site.

Recently, the news broke that Secretary of State John Kerry personally called Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren to protest the Israeli government's decision to "legalize" four illegal outposts - a decision that, if implemented, will mean the establishment of four new settlements. Secretary Kerry reportedly also asked the Israeli government to delay the move or rethink its decision.

by Lara Friedman, Daniel Seidemann

At the crux of the ongoing controversy over Google's decision to recognize "Palestine" on its google.ps landing page is an emphatic refusal by some in Israel (and abroad) to accept empirical reality. That reality is pretty uncomplicated. Most of the world today recognizes the Palestinians as a people. Most countries have voted at the U.N. to recognize Palestine as a theoretical state that must one day come into being in areas currently controlled by Israel. No nation on earth endorses Israel's continued occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem; Israeli actions to further entrench the occupation continue to provoke global condemnation.

Audio recording of April 11th briefing call with filmmaker Dror Moreh on his award-winning documentary "The Gatekeepers." Listen here.

Last week I raised concerns about Dennis Ross's new 14-point peace plan, which would gut the very notion of the two-state solution. Ross's approach is the most prominent manifestation of a growing trend toward the acceptance of a seductive new logic that has emerged in the context of the current Israeli-Palestinian deadlock. According to this line of thought, breaking the deadlock requires an approach that falls comfortably within Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's pro-"Greater Israel" political comfort zone, but that can somehow still be marketed as "pro-peace."

Just in time for President Obama's long-awaited trip to Israel, perennial Israeli-Palestinian policy strategist Dennis Ross has published his 14-point plan to achieve Middle East peace. Ross claims that by following this plan, Israelis and Palestinians can "chip away at the sources of each side's belief about the other's commitment to a genuine two-state solution."

Two-state principles presented to respondents include Israel for Jews and Palestine for Palestinians, with Palestinian refugees having the right to return only to their new country.

Ha'aretz | By Barak Ravid | Dec.31, 2012 | 1:50 AM

Two opinion surveys conducted by different Israeli pollsters in December show that most Likud-Beiteinu and the further-right Habayit Hayehudi voters would support a peace agreement establishing a demilitarized Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, Israel's retention of major settlement blocs and a division of Jerusalem. The two polls also revealed that two thirds of all Israelis support such an agreement.

Washington/Jerusalem - Americans for Peace Now (APN) today called on the Obama Administration and the international community to take urgent action to induce the Netanyahu government to abandon its decision to pursue massive new settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. APN's call comes on the heels of reports of a decision of the Netanyahu government to respond to yesterday's action at the United Nations by approving thousands of new settlement units in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and by expediting plans to build the massive new settlement of E-1 - a settlement that, if constructed, would make the implementation of a viable two-state exponentially more difficult, if not impossible.