Netanyahu Offers to Resume Peace Talks

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has proposed resuming peace negotiations with the Palestinians but with the initial focus on identifying those Jewish settlements that Israel would keep and be allowed to expand, an Israeli official said on Tuesday. Peace talks collapsed in April 2014 over Israeli settlement-building in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas Palestinians seek for a state, and after Abbas angered Israel by reaching a unity deal with the Islamist group Hamas in Gaza. Western diplomats have said Netanyahu -- who raised international concern by saying on the eve of the election that no Palestinian state would be established on his watch -- will now be closely scrutinized over his settlement policy.