Israel dispatched top officials to the U.S. and Europe on Monday in a diplomatic offensive aimed at softening the hawkish image of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government.

The Vatican’s representative to the Holy Land is playing down the controversies that could mar a visit next week by Pope Benedict XVI.

A solid majority of Jewish Israelis worry that President Barack Obama’s outreach to the Arab and Muslim world will come at their expense, a new poll showed Monday.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will undergo prostate cancer surgery in the US in the coming weeks.

Michael Oren, a U.S.-born academic who frequently appears as a media commentator on Mideast affairs, has been picked as Israel’s next ambassador to Washington, a government official said Saturday.

The Israeli postal service has issued a dozen special stamps marking the upcoming visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the Holy Land.

A U.N. agency has asked Israel to freeze demolitions of Arab homes in east Jerusalem, citing a housing crisis in the part of the city claimed as a future Palestinian capital.

Israel warned the European Union on Thursday to tone down its criticism of the new Israeli government or risk forfeiting the bloc’s role as broker in Mideast peace efforts.

Salamo Arouch, a Jewish boxer who survived the Auschwitz death camp by fighting exhibition bouts for Nazi officers and inspired a Hollywood movie about his life, has died in Israel, the Haaretz newspaper reported Thursday. He was 86.

Israel says the European Union accepted an Israeli request that a high-profile summit be postponed in order to give Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu time to formulate his Mideast peace policy.