As John Kerry’s bid to broker Israeli-Palestinian peace approaches its moment of truth, you can sense the desperation among liberal Zionists. “Kerry’s mission is the last train to a negotiated two-state solution,” declared Thomas Friedman in January.

Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby urged Arab countries to take a “firm stand” against Israel’s demand for Palestinians to recognize it as a Jewish state. Speaking Sunday at the Arab Foreign Ministers meeting in Cairo, Elaraby called the concession a deviation from the previously agreed-upon framework for peace talks.

Palestinian schoolchildren in the village of Kafr Sur in Tulkarem this week received footballs from Spanish giant FC Barcelona. The balls are apparently replacements for those lost over the separation fence between the West Bank and Israel over the years, the Guardian reported. A Spanish journalist, Anna Alba, who spoke about the “gift” said she hoped that it would encourage other teams to come to the area and support local athletes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bluntly told Barack Obama on Monday that Israelis expected their leader not to compromise on their security even as the U.S. president sought to reassure him on Iran diplomacy and pressure him on Middle East peace talks.

Japan has pledged more than $200 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority, as representatives from 22 nations reiterated their support of the Palestinians' quest for their own state. The pledge was announced Saturday at the second Conference on Cooperation among East Asian Countries for Palestinian Development, held in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta.

Several weeks ago, Club Deportivo Palestino, a top Chilean football team, was banned from wearing their shirt after it caused an international dispute, because the shirts depicted a map of pre-1948 Palestine in the shape of the number 1, denying any Israeli claim to the land. The cartographical choices we make are a fairly accurate barometer of an individual’s perspective. It shows how we wish to frame a debate.

The prospect of greater Chinese involvement in the Middle East peace process was raised in mid 2013 when Beijing invited both Israeli and Palestinian leaders for separate meetings to discuss the resumption of the Arab-Israeli peace process. Newly elected Chinese leader Xi Jinping used the meetings to unveil his four-point peace proposal for the settlement of the Palestinian issue.

As U.S. mediated Middle East peace talks enter their seventh month, mounting tensions have emerged between Israel and Washington. Israeli officials are furious after Secretary of State John Kerry warned that if peace talks with the Palestinians fail, Israel could face growing international boycotts. Kerry was speaking at a security conference in Munich.