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The Likud party intends to hold a press conference in Tel Aviv Sunday in which it will expose details about “V15 – Victory in 2015,” a campaign it says is using foreign money, and lots of it, to boost Labor and Meretz in the elections. Likud has filed a motion to the Elections Committee, according to which V15 is carrying out an illegal indirect campaign with a connection to Labor and Meretz. V15 is “making criminal use of foreign sources of funding,” adding that the sums involved were “very high” and their sources unknown. Likud's press conference will include MK...

The Likud party intends to hold a press conference in Tel Aviv Sunday in which it will expose details about “V15 – Victory in 2015,” a campaign it says is using foreign money, and lots of it, to boost Labor and Meretz in the elections. Likud has filed a motion to the Elections Committee, according to which V15 is carrying out an illegal indirect campaign with a connection to Labor and Meretz. V15 is “making criminal use of foreign sources of funding,” adding that the sums involved were “very high” and their sources unknown. Likud's press conference will include MK...

TEL AVIV – A consulting firm almost entirely composed of former staffers of President Obama’s re-election campaign has been hired to run an election effort in Israel aimed at defeating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The conservative blogosphere is reporting Jeremy Bird, national field director for Obama’s 2012 campaign, is now working for a new non-profit group, V15, that is running an effort to defeat Netanyahu in the upcoming election. A closer look at Bird’s consulting firm as well as its working relationship with the Israeli groups finds he is just one of scores of former senior Obama election campaign staffers...

During Barack Obama's recent State of the Union speech, he told America he had no more campaigns to run. But it seems that statement flies in the face of reports that an organization known as “One Voice” has brought in what has been called a "five-man Obama team" to defeat Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Included in that five-man team is Jeremy Bird, the national field director for Obama's 2012 campaign, Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director of the Independent Media Review and Analysis, said Monday, citing a report at Haaretz. That group, Dr. Lerner added, will run the anti-Netanyahu effort out...

Just days after the Obama White House accused House Speaker John Boehner of “breaking protocol” by inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress, a team of up to five Obama campaign operatives has reportedly arrived in Israel to lead a campaign to defeat the Israeli Prime Minister in upcoming national elections scheduled for March 17. The anti-Netanyahu, left wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports a group called “One Voice,” reportedly funded by American donors, is paying for the Obama campaign team. That group is reportedly being lead by Obama’s 2012 field director Jeremy Bird. As...

<p>Benedict Cumberbatch says he was an “idiot” to refer to non-white actors as “colored.” The Academy Award-nominated actor used the word on PBS talk show “Tavis Smiley” last week while discussing diversity in the entertainment industry. He said that “as far as colored actors go,” there were more opportunities in the U.S. than Britain, “and that’s something that needs to change.” British anti-racism charity Show Racism the Red Card said it welcomed Cumberbatch’s comments on diversity but felt the term he used was “outdated.” In a statement Monday, Cumberbatch apologized for his “thoughtless use of inappropriate language.”</p>

Caroline Glick picked up on one article the Israeli left-wing paper Ha’aretz didn’t bother translating into English that details Obama’s involvement in the upcoming Israeli elections. A summary of the article is provided by IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis): Haaretz reporter Roi Arad revealed in an article in the Hebrew edition today [January 26] that the foreign funded organization, “One Voice”, is bankrolling the V-2015 campaign to defeat Binyamin Netanyahu’s national camp in the March 2015 Knesset Elections. One indication of the generous financing is that it has now flown in a team of five American campaign experts (including...

An editorial cartoon in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper is drawing criticism for using Sept. 11 imagery to depict U.S.-Israel relations under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In it, a character resembling Netanyahu is seen flying a small plane into a building that resembles a World Trade Center tower. An American flag flies atop the skyscraper. The cartoon, which appeared Thursday, comes after the Israeli leader was reportedly criticized by an Obama administration official as being a "chickensh**"...

To be sure, the information provided by Steve Emerson regarding a decision by the U.S. government to stand down on an ongoing attempt to provide the Israeli government with critical information regarding an Israeli soldier whom Hamas claimed it had in its custody during this summer’s conflict was shocking. But perhaps just as shocking – or it should be – was a politically driven smear by Haaretz of Emerson’s credentials and his alleged political friendships, suggesting that was all that was driving Emerson’s claims. Although the Haaretz article claimed Emerson was wrong about the facts that he alleged, its portrayal...

A Haaretz reporter was ejected from a pro-Palestinian conference at Birzeit University on Saturday, reporter Amira Hass said—simply for being an Israeli Jew. Hass attempted to attend the “Alternatives to Neo-Liberal Development in the Occupied Palestinian Territories—Critical Perspectives” conference at the university, which is located near Ramallah where she lives. But she was ejected from the hall by the organizers, Hass claimed, after students at the admission desk noted she worked for the Israeli publication and alerted security authorities to intervene. Birzeit University has had a policy of barring Israeli Jews from the campus for over 20 years, administrators said,...

“For me, personally, Arabs are something I can’t look at and can’t stand,” a 10th-grade girl from a high school in the central part of the country says in abominable Hebrew. “I am tremendously racist. I come from a racist home. If I get the chance in the army to shoot one of them, I won’t think twice. I’m ready to kill someone with my hands, and it’s an Arab. In my education I learned that … their education is to be terrorists, and there is no belief in them. I live in an area of Arabs, and every day...

The events of the past week underscored the PM's isolation in his political camp. Yet he resisted calls to launch a ground invasion in Gaza, sometimes receiving support from unexpected quarters. As soon as the operation ends, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have to rehabilitate and fortify himself politically, while clearing away the rubble of his devastated party and trying to heal the rifts. Operation Protective Edge exposed the ruling party for what it is: shifting sands. Twenty-something individual factions, and only a tiny minority, as negligible as it is marginal, backs the stance of the party leader, who also...

Palestinian and other Arab commentators are blasting Egypt's cease-fire offer this week in the Israeli-Gazan fighting, saying it was a gift to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who accepted it, and a trap for Hamas, which rejected it. Azmi Bishara, the fugitive former Knesset member who now heads the Arab Center for Research and Policy in Doha, Qatar, wrote in the pan-Arab alaraby.co.uk that the offer gave no relief to Gaza, nor freedom for the Hamas members recently returned to Israeli prisons. "This Egyptian declaration represents a stab in the back to the resistance and the people of Gaza. … [T]his...

Pew Research poll also shows Israel as staunchly pro-U.S. and most supportive of drones and surveillance in the fight against terrorists. The fact that Isrealis are one of the most staunchly pro-American people in thw world is not new. But that their confidence in Barack Obama's ability to handle world affairs climbed dramatically to reach an all-time high? ...

A “peace conference” sponsored by the leftist Israeli newspaper Haaretz devolved into violence on Tuesday when an Israeli government official was heckled and then punched in the back by an attendee, according to reports. Attendees at the Israel Conference on Peace—which was kicked off with an endorsement by President Barack Obama and features a who’s who of liberal speakers—began shouting hateful slogans and then accosted Knesset member Naftali Bennett after he defended the government’s military action, which was undertaken to stop Hamas terrorists from bombarding civilians with rockets. Left-leaning government officials who spoke at the conference condemned Hamas’ aggression and...

The Minister of Economics, Jewish Home Chairman Naftali Bennett, was verbally and physically assaulted Tuesday in the course of the Peace Conference sponsored by ultra-leftist newspaper Haaretz. Bennett was one of the few speakers invited to the conference from outside of the political left. When he walked up on the stage, boos and catcalls of “fascist” and “murderer” were heard from the audience. Additionally, cries of "Mohammed Abu Khder's blood is on your hands" were heard, a reference to the 16-year-old Arab youth found murdered last Wednesday. ..... The Jewish Home leader used a phrase familiar to smartphone GPS users...

A photographer who claimed to have been assaulted by Jews celebrating Lag Ba’Omer in Hevron has responded to allegations that the incident was fabricated, insisting that he was indeed attacked as he tried to film the event. Emil Salman, who was covering the celebrations in the ancient Judean city on Saturday night, along with veteran Haaretz journalist Amira Hass, told Arutz Sheva the incident lasted “for about 40 seconds”, and began when he tried to approach the Jews’ traditional Lag Ba’Omer bonfire. […] Surprisingly, he said he hadn’t suffered any injuries in the attack, apart from a “pain in the...

Far-left Israeli newspaper Haaretz has been accused of fabricating an “attack” by Jews celebrating Lag Ba’omer against one of its journalists in Hevron, in an attempt to incite against Jewish residents of the ancient city. The article claimed that “settlers” celebrating Lag Ba’omer on Saturday night chose to light their customary bonfire in the middle of a “Palestinian olive grove”, and alleged that a group of Jewish celebrants then “assaulted” a Haaretz journalist who was at the scene as he tried to film it. […] But Arutz Sheva blogger and Canadian indigenous rights activist Ryan Bellerose, who was visiting Hevron...

Netanyahu: Rather than soothing international public opinion, Abbas should choose between Hamas and peace with Israel.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas released a special message on Sunday in Arabic and in English on the occasion of Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day, in which he decried the murder of Jews in the Holocaust as "the most heinous crime against humanity in modern history. This is the first time a Palestinian president has ever made such a public declaration.

Citing German intelligence Syrian forces may have used gas without Assad's permission, says German daily. Commanders had been urging Assad for authorization to use chemical weapons for more than four months but hadn't received it, Bild reports based on intercepted radio messages... This could mean that Assad may not have approved the attack close to Damascus on August 21... Bild said the radio transmission was intercepted by a German naval reconnaissance vessel, the Oker, sailing close to the Syrian coast The chief of staff of Germany's armed forces General Volker Wieker...told lawmakers the influence of al-Qaida linked forces within the...