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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared victory after the first exit polls released following Tuesday's elections showed the Likud ahead of, or tied with, the Zionist Union. Netanyahu wrote on his Facebook page: "Against all odds, a great victory for the Likud, for the nationalist camp led by the Likud, and for the people of Israel." The numbers for Netanyahu's Likud were better than expected after pre-election polls had showed him trailing Isaac Herzog's Zionist Union by as much as five mandates. The Zionist Union rejected conjecture that the results of the exit polls show that Netanyahu will form the next...

Claiming it could affect Herzog's chances of forming a government, his co-chair gives up rotation deal that brought them together. MK Tzipi Livni announced Monday that she has given up the rotation deal for prime minister she shared with Labor leader Yitzhak Herzog, which had been a key condition of Labor and Hatnua's merging. According to Livni, maintaining the rotation would constitute an obstacle to Herzog forming the next government. She stressed that the most important thing was to replace Binyamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister. Over the weekend, Herzog and Livni dropped hints that they were ready to waive the...

"The historic announcement of Livni and Herzog marks new lows in terms of broken promises," MK Yariv Levin (Likud) stated Monday night. "If, until today, we had grown accustomed to the Left breaking its promises after elections, now these promises are being broken even before the polls open." "Whoever can't handle the stress of the night before elections is not able to handle the day-to-day stresses of premiership," he added. "Now it is absolutely clear that there is only one suitable candidate for Prime Minister - Binyamin Netanyahu - and that only one party fulfills its promises: Likud." "Livni's misstep...

Zionist Union’s No. 2 drops bombshell 12 hours before election; Netanyahu, Herzog accuse each other of ‘panicking’. The Zionist Union’s Tzipi Livni announced Monday evening that she would give up the rotation of the premiership with the slate’s leader, Isaac Herzog, an agreement the two made months ago when her Hatnua party merged with his Labor Party. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign up! In response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the party was “panicking,” while Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid and Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett...

Mr. Netanyahu, who is running for his third consecutive term, and fourth overall, is beginning to confront the very real possibility of a political about-face in Israel. “If we do not close the gap in the next few days, there is indeed a danger that Tzipi Livni and Bougie Herzog will be the next prime ministers,” Mr. Netanyahu said in an interview on Israel’s Channel 2 News on Thursday night, referring to Mr. Herzog by his nickname. Political analysts say that the widening gap in the polls could work two ways, infusing the Zionist Union campaign with more momentum or...

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his party trailing in polls leading up to Tuesday’s vote, entered the final two days of his campaign Sunday with one card still unplayed: Israel’s complicated electoral system, which doesn’t guarantee that the party with the most seats in Parliament forms the government. The final polls published ahead of the election Tuesday gave opposition leader Isaac Herzog the edge, with his Zionist Union alliance likely to win four more seats than Netanyahu’s Likud party when the votes are counted. But that does not mean victory, unless Herzog can form a governing coalition. Neither...

Netanyahu urges nationalists to vote Likud, stave-off leftist gov't of 'submission and capitulation'; 'they'll retreat along every front.' Ahead of tonight's major nationalist rally in Tel Aviv, and just two days before general elections, Prime Minister and Likud party leader Binyamin Netanyahu spoke exclusively in English to Arutz Sheva, and appealed to right-wing voters to cast their ballots for Likud - saying only his party could prevent the establishment of a leftist government which would be essentially controlled by outside powers. "The possibility is that if we don't close the gap between Labor and Likud, then Buji [Yitzhak Herzog] and...

It came by surprise and the incumbent’s opponent failed to seize the moment. On Saturday night, at the conclusion of an interview with Isaac Herzog on Channel 2′s ‘Meet the Press’ program, the host brought on Benjamin Netanyahu for a rare and impromptu three minute debate. Netanyahu, who was interviewed in a live feed from his office immediately after Herzog, was asked by host Rina Matzliach if he had any questions for Herzog, who was in the studio, before his interview began. Netanyahu took the bat and criticized Herzog and Tzipi Livni for criticizing the government on the world stage...

Four days before elections, most surveys have Netanyahu’s party 3-4 seats behind Herzog’s On the last weekend before Tuesday’s general election, Israeli media published the final polls for the current election cycle before a four-day moratorium on surveys. The Zionist Union kept its lead over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party in those polls, with most giving Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni’s joint list a 3-4 seat edge over its competitor. A Maariv poll had Zionist Union with 25 and Likud with 21. Yesh Atid was tied with the Joint (Arab) List for 13, with Jewish Home trailing at 11....

A speech by Zionist Union alliance head and Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog was cut off in the middle of a broadcast on Israel’s Channel 2 television network due to concern that Herzog’s remarks constituted elections propaganda. “There’s no doubt Prime Minister Netanyahu speaks well, but let’s admit the truth: the speech we heard, impressive as it might have been, did not stop the Iranian nuclear program,” Herzog said on the Tuesday night broadcast regarding Netanyahu’s address to Congress, according to Israel Hayom. “It also won’t affect the deal being put together, either in terms of content or timetable. The...

Op-ed: Seventy-five years after the Holocaust, Herzog is underestimating evil and its promises to wipe the Jewish state off the map, while the media and left-wing camp are concentrating on PM's so-called 'corruption.' Until the current election campaign and the daily vicious, personal attacks against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, I think I never really gauged the media and center-left camp’s cruelty, or their recklessness in regard to the security and safety of Israel and the Jewish people. I never realized how low they are willing to descend to have an Israel without Netanyahu and to replace him...

Herzog vowed that, if elected PM, in his first 100 days as prime minister he would focus on three issues in particular: solving the housing crisis, "renewing relations with the US and the (political) process with the Palestinians." "If need be, I will travel to Ramallah and present to the Palestinian Parliament a vision of hope," he declared.

Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog announced Tuesday he will not be traveling to the US to appear before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual conference, amid growing tensions over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's planned speech to Congress on March 3. "Netanyahu's spin about who is going to Washington must stop," Herzog told a gathering of foreign media in Israel. "My firm position against a nuclear Iran is known by every Israeli and American, including the US president, and I know how to voice it in a sharp, clear manner - from here, not from there." Herzog added: "A...

On the surface, the two candidates are as different as can be. Netanyahu is warring with President Obama. Herzog seems to want to be President Obama: The Labor Party leader is campaigning on an Israeli version of “hope and change.” Herzog’s billboards promise Israeli parents an extra teacher in each kindergarten classroom. Netanyahu warns about “the people who want to kill us.” He is fixated on the Iranian mullahs, who he says pose an existential threat to the Jewish state and places beyond. Netanyahu is prepared to risk the ire of the White House and Democrats to make his case...

According to media reports, one of the prime architects of President Bill Clinton’s political victories, Paul Begala, is arriving in Israel to consult for the campaign of the Zionist Camp party led by Yitzhak Herzog. By all accounts, they can use that help. Not that this week has been a bad one for them. A week ago it looked like the Zionist Camp party was in a free fall and Likud, the party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was on the rise, with Likud taking the lead in polls for the first time in this election cycle. This week’s polls...

After announcing he will be skipping Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu”s speech to Congress for a trip abroad, US Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry both met on Saturday with Labor leader Isaac Herzog on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich, Germany. The two sides insisted that the meetings were informal. But it reportedly revolved around security matters and the Zionist Union’s defense strategy, Israeli media reported. On Friday, Biden announced he’ll miss Netanyahu’s speech to Congress due to a pre-scheduled overseas trip, yet unnamed. Both Kerry and President Barack Obama said last month...

Despite essentially boycotting Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress by planning to be abroad when it takes place, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Saturday met with another Israeli official. Biden and Opposition leader Yitzhak Herzog, head of the Labor party, met on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. The Likud party was incensed at the meeting between Herzog and Biden, which also came as leaders from the left, including Herzog himself, were busy attacking Netanyahu and blaming him for Biden’s boycott of the speech. “Buji’s behavior in Munich is an irresponsible crossing of red lines,” the party...

Labor leader Yitzhak Herzog has vowed to shut down the World Zionist Organization's Settlement Division, which functions as an operational arm of the government to build and establish communities and infrastructures in Judea and Samaria - leaving hundreds of thousands of Israelis in the region without governmental representation. "As Prime Minister I will close the Settlement Division and open it later to serve the Negev and the Galilee," Herzog stated during an interview on "Meet the Press" Saturday night. "We see again and again the same group takes over the interests of the state and Netanyahu gave in to it."...

PM’s hostility to president is ‘endangering Israel’s security,’ claims Labor’s Isaac Herzog, in rare confirmation of long-rumored strained ties between ‘Bibi’ and ‘Barack’Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “loathes” Barack Obama, and his hostile attitude to the US president constitutes a danger to Israel’s well-being, the head of the Israeli opposition charged on Friday night, in a highly unusual acknowledgement of the long-rumored strained personal ties between the two leaders. In a bitter verbal assault on the prime minister, Labor party chairman Isaac Herzog slammed Netanyahu for failing to listen to the international community, failing to present peace proposals of his own...

Negotiations have reached a peak in which Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas must decide if they really want peace, opposition leader Isaac Herzog said Thursday evening. Referring to Netanyahu's meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Davos planned for Friday, Herzog said "Netanyahu and Abbas must decide whether they will move toward peace or blink, retract and lead us to adverse developments." "Both American and Israeli leaders have seen this picture before," Herzog added. "Time and again, talks come to this point." The opposition leader said both sides have to make a genuine,...