Free Republic

A State Department official deleted emails that included information about a secret campaign to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the countryÂ’s last election, according to a Senate investigatory committee that determined the Obama administration transferred tax funds to anti-Netanyahu groups. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations disclosed in a massive report on Tuesday that the Obama administration provided U.S. taxpayer dollars to the OneVoice Movement, a liberal group that waged a clandestine campaign to smear and oust Netanyahu from office.OneVoice, which was awarded $465,000 in U.S. grants through 2014, has been under congressional investigation since 2015, when it was...

The State Department paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayers grants to an Israeli group that used the money to build a campaign to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in last year’s Israeli parliamentary elections, a congressional investigation concluded Tuesday. Some $350,000 was sent to OneVoice, ostensibly to support the group’s efforts to back Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement negotiations. But OneVoice used the money to build a voter database, train activists and hire a political consulting firm with ties to President Obama’s campaign — all of which set the stage for an anti-Netanyahu campaign, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations...

In an unprecedented move, the U.S. billionaire and world-renowned entrepreneur, Mr. Donald Trump, took part in a video showing his support for the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu and The Likud Party in general elections in Israel next week: "Vote for Benjamin, terrific guy, terrific leader, great for Israel."

The agreement, which was struck just two hours before the final deadline for Netanyahu to cobble together a ruling government, paves the way for a narrow, 61-seat coalition. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling Likud faction on Wednesday reached an agreement with the religious Zionist Bayit Yehudi on the formation of a rightist coalition, Israel Radio reported. The agreement, which was struck just two hours before the final deadline for Netanyahu to cobble together a ruling government, paves the way for a narrow, 61-seat coalition. By law, if Netanyahu failed to form a government by midnight on Wednesday, President Reuven Rivlin...

A senior source in the Jewish Home estimated Tuesday that White House pressure against a nationalist government is the real reason for the delay in the signing of a coalition deal between Likud and the religious Zionist party. The unnamed senior source was cited on Army Radio as saying that the Jewish Home has shown flexibility on numerous subjects, leaving very few disagreements between the parties, yet the prime minister is taking his time about signing the deal. The source estimated that the US is pressuring Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to establish a unity government with the Zionist Union (Labor...

Turkey, via their Deputy Prime Minister, is putting the word out on the street that it is open to a restoration of ties with Israel, even acknowledging that it is NOT Turkey’s place to criticize the recent Israeli election: snip Wow. The admitted refusal to criticize Israel over the election is definitely a change of pace for Turkey. I mean, when has Erdogan ever missed an opportunity to openly bash Israel? He was just ripping Netanyahu in January for just showing up to the Paris march against ‘radical Islam’, accusing him of killing 2500 Palestinians in the war last year....

The whole Netanyahu demonization narrative is an attempt to distract from what really happened. A lot of money spent in a failed effort to steal an election. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s campaign manager is predicting a wave of outside spending in future Israeli elections.“I think in every election campaign from this point onward, you’ll see external groups slugging the market. It’ll be very interesting,” Netanyahu’s top strategist, Aron Shaviv, told The Hill.During the campaign, Netanyahu allies decried the influence of foreigners, a group that saw a higher profile this year, arguing they found a loophole by not directly supporting...

Democratic assemblyman slams Obama who is 'desperate' for a foreign policy accomplishment at Israel's expense. Arutz Sheva got the chance to speak with Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-NY) about the fallout between US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, which historians have assessed as being "unprecedented." Hinting at the Senate probe investigating whether Obama funded the V15 campaign against Netanyahu, Hikind remarked that Obama "worked very very hard" to try and prevent Netanyahu from succeeding - which in the end he did, outpacing Labor by 30 seats to 24. The Democratic assemblyman admitted "I don't understand Obama, you know...

Historian reveals the key clashes between US presidents and Israeli prime ministers, and why none have been as bad as the current one. The current diplomatic crisis between Israel and US President Barack Obama's administration is the most vicious and public yet among only a handful of crises that have marred the close, long-running relationship, says an expert on relations between the two nations. Obama's frosty relationship with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu hit new lows this month, with the White House criticizing remarks Netanyahu made on election day, in which he said a Palestinian state would not be founded if...

RUSH: The Israeli election is today. They had kind of a shocking thing happen yesterday. Here's what's going on. Arabs are being bussed in to the polls to vote. Israel is surrounded by people that don't want it to exist. Surrounded by people that would just as soon obliterate, not just the real estate, but the people who live there. And I would think everybody in Israeli knows it. I don't see, in a sane world, how Netanyahu's opposition in any way even gets close to winning, but they might. It just goes to show -- I don't know whether...

Analysis: The Egyptian, Jordanian, Saudi and Gulf state rulers trust Israel's re-elected prime minister to handle the Iranian issue, and the Americans to pressure him on the Palestinian issue. The Arab world, just like officials in Jerusalem and in the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv, is monitoring the steps of the American dance which is casting a shadow on the elections results here. One can definitely say that the roof did not collapse on the Arab leaders' heads when Netanyahu won. The elections here appeared odd, and if there was any attention, it focused on the joint Arab list, and...

President Obama is angry with Israeli voters for re-electing Benjamin Netanyahu, and he’s willing to risk the lives and security of Israeli citizens to show it. The State Department is reportedly considering reversing the decades-long policy of protecting Israel’s security at the United Nations and is threatening to allow the Security Council to compel Israel to enter forced negotiations with Hamas-controlled Palestine. This action would be reckless—and shameful. At a time when anti-Semitic attacks are rocking Europe, and the need for a secure, Jewish state has rarely been more apparent, the Obama administration would force Israel to negotiate with entities...

The White House was directly involved in an attempt to topple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in last week’s general election, during a nadir in ties between the Israeli leader and US President Barack Obama, a senior Jerusalem official said Tuesday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Times of Israel that “it’s no secret” that the Obama administration had attempted to influence the outcome of the election, having been partially motivated by a desire for revenge over Netanyahu’s polarizing speech before Congress earlier this month, which sought to undermine the president’s key foreign policy initiative – a...

The White House's latest tirade against Israel is due to revenge over failed V15 campaign, to distract Americans from Iran, source says. U.S. President Barack Obama delivers 2015 State of the Union address U.S. President Barack Obama delivers 2015 State of the Union addressReuters US-Israel relations have been especially tense over the past several days, with US President Barack Obama giving a particularly cold reception to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's re-election last week. The many harsh statements that have been made over the past week are not in a vacuum, according to a senior diplomat - who claims that the...

Multiple incidents of voter fraud were reported during elections day last week - including several arrests in Arab communities. Arutz Sheva spoke to Yisrael Zelkovitz, a volunteer who served as a member of a volunteer task force funded by the Samaria Residents' Committee at polling stations tasked with uncovering and preventing voter fraud, to find out more about what really happened on elections day. The project was funded with Likud, Jewish Home, and Yisrael Beytenu support. Zelkovitz stated that he did see incidents of voter fraud, and even caught some suspicious activity on tape - including buying votes and extortion....

Stunned by defeat and still licking its considerable wounds in the wake of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upset landslide re-election, the radical left, anti-Zionist Haaretz has published a lengthy article on the group most responsible for Netanyahu’s win: the young. It is a striking piece. Haaretz summed it up this way: Israel’s youth voted in overwhelming numbers for Netanyahu because of “security, security, security – and distrust of Arabs [that is, Muslims], the left and media.” In the United States of America, this very group delivered a fraud, a liar and America-hater into the Oval Office, not once but...

Krauthammer’s Take: ‘It’s Clear that Obama Loathes Netanyahu March 18, 2015 President Obama’s approach to Iran and the Middle East was firmly rejected in Israel’s election on Tuesday, in which prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu won reelection, said Charles Krauthammer. “This was an election between Bibi and Obama — that was on the ballot,” he said on Wednesday’s Special Report. “He did everything he could to unseat him, but he failed.”

<p>Ugh. Our petulant man-child Muslim president and his Israel-hating administration are now threatening that they just might agree to a UN Security Council resolution that would call for Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and push them into negotiations to create a palestinian state.</p>

In first post election interview, Netanyahu says he wants a ‘sustainable’ two-state solution, notes ‘we have no other alternative’ to continued cooperation between US and Israel

Days after vowing not to establish a Palestinian state, Netanyahu says something else in his first post-election interview. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has retracted his pre-election statements, according to which he would not allow a Palestinian state to be established. "I don't want a one-state solution. I want a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution," Netanyahu said Thursday in an interview with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell. "I haven't changed my policy." Netanyahu said his earlier comments were a reflection of changing conditions on the Palestinian side, pointing to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's pact to form a unity government with Hamas, which Israel,...