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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...

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...

After the 1938 Munich conference, First Lord of the Admiralty Duff Cooper resigned in protest from Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s cabinet. In his speech before the Commons, Cooper put his finger on the cause of Chamberlain’s failure: “The Prime Minister has believed in addressing Herr Hitler through the language of sweet reasonableness. I have believed that he was more open to the language of the mailed fist.”

Rightists may have something to fear after all as Channel Ten reports Monday evening that rumors of a potential unity government between Likud and the Zionist Union 9Labor-Hatnua -ed.) are alive and well. Associates of the Prime Minister said Monday that Binyamin Netanyahu would not exclude the addition of Yitzhak Herzog and the Zionist Union party to his next government. Only Sunday Netanyahu reiterated statements made throughout his election campaign that there was too great an ideological rift between Likud and Zionist Union for any sort of agreement to be reached. Now, however, sources close to the Prime Minister say...

White House chief of staff Denis McDonough today called for an end to Israel’s “occupation” of the Palestinians and vowed that the Obama administration won’t “pretend” that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t make his campaign remarks about no two-state solution. McDonough thanked the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” — as J Street bills itself — and pro-Palestinian lobbying group for the “important work you do around the country,” calling it “an organization that, in the best tradition of the American Jewish community, shares a set of values about the type of country that we are – a democracy where all of our...

Mark Levin has apparently gotten the insider details on the phone conversation between Obama and Netanyahu, and reveals that Obama did NOT call Bibi to congratulate him on his victory. Instead, he called him to make demands on him: I want to give you a little back information that’s not widely available publicly. When Barack Obama called Benjamin Netanyahu, it was not to congratulate him. They spoke for 30 minutes. Barack Obama insisted that Benjamin Netanyahu remove his ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer. Netanyahu said he would not. Obama pressed the case. Netanyahu said he will not. Obama...

 Last week, I criticized Bibi for making statements at the close of his campaign that may have helped him peel off a few voters from right-wing parties, but that he had to know would cost Israel diplomatically. In particular, he stated that given regional instability and Palestinian PM Abbas’s collaboration with Hamas, there would be no Palestinian state under his watch–a statement not surprisingly simplified in the international media into “Netanyahu walks back his support for the two-state solution.” As I pointed out, the statement was effectively meaningless, because Netanyahu could finesse it away at any time, and it’s...

Washington (AFP) - The White House on Monday bluntly warned Israel that its occupation of Palestinian land must end, dismissing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's efforts to take back controversial campaign pledges. In unusually tough language that underscores the fracture in relations between Washington and Israel, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said "an occupation that has lasted for almost 50 years must end." McDonough criticized Netanyahu's pre-election pledge to block the creation of a Palestinian state -- the supposed end goal of decades of fruitless peace talks -- and he questioned Netanyahu's efforts to undo the damage. "We cannot...

Deebo at Israellycool looks at some interesting statistics from the Israeli elections. One of the facts reported is that the most pro-Likud town in Israel is the village of All Naim, where 77% voted Likud. Al Naim is a Bedouin Arab town. Why did they vote for Bibi? NRG went there and asked. Until 1999 the Bedouin village was not known, and for years it waged a war against the Israeli authorities demanding recognition and minimum conditions for life such as electrical and sewage connections. In the past two years, things have changed dramatically. Now there is a paved main...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday night apologized for controversial comments he made on the eve of elections and if he caused offense to Israel’s Arab population. “I know that the words that I said some days ago offended Israel’s Arabs. I did not intend at all that this would happen. I am very sorry about that,” he said when hosting representatives from Israel’s minority communities at the prime minister’s residence, including the leadership of Israel’s Arab communities. Netanyahu emphasized to his audience: “I see myself as the prime minister of each and every one of you, of all of...

On Election Day PM urged Right-wing to go vote as Arab voters were going "en masse to the polls." In a meeting with representatives of minority communities in Israel on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized for the remarks that he made on Election Day about Arab Israeli voters. "I know that the things I said a few days ago hurt some citizens in Israel, the Arab Israeli citizens," Netanyahu said. "This was not my intention and I am sorry," he said. Netanyahu's Election Day remarks have garnered extensive criticism. “The Right-wing government is in danger. Arab voters are going...

Obama demanding Israel commit territorial suicide, He should be supporting the greatest ally America has in the Middle East, but that is too much to ask of this ignorant, arrogant, former community organizer. When the news of Benjamin Netanyahu’s reelection victory was announced I facetiously posted on my Facebook page that the Israelis had “sent Obama a two-word message and it wasn’t happy birthday.” It took him two days to call and congratulate Bibi. I don’t think we have ever had a President so ignorant of the Middle East and that includes the neo-cons that got George W. Bush into...

Netanyahu’s conservative Likud Party got its best numbers not in Jerusalem, where it only won a quarter of the vote, or Sderot, the city under siege where it still got less than half, or Maaleh Adumim, a city of some 40,000 known as a “settlement” because it is located in ’67 Israel where it also took less than half. Its best numbers appear to have come from Arab-al-Naim, a Bedouin settlement, where it scored three-quarters of the vote.The residents were uninterested in any of the accusations of racism being aimed at Netanyahu by the media. Instead they were interested in...

Despite winning the majority of incoming MKs' support to form the next government, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu continues to face suspicions he will abandon them for the Left. Likud, Jewish Home, Shas, United Torah Judaism, Kulanu, and Yisrael Beytenu all recommended Netanyahu for the task - giving him a total of 67 MKs in his possible coalition. Still, MK Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home) fears Netanyahu may take the President's mandate and instead of forming a narrow right-wing government, create a broad unity government. "We are opposed to a unity government. The nation made a definite choice," Shaked said during an...

Don’t just rely on Benjamin Netanyahu’s passionate advice to Congress on his way to reelection that Iran is our arch enemy. Now we have the counsel of retired general David Petraeus, who gave a remarkable interview this week to the Washington Post. Petraeus agrees with Netanyahu: Iran, not ISIS, is the real enemy. His message: “I would argue that the foremost threat to Iraq’s long-term stability and the broader regional equilibrium is not the Islamic State; rather, it is Shiite militias, many backed by — and some guided by — Iran.” The general adds, “Longer-term, Iranian-backed Shia militia could emerge...

Yisrael Beytenu has recommended Binyamin Netanyahu to form the next government, in a meeting with President Reuven Rivlin Monday at the Presidential Residence. He now has 67 MKs in his possible coalition. Interior Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud) ... [said] "I sincerely hope that the partners from the Right will compromise and make it possible to form a government quickly,” he told Kol Yisrael radio. “The negotiation needs to be carried out to its conclusion, and I hope [the right wing parties] do not cause the prime minister to opt for unity, by leaving him no other choice.”

Kulanu representatives on Monday met with President Reuven Rivlin, recommending that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu be tasked with forming the next coalition. The nomination gave Netanyahu an absolute majority of 61 votes in his favor and prompted Rivlin to announce that the prime minister would be tasked with forming the next government. Netanyahu later added an endorsement from Yisrael Beytenu giving him a total of 67 nominations. Kulanu leader Moshe Kahlon told President Rivlin that his party was neither Left nor Right, but socially-oriented with a central focus on the human being. "We nominate Netanyahu and the broader the base...

Over the weekend on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” conservative commentator Ann Coulter weighed in on the growing rift in U.S.-Israeli relations, particularly as it pertains to President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is coming off an electoral victory.

WASHINGTON — CNN anchor Jake Tapper said the relationship between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is deteriorating and the respect the two leaders have for each other knows bounds. “I spent the first four years of Obama as the White House correspondent for ABC News and it was just fascinating to watch the relationship deteriorate from the very beginning when — I’m sure I’m going to mess up the chronology here — but there was a Biden trip to Israel and he landed and immediately new settlements were announced. There was Netanyahu not being permitted to come...

Obama's role during the Israeli elections was larger than reported, according to a pollster for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party. "What was not well reported in the American media is that President Obama and his allies were playing in the election to defeat Prime Minister Netanyahu," John McLaughlin, a Republican strategist, said in an interview on John Catsimatidis's "The Cats Roundtable" radio show broadcast Sunday on AM 970 in New York. "There was money moving that included taxpayer U.S. dollars, through non-profit organizations. And there were various liberal groups in the United States that were raising millions to...