Free Republic

As Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex) announced last week that he was running for president, his Virginia audience cheered. He dropped applause line after applause line on some 10,000 students at Liberty University, which bills itself as the largest Christian university in the world. Cruz riffed, unimaginatively, on an “imagine” theme, asking the young audience to “imagine a president” who would repeal Obamacare and perform other feats. There was applause throughout. But one line prompted the students to erupt into a roaring, 30-second, standing ovation: “Instead of a president who boycotts Prime Minister Netanyahu, imagine a president who stands unapologetically with...

Twelve Jewish congressmen met Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes last week to convey a message of cease-and-desist to US President Barack Obama, regarding his persistent attacks on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu after the latter’s re-election. […] Obama and his aides, the Jewish congressmen said, “had to stop acting as if the Israeli prime minister’s comments are the only thing holding up a peace process that’s been abandoned for a year while not expressing a word of disappointment about Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas—and openly toying with allowing the Palestinians their provocative recognition bid at the United Nations.” […] “You want...

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...

Media has reported that the Obama Administration has threatened to support a United Nations resolution calling on Israel to retreat to the pre-1967 armistice lines. Obama is lashing out at Israel – this time because the Israeli public re-elected Benjamin Netanyahu.

PM warns of ‘Iran-Lausanne-Yemen axis'; officials say Tehran has agreed to ship out all enriched uranium to Russia Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Sunday against the emerging nuclear deal with Iran, as Iranian and Western officials in Lausanne, Switzerland were rushing to reach a framework agreement by an end-of-month deadline. “After the Beirut-Damascus-Baghdad axis, Iran is maneuvering from the south to take over the entire Middle East,” Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting, one of the last for his outgoing government. “The Iran-Lausanne-Yemen axis is dangerous for mankind and must be stopped.” Netanyahu told ministers that he had spoken with...

PM Netanyahu at Cabinet: I just met US Senate Republican leader McConnell. Over the weekend I spoke with US Senate Democratic leader Reid. » I heard from both of them about strong and continuing bipartisan support for Israel and of course this is very important. » I expressed our concern over the agreement formulated with Iran in the nuclear talks, which appears to confirm all of our concerns and more» Even as meetings proceed on this dangerous agreement, Iran's proxies in Yemen are overrunning large sections of that country, » and are attempting to seize control of the strategic Bab-el-Mandeb...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with with US Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

Iran hails ‘massive progress’ as Kerry-Zarif continue talks; Israeli official calls looming agreement ‘incomprehensibly’ bad. The deal taking shape between Iran and world powers will leave Iran with 6,100 centrifuges spinning, will involve a phased lifting of economic sanctions, and will be reached as scheduled early this coming week, Israeli television reported Friday night. Negotiators have yet to resolve several key issues, including the fate of some 13,000 centrifuges that Iran will be barred from using under the deal, whether Iran will be allowed to continue its R&D work on advanced centrifuges, and what will become of Iran’s already enriched...

[2013] Shortly after 2 a.m. local time on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu handed out some last ministerial posts to veteran Likud party members Silvan Shalom and Yuval Steinitz. Netanyahu had spent all day Sunday handing out marching orders for the next Cabinet and other government roles. The final maneuvering took place just hours before the swearing-in of the 19th Knesset. The outgoing vice prime minister Shalom was appointed minister of energy, and he agreed to stay on as minister of regional development in charge of the Negev and the Galilee, a post with which he was said to be...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech before Congress challenging President Barack Obama's Iran policy as well as the premier's controversial "Arabs are voting in droves" comments during the Israeli election campaign have so infuriated African-American Democrats that "it will be very difficult" for them to lend a sympathetic ear to Israel's concerns in Congress, Newsweek is reporting on Friday. “The Congressional Black Caucus is gone,” a Democratic congressional aide told Newsweek. The reported alienation felt by Black Democrats has practical significance for Netanyahu since it effectively kills any chance that lawmakers could submit legislation mandating new Iran sanctions that would have...

Realizing deal could leave Iran with some enrichment capability, Israel appears to be focusing on placing most restrictions possible on Iran R&D. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have begun to signal that Israel could resign itself to an Iranian nuclear deal that would leave its enemy with some uranium enrichment capability, a compromise he has long opposed. The shift seems surprising given Netanyahu's contentious speech to the US Congress earlier this month in which he argued against world powers letting Tehran keep thousands of uranium centrifuges and remain on possible course to a bomb. But faced with Western impatience and...

State Department, Quartet envoy Blair call move a step in right direction; Palestinians say they are still waiting for official word. The US on Friday welcomed Israel’s decision to release Palestinian tax funds which were frozen in January, calling Jerusalem’s move “an important step” to reduce tensions between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. “We certainly hope both sides would be able to build on this,” State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said, according to Reuters. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said revenues accumulated over three months, frozen by Israel since January in retaliation for a Palestinian move to join the International...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Jewish Home chairman Naftali Bennett met on Thursday evening as part of the coalition negotiations. A source involved in the meeting told Arutz Sheva, however, that there has been no progress in the negotiations between the parties and that, unlike Netanyahu's meetings with leaders of other parties, he did not speak with Bennett regarding the details of the make-up of the next government. The meeting comes amid ongoing tensions between the Likud and the Jewish Home over the coalition talks. On Wednesday, a source told Arutz Sheva that Netanyahu is planning to form a unity...

Incoming Jewish Home MK says that Netanyahu keeps raising the bar for the coalition - in hopes of forming a unity government instead. Incoming MK Yinon Magal (Jewish Home) heavily criticized the Likud on Friday, saying that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu prefers to form a government with Labor-Hatnua, despite multiple promises both before and after elections. "I think that there has been a spin here from the first day of [coalition] negotiations," Magal stated in an interview Friday morning to Army Radio. ''The Prime Minister did call [Jewish Home chairman] Naftali Bennett first [after the elections - ed.], but since...

Arabs Actually Benefit from Reverse Racism in Israel -- Rather Than Suffering from Perverse Racism The ironies have never been greater, as will be the representation of the Arabs in the new Israeli parliament now in formation. Prime Minister Netanyahu has been accused of racism upon trying to get out his base to vote by pointing out that the press was observing that Arabs were coming out in droves on Election Day. But what does this tell us? Even the most anti-Semitic Israel basher and Netanyahu basher has to concede that the fact that Arabs were coming out in droves...

Moshe Kahlon, chairman of Kulanu, on Thursday ordered his team not to attend the meeting with Likud’s team in protest against media reports that the Knesset Finance Committee and the Planning Administration – two bodies that Kahlon is seeking for Kulanu to promote a series of reforms – are to be given to United Torah Judaism and Shas. Sources in Kulanu accused Likud of “handing out positions at the expense of the tools needed to bring down housing prices and the cost of living, even before the negotiating teams have met.” Likud, seemingly unfazed by Kahlon’s muscle-flexing said: “How did...

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...

Binyamin Netanyahu is once again Finance Minister - thanks to none other than Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef. But according to the Kikar Shabbat web site, the re-appointment of Netanyahu to the post was prompted by phone calls to cabinet members by none other than Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef – who was concerned that, without a Finance Minister, the sale of leaven (chametz) before the upcoming Passover holiday would be nullified. While many Jews consider the personal or commercial sale of chametz, the leavened products from bread to beer that are forbidden on Passover, to be a mere “technicality,”...

By Joel Leyden Israel News AgencyJerusalem, Israel — March 25, 2015 … Part of the following was communicated by the President’s Office of Israel to the Israel News Agency. President of Israel Reuven Rivlin this evening, appointed outgoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu MK, with the task of forming the 34th Government of Israel, at a ceremony at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem. The President signed the official letter of appointment in his office with Prime Minister Netanyahu, before going on to make public statements. “In democracy, majority rules, and the majority has made its voice heard clearly in this election,”...

Instead of congratulating the Israeli people for being one of the few countries in the Middle East to hold real free and democratic elections, Obama has decided to inflict collective punishment not on Netanyahu, but on all Israelis, even its Muslim and Christian citizens, for having an election that came out not the way he wanted it to. The terrorists have also been following with great enthusiasm reports that the Obama Administration is considering reassessing its policy -- that the U.S. no longer considers Israel a strategic ally in the Middle East. In short, Obama's anti-Israel stance is the best...