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As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fought back Wednesday against a police finding that he had accepted nearly $300,000 in bribes, his cool self-confidence betrayed not the slightest worry that he could be forced to step down anytime soon. “The coalition is stable, and no one, me or anyone else, has plans to go to elections,” he declared in Tel Aviv. “We will continue to work together with you for the citizens of the State of Israel, until the end of our term,” in late 2019. If Mr. Netanyahu had entered a dangerous new period in which he must battle for...

Israel’s Prime Minister has just developed a new political, if not legal problem. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that an existing problem has moved into a new, serious phase. There have been rumors and accusations swirling around Netanyahu for quite a while now, alleging that he’s been involved in official corruption in the form of accepting gifts and donations in exchange for political favors. The Prime Minister has continually scoffed at these stories, calling them politically motivated attacks and basically saying that there’s no “there” there. Unfortunately for him, the police have now recommended that bribery charges...

The Israeli police investigation against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shows remarkable similarities with the Special Counsel probe against President Donald Trump in the United States. During the prime time news broadcasts Tuesday evening in Israel, the dramatic news was announced that Israel Police investigators are recommending that Israel’s Attorney General, Avichai Mandelblit, indict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on bribery and breach of trust charges in two investigations. The news raises a number of obvious questions about Netanyahu’s political future. But it also raises an equal, if not greater, number of questions about the purity of the police service’s intentions...

Israel Police will recommend indicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for bribery and breach of trust in two cases Tuesday night, Israel's Channel 2 and Channel 10 reported. After a 14-month-long investigation, police are expected to announce on Tuesday that it found enough evidence to recommend the state’s prosecution to indict Netanyahu for bribery and breach of trust in Case 1000, the “gifts affair" and Case 2000, the "Yediot Aharanot Affair." In Case 1000, the “gifts affair,” it is alleged that Netanyahu improperly accepted expensive gifts from different businessmen. In Case 2000, the “Yediot Aharonot affair,” Netanyahu allegedly negotiated with publisher...

Israel is counting on Russian President Vladimir Putin to keep confrontations with Iran and Syria from spiraling into war as the Trump administration mostly watches from the sidelines, a senior aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. “The American part of the equation is to back us up,” but the U.S. currently “has almost no leverage on the ground,” Michael Oren, Netanyahu’s deputy minister for public diplomacy and a former ambassador to Washington, said in a phone interview Sunday. “America did not ante up in Syria. It’s not in the game.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remained defiant Thursday in the face of reports — which he acknowledged — that police are expected to recommend his indictment for demanding and receiving gifts from businessmen, including cases of champagne and Cuban cigars, in exchange for personal favors. Responding to numerous Israeli media reports, Netanyahu posted an angry video to his Facebook page agreeing that the recommendation he be indicted appears imminent.

..... "With endless violations of Syrian and Lebanese sovereignty, violations of UN resolutions, embarrassing cooperation with extremist organizations and repeated attacks on Syrian territory, it is no wonder that we have reached the current situation,” continued Touma-Sliman. MK Ilan Gilon (Meretz) tweeted that "it is to be hoped that Netanyahu will not warm up the northern sector in order to save himself from the investigations and the police's recommendations that are expected to be published this week." Attorney Eldad Yaniv, who has been leading the recent leftist demonstrations against Netanyahu, also hinted at the same conspiracy theory. "There is no...

An audio recording has emerged of the Israeli prime minister’s wife furiously scolding a family publicist over a gossip column she said failed to highlight her professional qualifications. The leak comes amid intense scrutiny in Israel of Sara Netanyahu, who was last year ordered to pay tens of thousands of pounds in damages to two former domestic workers who accused her of bullying. She faces a third lawsuit from an employee who alleged staff were treated like “slaves”.The Israeli site Walla! News published the tape in which Netanyahu, a child psychologist, is heard screaming at an aide who had reportedly...

Netanyahu in Davos: Not only does Iran spread terror all over the world, it openly says it will use its weapons to destroy Israel. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke on Thursday evening at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Netanyahu criticized the nuclear deal with Iran and said, "I think that the current agreement is so flawed that it promises that Iran will have everything necessary to create nuclear weapons, including the enrichment of fissile material on a huge scale.” “What they can do today, at best, is enrich uranium for one bomb. Under the current agreement, they will...

At the Davos photo-op with Netanyahu and Trump, I noticed Trump wearing a blue tie (same color normally worn by Bibi) and Netanyahu wearing a classic Trump red tie. Happy coincidences or planned media tweaks? Funny stuff!

The Palestinian cause will stay alive among Arabs until the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, the Syrian president’s office said... “The future of Jerusalem is not determined by a state or a president but is determined by its history and by the will and determination in the Palestinian cause,” President Bashar al-Assad’s office said on an official social media feed.

Dismissing the notion of any Israeli connection to the ongoing protests in Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the “heroic” demonstrators protesting against the “cruel regime” in a YouTube video published Monday. “I heard today Iran’s President [Hassan] Rouhani’s claim that Israel is behind the protests in Iran. It’s not only false. It’s laughable. And unlike Rouhani, I will not insult the Iranian people. They deserve better,” the prime minister began. […] “Iran’s cruel regime wastes tens of billions of dollars spreading hate. This money could have built schools and hospitals,” Netanyahu said. “No wonder mothers and fathers are marching...

© Courtesy WhiteHouse.gov U.S. and Israeli officials reached a closed-door cooperation agreement on how to deal with Iran, according to Israel's Channel 10 News. The agreement, which was reportedly signed on Dec. 12 at the White House, aims to counter Iran's missile and nuclear programs. According to Channel 10, the agreement would translate President Trump 's Oct. 13 speech decertifying the Iran deal into "steps on the ground." The two countries have reportedly decided to set up joint teams to combat Iran in the region. One joint team would grapple with Iran's ties to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah,...

The prime minister’s attack on the police was seen as an attempt to convince Kahlon that police recommendations do not matter. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s criticism of law-enforcement authorities in a speech to Likud activists at a Hanukka party he hosted Tuesday night failed to persuade Kulanu chairman Moshe Kahlon to ignore expected police recommendations to indict Netanyahu, sources close to Kahlon said Wednesday. Both Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman and Bayit Yehudi chairman Naftali Bennett said at The Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference two weeks ago that Netanyahu would not have to resign even if he were to be indicted...

Russia on Monday said it was ready to become “an honest mediator” between the Israelis and Palestinians, a role the United States has played for years, after a vote at the UN Security Council... Washington vetoed a resolution supported by the 14 other Council members that would have required President Donald Trump to rescind his declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Vladimir Safronkov said it was becoming more important to move “as quickly as possible towards direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.” He reiterated Russia’s proposal to hold a summit between the Palestinian and Israeli leaders. “We...

Former US congressman Robert Wexler is a man worth listening to. Wexler served as then-senator Barack Obama’s chief booster in the American Jewish community during the 2008 presidential campaign. He appeared everywhere and said anything to convince the American Jewish community that the same man who sat in the church pews listening to Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s anti-Semitic vitriol for two decades, and listed among his closest friends and associates a host of Israel-haters as well as former terrorists, was the greatest friend Israel could ever have. Once Obama was elected, Wexler continued to serve as his Jewish shill. Wexler traveled...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the European Union on Monday to back a new U.S. peace initiative in the Middle East, after President Donald Trump’s unilateral decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital met with widespread condemnation and triggered clashes in the Palestinian territories. Netanyahu, making the first official visit by an Israeli premier to the EU’s Brussels headquarters in 22 years, told reporters that recognizing Jerusalem merely stated the reality on the ground. He said he expected many European countries to follow Trump’s lead. But EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, who chaired talks between Netanyahu and EU...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made his first trip abroad, to Paris, since US President Donald Trump announced last week that the US would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, drawing international condemnation and sparking violent protests across the Middle East and beyond. Standing side-by-side with French President Emmanuel Macron during a post-meeting press conference on Sunday, Netanyahu attempted to strike a conciliatory tone, calling the French leader an indispensable leader in the quest for peace in the Middle East. Even as thousands of Israelis protested against Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, the prime minister insisted he was open...

One year ago this month, former President Barack Obama's administration was working behind the scenes at the United Nations to slip a resolution through the body’s General Assembly attacking Israel. It was one of Obama’s final, sneaky, and reprehensible acts in office. It put an exclamation point on his long, nasty, personal feud with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Previously, our president had gone so far as to interfere in an Israeli election and then unleashed his minions when Netanyahu had the gall to accept an invitation to address Congress. Fast forward to this Wednesday, Netanyahu was thanking Obama’s successor...

Moments ago, the special counsel released Michael Flynn’s “Statement of the Offense.” This document lays out Flynn’s crimes in far greater detail than the short “information” released earlier today. It’s important to state this clearly as possible — the statement contains no evidence of collusion with Russia to influence the presidential election. Instead, it amplifies the fact that Flynn apparently lied about contacts that were lawful and appropriate.First, the statement says that the day after President Obama announced sanctions in response to Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 election, Flynn called a “senior official of the Presidential Transition Team...