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Monday Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni opened negotiations with her Palestinian counterpart Ahmed Qurei regarding the partition of Jerusalem; the destruction of hundreds of Israeli communities in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem; the expulsion of between a hundred thousand and half a million Israelis from their homes; the borders of Israel; and the right of immigration of millions of foreign, hostile Arabs to Israel. The Olmert government's Palestinian policies are overwhelmingly rejected by the Israeli public. In a recent B'nai Brith poll, two thirds of the public said that the government has no mandate to conduct negotiations on these issues. Two thirds...

Apr. 22, 2006 11:23 | Updated Apr. 22, 2006 23:32 Olmert, Peretz agree on largest government ever By GIL HOFFMANOlmert and Peretz - partnersInterim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Labor Chairman Amir Peretz talk in the Knesset during its inaugural session. Photo: Associated PressIsrael will have its largest government in history with 27 ministers by the end of the week, according to an agreement reached on Thursday night between Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Labor chairman Amir Peretz, sources close to both men said Saturday. Olmert and Peretz met after 11 p.m. at the Ministry of Industry, Trade and...

Resigned Israeli finance minister Benjamin Netanyahu would upset Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a race for the Likud Party leadership if the party primary were held today, according to a new poll of Likud members, says a report in Haaretz. Polls over the past year have consistently shown Sharon beating Netanyahu, but this latest tally found that in a three-way race between Sharon, Netanyahu and MK Uzi Landau, the veteran leader of the Likud anti-disengagement camp, Netanyahu would win 35 percent of the vote - compared to 29 percent for Sharon and 17 percent for Landau. Forty percent of Likud...

President Lyndon Baines Johnson drove his station wagon at high speed across the white-fenced field and gunned it down the rutted dirt track, causing prime minister Levi Eshkol to jounce about in his seat. A cluster of cows bolted in alarm, but one refused to budge. The president honked his horn and nudged it with the car's fender until it, too, skedaddled. "That's Nellie," roared Johnson with laughter. "She's as pigheaded as a Texan senator with colic." "Vus rett der goy?" ("What's the goy talking about?") asked Eshkol above the growl of the engine. He was holding firmly onto his...

Sharon’s New Govt Comes Under Fire Agencies OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 26 February 2003 — The hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s formation of a narrow right-wing coalition was greeted by a wide range of opposition voices yesterday, as reports emerged of efforts to forge a truce deal in Gaza. Sharon’s extremist Likud party secured a mere one-seat majority for his fledgling coalition in Parliament after signing up the resolutely secular center-right Shinui party on Monday. Shinui was the dark horse in the Jan. 28 elections, leaping to 15 seats from just six on a pledge to sweep ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties out...