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________Mar 2020:N. BENNET ACCUSED AIDA-TOUMA SULEIMAN OF BEING A LIAR AND A RACIST Naftali Bennett to MK Touma Suleiman: "You are a liar, antisemitic and...", Channel 7, Mar 13, 2020. The defense minister attacked MK Thomas Suleiman, who claimed that the IDF was spraying Palestinians with unidentified material. "It is unbelievable that Boogie and Gantz are ready to form a government with you." Defense Minister Naftali Bennett today (Friday) sharply attacked MK Aida Toma Suleiman from the joint list, who defamed the IDF and claimed that he was spraying "unidentified material" on Palestinians in the Qalandiya crossing. ''You're a liar,...

On top of all the challenges Israel’s new Prime Minister Naftali Bennett already faces in trying to hold an unlikely, ideologically-diverse ruling coalition together, analysts say he also has to deal with a concerted attempt by his predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu to sabotage the government’s work and bring it down. On June 13, Israel’s parliament swore in a new eight-party coalition government – led by right-wing nationalist Bennett – featuring an alliance of left-wing, centrist and right-wing parties, as well as a party representing Palestinian citizens of Israel. ----snip Netanyahu and Likud are determined to undermine the ability of this government...

Benjamin Netanyahu, the longest serving Israeli leader, was ousted as prime minister on Sunday after the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, voted to form a new government made up of a coalition of opposition groups pledging to heal caustic divisions caused by Netanyahu’s 12-year rule. Netanyahu had failed to form a government after a March 23 election — the fourth in two years — and could not block the power-sharing agreement between the groups, headed by his former defense minister Naftali Bennett and opposition leader Yair Lapid. Bennett and Lapid will each serve two years as prime minister on a rotating basis.

As Yesh Atid party leader MK Yair Lapid was reportedly set to formally announce Tuesday that he had managed to put together a coalition after marathon overnight talks, the legal adviser to the president pushed back against a claim by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party that the nascent government could not have Yamina’s Naftali Bennett serve as its first premier. The legal adviser to the office of President Reuven Rivlin, Udit Corinaldi-Sirkis, said in a statement that there was no legal reason why the MK entrusted with forming the coalition should not serve as alternate prime minister during the...

A shipment of 700,000 doses was expected to arrive in Israel on Sunday but was halted until further notice. Pfizer has halted shipments of coronavirus vaccines to Israel in outrage over the country failing to transfer payment for the last 2.5 million doses it supplied to the country, The Jerusalem Post has learned. Senior officials at Pfizer have said they are concerned that the government-in-transition will not pay up and the company does not want to be taken advantage of. They said that they do not understand how such a situation can occur in an organized country. Army Radio reported...

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is heading toward a narrow victory if current exit polls hold and he is able to form a coalition as anticipated. To maintain power, Netanyahu will have to secure a majority of the 120 seats in the Knesset. All three of the exit polls taken after the election indicate that he should have just that, with 61 seats. This assumes the further right Yamina Party will join his government. The party’s leader, Naftali Bennett, previously indicated he was open to joining a coalition government with either political bloc, so this should not be an insurmountable...

The Knesset voted to approve the normalization agreement with the United Arab Emirates Thursday night. The agreement was approved by a margin of 80-13. All 13 votes against approving the deal came from the Joint List. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu praised the agreement before the vote, saying that his foreign policy has changed the discourse on peace in the Middle East and brought Israel closer to the Gulf Arab states. “The new order says you don’t wait for the Palestinians to make peace,” Netanyahu said. “This deal brings Arab and Muslim countries closer to us, who have formed a united...

A bill which would outlaw gay conversion therapy passed its preliminary hearing in the Knesset Wednesday afternoon. The bill, which was drafted by MK Nissan Horowitz (Meretz), would ban the controversial practice of treating homosexuals with the aim of reversing same-sex attraction. In its preliminary vote, the 120-member Knesset backed the bill by a margin of 42 to 36, after the coalition split, with Blue and White backing the proposed law, while haredi lawmakers and the Likud opposed it - with the exception of Likud minister Amir Ohana. After the vote, haredi lawmakers fumed at Blue and White chief and...

Incumbent Netanyahu easily defeats primary challenge and re-energizes base ahead of the general election Benjamin Netanyahu on September 14, 2010.jpg: US State Dept.derivative work: TheCuriousGnome [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Today was newsworthy in Israel because it saw torrential rainfalls that brought with them in one day the average rainfall of the entire month of December and because incumbent PM and head of the Likud party Benjamin Netanyahu easily defeated the leadership challenge from Likud member of the Knesset Gideon Sa’ar. The primary election saw 49% of all Likud party members show up to vote in spite...

Center-left candidate Benny Gantz declares victory over Benjamin Netanyahu in the Israeli elections, and is rejecting the prime minister’s call for negotiations over leading the government. Gantz issued a statement Thursday saying, “I am interested in and intend to form a broad and liberal unity government under my leadership.” He also said, “the process of building a government has begun, and we will not be dictated to.” This comes after Netanyahu offered to build a broad coalition government with Gantz amid a tight election. Netanyahu proposed a rotating premiership among the two leaders. “The people chose unity, the people want...

Unless he convinces Israeli lawmakers from outside his party to join him in a national unity government, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 10-and-a-half-year run in office may soon end following inconclusive results inhis country’s parliamentary elections this week that appeared to deprive him of a governing majority in the Knesset. President Donald Trump took a hands-off approach when asked about the elections in America’s foremost ally in the Middle East. “Our relations are with Israel, so we’ll see what happens,” he told reporters while touring California. In Israel, Netanyahu has leveraged his ideological affinity with Trump as a selling point...

According to Channel 13, 97.6% of the votes from Tuesday's elections have already been counted, Blue and White stands at 33 seats and Likud at 31 seats, with Blue and White leading by a narrow margin. It is important to note that these are still not the final results. Overnight, the committee was counting the near quarter of a million soldiers' votes cast by Israeli soldiers. The Central Election Committee (CEC) has been updating its website since the close of the polls at 10 p.m. on Tuesday. The last update was at 10:40 a.m. on Thursday: 4,354,991 votes had been...

Right-wing factions convened at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem Wednesday afternoon, deciding to establish a "right-wing bloc" headed by Prime Minister Netanyahu, that will work for the establishment of the next government. It was decided to form a joint coalition negotiations team for all factions in the bloc. In addition to Netanyahu, the meeting saw the participation of Minister Yariv Levin and faction heads: Yaakov Litzman, Moshe Gafni, Naftali Bennett, Ayelet Shaked, and Bezalel Smotrich. Minister Aryeh Deri met with Prime Minister Netanyahu earlier this morning, as he was unable to attend the meeting due to the memorial ceremony...

ead of the Otzmah Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, Itamar Ben-Gvir and his Otzma Yehudit party has come out in support of building the third Temple in an exclusive interview with Breaking Israel News on Thursday. On the same day that Ben-Gvir expressed support for building the third Temple, polls showed him passing the minimum threshold of four seats and entering the upcoming Knesset following elections on September 17. The Otzmah Yehudit party is considered to be the most right wing party in the current elections and was the center of much controversy after two of their candidates, Baruch Marzel and...

Former Education Minister Naftali Bennett announced on Sunday evening that he will run in the elections for the 22nd Knesset as part of his New Right party. Bennett formed the New Right party prior to the previous elections in April together with former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked. In his first statement following his dismissal from the government, Bennett said: "Earlier today, the prime minister informed me that he was dismissing me as Minister of Education of the state of Israel. For the first time, I can dedicate the beginning of the coming school year on September 1 to only my...

In assessing the Israeli election of 2019, it is essential to focus on two aspects: First, although they did not win majority control of the 120-seat parliament (“Knesset” in Hebrew), the center-left parties, of which Blue and White was the largest, made by far the largest gain in seats from their 2015 post-election status, increasing from 35 to 41 seats. There was a perception in both the media and academia that this election constituted a major decline in power and influence of the Israeli center-left. The numbers tell an entirely different story. The entire left-of-center coalition in opposition to Prime...

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked published a farewell post on Tuesday following the official announcement of the results of the Knesset elections, which revealed that the New Right party had failed to clear the electoral threshold. "Dear friends, supporters and activists, thank you. You are amazing, true idealists, that every party would be happy to have," Shaked wrote. "The fighting spirit of the hundreds of volunteers who came from all over the country excited me and encouraged me in these difficult times. Some of the findings have been corrected by the Elections Committee, where ballot boxes have been found, and suspicions...

The New Right party of Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked will conduct a partial vote recount following last Tuesday’s election, after receiving approval from the Central Elections Committee Sunday evening. Judge Hanan Melcer, the chairman of the Central Elections Committee, green lighted a request by the New Right to conduct a recount of votes in 300 ballot boxes which were used for special votes – the double-enveloped ballots cast by Israeli citizens unable to vote at the ballot nearest to their home. These voters include voters who were hospitalized during the election, soldiers stationed at bases...

Chairman Hanan Melcer of the Central Election Committee has ordered that attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir, a representative of the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) faction of the United Right, not be allowed to enter the Knesset and observe the process of counting votes. Ben-Gvir said in response, "It sounds very bad and is starting to look like a banana republic. At first, Michael [Ben-Ari] was disqualified, and then Justice Melcer refused to promote me to Michael's place that was reserved for Otzma Yehudit. He also delayed our campaign and rejected a petition against Facebook, which found fit to block my page five...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition announced Monday plans to dissolve the country’s parliament and hold a snap general election in April, after his government was significantly weakened more than a month ago when a key coalition partner resigned. The departure of Avigdor Liberman as defense minister on Nov. 14 left Netanyahu’s government teetering on the edge with a single-seat majority in Israel’s 120-seat parliament, the Knesset. As the government struggled to pass legislation important to each of Netanyahu’s five coalition partners, questions were also raised over the chances of a formal indictment against the longtime Israeli leader in at...