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Netanyahu seeks to pass the Budget by March 31 to avoid snap elections, which polls suggest he would likely lose. The war in Iran has shifted focus from Gaza, but polls remain unchanged since Oct 7, showing weak support for Netanyahu. To secure the Budget, Netanyahu's coalition allocated funds to allies, like ultra-Orthodox parties, ensuring their support. Polls consistently show around 40 per cent of voters sticking with Mr Netanyahu’s coalition of nationalist and religious parties, 40 per cent backing opposition parties, and a swing vote so far not moving to Mr Netanyahu, said Professor Gideon Rahat, a political scientist...

Apu (🇦🇷🇨🇦 for 🇮🇱🇮🇷🇺🇦) @Apuntes_ Netanyahu was quoting Will Durant, and calls it an UNFORTUNATE conclusion about how evil has overcome good throughout history because good has not been "strong enough". In fact, it contexualises the statement that democracy must re-assert its will to defend itself

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has faced backlash for quoting historian Will Durant to say, “Jesus Christ has no advantage over Genghis Khan.” During an English-language press conference in Jerusalem on Thursday, Netanyahu defended America and Israel’s military operation in the Middle East, arguing in favor of the West asserting strength. “History proves that, unfortunately and unhappily, Jesus Christ has no advantage over Genghis Khan,” he said. “Because if you are strong enough, ruthless enough, powerful enough, evil will overcome good. Aggression will overcome moderation.” The comments sparked outrage online, with some calling them “blasphemous,” prompting Netanyahu to clarify his...

Under President Trump's visionary leadership, America and Israel are acting together in Iran with great determination and unprecedented strength. Operation Rising Line is designed to remove the existential threats posed by the Ayatollah regime, the regime that has waged war against America and Israel and the people of Iran for 47 years. It chants death to America, death to Israel, and it delivers death to its own people. Our goals are three. One, removing the nuclear threat. Second, removing the ballistic missile threat and removing both of these threats before they're buried deep underground and become immune from aerial attack....

JERUSALEM, March 15 (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin ⁠Netanyahu ⁠posted a video of ⁠himself getting a cup of coffee and chatting with ​his aide on Sunday, after rumours that he was dead or injured were ‌aired by Iranian state media ‌and spread online in Iran. In the video, taken at a ⁠cafe in ⁠Jerusalem's outskirts and posted on Netanyahu's Telegram account, his aide ​asks him about the rumours. Netanyahu responds with a pun on the word dead -- which in Hebrew slang can be used to describe "being crazy about" someone or ​something -- as he reaches for a...

Iranian officials threatened to “pursue and kill” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel unleashed a round of extensive missiles towards western Iran Sunday morning. “If this child-killing criminal is alive, we will continue to pursue and kill him with full force,” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps wrote online about Netanyahu, according to the Associated Press, citing the state-run IRNA news agency. The threatening pledge was made days after the 76-year-old Israeli leader declared that the US and Israel were destroying Iran and reshaping the Middle East. “We are in historic days, days that will be recorded in the annals...

President Trump revealed Monday that he will confer with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about when to end the military campaign against Iran, suggesting the decision would be “mutual” between the US and its Middle Eastern ally. “I think it’s mutual… a little bit,” Trump told The Times of Israel in a phone interview, adding that he and Netanyahu have “been talking.” “I’ll make a decision at the right time, but everything’s going to be taken into account,” the president added. Trump previously suggested that the war against Iran could last approximately four weeks, but other members of his administration...

Netanyahu said, "So this is a regime committed to destroying the United States of America. It's the only country on the planet that says so openly and works tirelessly to achieve that goal." "The reason we had to act now is because they were, after we hit their nuclear sites and their ballistic missiles program, you'd think they would learn a lesson but they didn't. Because they're unreformable, totally fanatic about this, about the goal of destroying America." "So they started building new sites, new places, underground bunkers, that would make their ballistic missile program and their atomic bomb program...

Khamenei's offices and IRGC hit. Thousands killed.

[H/T to HoneysuckleTN for obtaining the transcript below from GROK which I then confirmed by listening to the speech]TRANSCRIPT BEGINS~~~A short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran.Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people.Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world. For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted ‘Death to America’ and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder targeting the United States, our...

Last night on his show, Greg Kelly stated he has heard from numerous people in the know, that we will attack Iran today after the close of the stock market. We were also hearing last night that the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier would be able to reach targets within a few more hours. This was the only specific prediction I've heard. I do think Trump is going to strike and that he's going to try and nudge that country toward regime change. Another report said the Iranian government cannot agree to give up their uranium enrichment because it would conflict...

US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were in Israel on Saturday to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, mainly to discuss Gaza, two people briefed on the matter told Reuters. The US on Thursday announced plans for a “New Gaza” rebuilt from scratch, to include residential towers, data centers and seaside resorts, part of US President Donald Trump’s push to advance an Israel-Hamas ceasefire shaken by repeated violations. On Friday, Channel 12 news reported that Kushner and Witkoff would also discuss with Netanyahu the ongoing efforts to secure the return of Ran Gvili, the last remaining hostage in Gaza....

A tell-all describes how the war in Gaza loomed over the 2024 campaign and strained Biden’s reelection bidJosh Shapiro’s Judaism was not a factor in Kamala Harris passing him over as a running mate, according to a 2024 election tell-all, contradicting a narrative Republicans eagerly peddled. If anything, Harris rejected Shapiro because they had too much in common — both were former attorneys general who hoped to be president. That and poor chemistry knocked Shapiro out of the running, according to How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America, by political reporters Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and...

With the approach of Israeli parliamentary elections next year, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett appears to be the biggest threat to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remaining in office, according to opinion polls. Bennett, the son of American immigrants from San Francisco, was prime minister for a year – June 2021 to June 2022… Make no mistake. Bennett is as right-wing as Netanyahu. His last term as prime minister was as leader of the New Right party, and he’s the former director of the Yesha Council of West Bank Jewish settlements… Bennett and most of the country’s Jewish political leadership are...

The article link-click goes to a post titled "Scots, Wha Hae wi' Wallace Bled (Custom Piano Recording) - Salute to The Donald" from about three hours after the state-sanctioned homicide of Ashli Babbitt. Lyrics are from a poem by Scottish national poet Robbie Burns, deliberately framing it as a speech by Robert the Bruce before the Battle of Bannockburn (1314) in which the Scots beat the pants off the English troops of King Edward II who at 15,000–20,000 heavily outnumbered the Scots at 5,000–7,000. (It goes to a centuries old Scottish tune, "Hey Tuttie Tattie", "Onomatopoeia" for the sound of...

US officials aligned with President Trump request weekly election surveys from Israeli contacts, focusing on top contenders and rising far-right figures; interest grows as Bennett reenters political arena and calls for inquiry into Oct. 7 failures. Beyond simply collecting data, U.S. officials are also seeking clarification about the various candidates and parties, focusing primarily on those leading the polls — Netanyahu and Bennett — while also tracking the strength of the far-right bloc, particularly ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. Bennett, for his part, has reportedly begun formulating his post-election strategy, assembling a policy team that includes former education minister...

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett claimed on Tuesday that the suspects in the Qatargate scandal deserve a life sentence for having “maliciously sabotaged” Israel’s ties with Egypt while promoting the image of Qatar, which Bennett branded an “enemy.” The comments, made in a social media video, were Bennett’s latest volley of harsh rhetoric about the scandal, in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s senior aide Jonathan Urich and former spokesperson Eli Feldstein are accused of working as paid lobbyists on behalf of Doha while in the premier’s employ. In a subsequent post, Bennett shared the text of the law in question,...

Witkoff and Kushner on one side, Rubio and Huckabee on the other: beneath the surface, the US administration is divided over who should be Israel's next prime minister… There was one moment in the Knesset speech on the day the war ended that particularly troubled Likud. It happened when the president spontaneously praised Yair Lapid. "He's a nice guy," he said to Netanyahu — and then jabbed the prime minister: "You don't need to be so tough now that the war is over." Was this a hint that the president intends, God forbid, to adopt neutrality in the upcoming election...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told evangelical Christian leaders in Florida that Israel is waging a new front against Islamist persecution of Christians worldwide, praising Christian Zionist support for the Jewish state while framing the effort as a “common Judeo-Christian battle.” Netanyahu met Wednesday with heads of Christian churches and universities, who congratulated him on his meeting with President Donald Trump and praised what his office described as his steadfast wartime decisions. “You are representatives of the Christian Zionists who made Jewish Zionism possible,” Netanyahu said at the start of the sit-down, crediting Christian support — particularly in the United...

In the suitability for prime minister polls, former prime minister Naftali Bennett continues to emerge as the principal challenger to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In a direct head-to-head matchup, Channel 12 places Bennett within one percentage point of Netanyahu. In the multi-candidate Channel 14 poll, Bennett ranks second, holding a 12-point lead over the next closest challenger. The dominant topic this week was the fallout from revelations of betrayal within Netanyahu’s office, following reports that senior advisers received funds from Qatar. A Maariv poll shows that 60% of respondents with an opinion do not believe Netanyahu’s claim that he was...