Free Republic

Amid the fast-paced daily changes in the political sphere, one trend has remained consistent: the steady rise in support for Yashar Party leader Gadi Eisenkot across recent polls. This trend of Eisenkot rising in the polls, and now coming close behind Bennett and Lapid, who trail Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party, could soon make him the leader of the largest party in the opposition bloc... Leading a centrist party aiming to oust Netanyahu, Eisenkot presents himself as a unique candidate in the first election since the October 7 Hamas attacks. He appears to have a more reserved personality,...

Israel said on Monday it hit a petrochemical plant in Iran's southwest, along with strikes elsewhere on military targets, after U.S. President Donald Trump ​reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to refrain from further attacks. The escalation complicates U.S.-led efforts to broker a broader deal with Iran, driving oil prices up by nearly 5%, with benchmark Brent ‌futures back above $97 a barrel. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps blamed the U.S. for the latest exchange of fire with Israel and said further attacks on non-military and energy targets would have consequences for the global economy. The IRGC said that...

One hundred days after they went to war together to thwart Iran’s rogue nuclear weapons program, radically degrade its ballistic missile industry, end its support for the Hezbollah and Hamas terror armies, and create the conditions for the fall of the regime, the US-Israel alliance against the Islamic Republic on Sunday reached its nadir. With its north battered relentlessly by Hezbollah in recent weeks, Israel resorted to a largely symbolic strike on the terror group’s Dahiyeh stronghold in Beirut, reportedly without telling the disapproving Trump administration ahead of time that it was doing so. And, as it had warned it...

US President Donald Trump reportedly fumed at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a Monday call, calling the premier “fucking crazy” and telling him that everyone “hates Israel” as he demanded Israel agree to a ceasefire with the Hezbollah terror group. Axios’s Barak Ravid cited a US official who summarized Trump’s message to Netanyahu as follows: “You’re fucking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.” A second source briefed on the call told the outlet that the US president was “pissed” at the prime...

Marc Zell, Chairman of Republicans Overseas Israel, rejects reports that Trump ordered Netanyahu not to retaliate for the latest Iranian missile launches.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded this evening (Wednesday) in an interview with CNBC to reports about a heated “shouting call" that reportedly took place this week between him and U.S. President Donald Trump regarding Lebanon. “President Trump and I agree on the main issues concerning Iran. Sometimes we have tactical disagreements, but we resolve them," Netanyahu said. According to him: “The question is whether Iran wants to return to another round of fighting. We’ll wait and see, as they say. The United States and we have shared goals; we will see what we can achieve through an agreement." He declined...

Scott Pelley accused CBS News management under Editor-in-chief Bari Weiss of trying to inject “falsehoods and bias” into reporting after the veteran correspondent was fired Tuesday. Pelley, who spent 37 years at CBS News and became one of the most recognizable faces of “60 Minutes,” leveled a series of extraordinary allegations against CBS News leadership without giving specifics. “For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story,” Pelley wrote. “I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified.” Pelley claimed he repeatedly resisted those efforts. “To date, in every case, I...

US President Trump accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of being the reason for global hatred of Israel in an angry call on Monday, Axios reported. Earlier on Monday, Iran had threatened to stop negotiating with the US due to Israel’s action in Lebanon, prompting the call in which Trump at one point yelled at Netanyahu, “What the f*** are you doing?” According to one US official, Trump felt that Netanyahu was reacting disproportionally to Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel. He objected to Israel destroying buildings to take out a single Hezbollah commander, and Israel’s threats against Beirut, Axios wrote. Another source...

US President Donald Trump reportedly lashed out at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a phone call earlier today, calling him “fucking crazy” as he demanded that Israel agree to a ceasefire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and claimed the premier owes him for keeping him out of jail. Axios cites a US official summarizing Trump’s message to Netanyahu as follows: “You’re fucking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.”

Arnon Zmora’s widow eulogizes ‘a sweet man full of laughter, sensitivity and compassion’; in tearful tribute, uncle of rescued hostage says families have ‘unbreakable alliance’ Thousands of mourners, among them family members of hostages held in Gaza, flocked to Jerusalem on Sunday to attend the funeral of Arnon Zmora, the police counter-terror officer killed Saturday during an operation that rescued four captives from central Gaza. Zmora, an officer of the elite Yamam counter-terrorism unit, was shot and critically injured by Hamas terrorists guarding three of the four hostages. He succumbed to his wounds shortly upon arriving at a hospital in...

https://archive.ph/CHQ6i President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed a new effort to reach a deal with Iran in a difficult call on Tuesday, three sources said, with one source saying Netanyahu's "hair was on fire" after the call. Why it matters: A revised peace memo was drafted by Qatar and Pakistan with input from the other regional mediators to try to bridge the gaps between the U.S. and Iran, the sources said. It comes with Trump vacillating over ordering a massive strike on Iran and holding out for a deal. Netanyahu is highly skeptical about the negotiations and...

Asked during a wide-ranging interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” how it is that all those who were in charge of security during the attack have quit or been fired except him, Netanyahu claimed some departed because their terms were up, and only one or two “claimed they took responsibility, but it’s not clear what — what does that mean, you know? What is their responsibility?” The remarks were made in an off-mic section of the interview that wasn’t aired on Sunday, and only appeared in CBS’s full transcript. “Let’s look at the political echelon, military echelon, the security echelon. Let’s...

Forty-two percent of Israelis who voted for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party in the previous election are either considering or have decided to back a different party in the fall Knesset elections, according to a Channel 12 news poll broadcast Friday. The other 58% of Israelis who voted for Likud in the previous election said they will do the same at the ballot box, the survey said. The poll showed 10% of those who backed Likud in 2022 will support the Together slate former prime minister Naftali Bennett formed with Opposition Leader Yair Lapid; 6% will vote for former...

Former National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent asserted in a post on X that prior to the start of the Iran war, the U.S. intelligence community agreed that the Islamic Republic was not developing a nuclear weapon. "One of the many tragedies of this war is that before the war began the U.S. Intel Community, including CIA, was in agreement that Iran wasn't developing a nuclear weapon & that Iran would target U.S. bases in the region & shut down the Strait of Hormuz if they were attacked by Israel & the U.S.," Kent wrote in a post on Thursday....

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett said his new alliance with opposition leader Yair Lapid will hold and enable the opposition bloc to form a long-lasting government to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, unveiling in a Wednesday interview with The Jerusalem Post his “Israeli Renaissance” plan to bring one million olim (new immigrants) to Israel over the next decade. Bennett spoke to the Post after the recent announcement that his and Lapid’s parties, Yesh Atid and Bennett 2026, will merge into a single list named Together, led by Bennett. The move to run together could reshape the direction of the elections,...

Two Israeli political heavyweights on Sunday said they would join forces in elections scheduled for later this year in an effort to unseat longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid served as prime ministers in a rotation agreement as part of a coalition government they formed in 2021, ending 12 years of Netanyahu’s rule. Now they plan to merge their parties into single faction headed by Bennett, calling it a partnership between the center and the right. Bennett said if elected, the new government on its first day would establish a state commission of inquiry into the...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday revealed he had undergone treatment for prostate cancer and delayed releasing the results at the peak of U.S. and Israeli military operations against Iran earlier this year. In a post on the social platform X, Netanyahu said doctors had discovered a malignant tumor at a “very early stage” and that it had not spread “whatsoever.” He said he chose to have “targeted treatment” against the tumor, which required a “few short” follow-up treatments. “Today, my annual medical report was published. I requested to delay its publication by two months so that it would...

Incoming Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar will reverse Viktor Orbán’s decision to leave the International Criminal Court (ICC) and enforce an ICC arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. ...... “I… made it clear to the Israeli prime minister that we will not back down, because my colleagues have examined it and we can still stop [Hungary’s withdrawal from the ICC]… If someone is a member of the International Criminal Court and a person who is wanted enters the territory of our country, he or she must be detained.” – Péter Magyar

“The Iranian regime is begging for a ceasefire; there are internal conflicts among the leadership there," he said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday evening that there was “still more to do” in Iran as US and Iranian negotiators met in Islamabad to discuss a potential ceasefire. “The campaign is not over yet. Iran wanted to eliminate us. Now it is fighting to survive. We still have more to do. We were the first to break the barrier of fear to act in Iran. I remember the excitement, the pride.” Iran wanted to eliminate us. Now it is fighting...

Turkey’s president has threatened to invade Israel over its continued bombardment of Lebanon.Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, of being “blinded by blood and hate” and said there was “no reason” not to attack.The speech came after Turkish prosecutors filed indictments against 35 top Israeli officials, including Mr Netanyahu, seeking a total of more than 4,500 years in prison.