Free Republic

Amidst visits to Jerusalem and Riyadh, Jason Greenblatt tells me that if anyone can make it happen, he thinks it’s Netanyahu ABU DHABI – In the coming days, I’ll begin reporting on my meetings with senior government officials here in the United Arab Emirates. It’s been fascinating getting updates on how the UAE leadership views the new right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the progress that is being made in developing and deepening diplomatic and cultural ties after the signing of the Abraham Accords, the exciting growth of trade between the UAE and Israel. Today, however, I want...

Israel's new national security minister earlier visited the Jerusalem holy site, drawing condemnation The United Nations Security Council will hold an emergency session to discuss the recent visit by Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, which sparked international backlash, a report said Tuesday. An unnamed senior diplomat told The Times of Israel that a date has not yet been set, but the meeting could take place as early as Thursday. Earlier on Tuesday, the United Arab Emirates and China asked the UN Security Council to meet shortly after Ben-Gvir's controversial visit, according to diplomats. The Temple...

President Biden on Thursday marked the swearing-in of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by saying that his administration will continue to support the two-state solution in the Middle East, warning that he will oppose policies that endanger it. Netanyahu, the former prime minister, was sworn in on Thursday after he teamed up with far-right parties to form a conservative coalition and win the election in November. “As we have throughout my Administration, the United States will continue to support the two state solution and to oppose policies that endanger its viability or contradict our mutual interests and values,” Biden said...

The 37th government of the State of Israel, the sixth led by Benjamin Netanyahu, was officially sworn-in in the Knesset plenum on Thursday. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the first to take the oath of office. Most of the heads of the opposition parties were present out of respect for the ceremony, but opposition leader Yair Lapid left the plenary hall even before Netanyahu was sworn-in without shaking his hand as is customary. When National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was sworn-in, Labor MK Gilad Kariv shouted: "Shame: an idol is in the temple!" The government will have 30 ministers and...

Al Arabiya English Benjamin Netanyahu is preparing to become the Prime Minister of Israel for the third time. He has until December 21 to form a government before taking office. In a wide-ranging interview with a group of print and television journalists at Al Arabiya, Mr. Netanyahu discussed Israel’s relations with Arab states, the US alliance structure in the Middle East, unrest in Iran, Israel’s new hard-right government, the future of the US-brokered maritime border agreement with Lebanon, and the Russia-Ukraine war. Mr. Netanyahu reiterated the paramount importance of normalization with Saudi Arabia, which would be a “quantum leap” toward...

Israel’s incoming prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said that the US must "reaffirm" its alliance with Saudi Arabia and that he will seek normalization with Riyadh once in office."I think that the alliance, the traditional (US) alliance with Saudi Arabia and other countries, has to be reaffirmed. There should not be periodic swings, or even wild swings in this relationship, because I think that the alliance between America’s allies and with America is the anchor of stability in our region," Netanyahu recently told Al-Arabiya English.Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu stands among members of the new Israeli parliament after a swearing-in ceremony...

Hebrew-language media reported Thursday that Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu has walked back a recent promise he had made not to alter the Law of Return, as part of a coalition agreement with the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism and Shas parties. The proposition to change the law has roiled Israeli politicians, including those within Netanyahu’s Likud party. Prominent Netanyahu ally Yuli Edelstein spoke out against any proposed changes, saying that adjusting the law was a slippery slope that could lead to the policy’s demise. On the other hand, former Religious Services Minister Matan Kahana of the National Unity party, who clashed...

News reports in Israel indicate that the country’s new government will be sworn in at the Knesset this coming Wednesday or Thursday. This will be more than seven weeks after the general election, and just before the time allotted Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu to cobble together a coalition runs out. Widespread hostility is expected to greet the incoming leadership which, from the moment the election results were announced, has been predicted by international and Israeli news organisations and commentators to be “extreme”. The New York Times Saturday warned that the government-to-be poses a “significant threat to the future of Israel...

Senior US officials say question of whether to speak with Smotrich, Ben-Gvir raised at White House meeting. A high-level meeting was held at the White House last week to discuss policy towards the new government in Israel, including the question of whether or not to hold talks with certain ministers from the "extreme right" Barak Ravid reported for "Walla". According to the report, this is the first meeting on the subject, which was held as part of a National Security Council forum, of which senior representatives from the State Department, the Defense Department and the American intelligence organizations are members....

Incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would not wade into discussion of former President Trump’s third run for the White House on Sunday. Netanyahu, who is set to make his own return to power, was pressed by NBC’s “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd on whether he would “like to see” Trump become president again. “Oh, God. I’ve had enough of my politics. I’ve just…gone through four of our elections,” Netanyahu replied. “You want me to get into your elections? Keep me out of it.” Trump, who is facing a slew of legal and federal investigations, announced his third bid...

Returning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised former President Donald Trump Wednesday for his contributions to Israel, but said the former president’s decision to dine with disgraced rapper Kanye West​ and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago last week was “wrong and misplaced.”​ “I condemned Kanye West’s anti-Semitic statements. Straight away, I thought that was just wrong and misplaced,” Netanyahu said in an interview published Wednesday on the website “Common Sense.” “And I think that that’s what I would say about President Trump’s decision to dine with this person. I think is wrong and misplaced. I think it’s a mistake....

The Iranian regime’s commander of the Revolutionary Guards in the province of Isfahan said on Sunday that the theocratic state seeks to kidnap Benjamin Netanyahu and bring him to the Islamic Republic as a slave. Iranian-regime-controlled Bahar News reported that Mojtaba Fada, the commander of Isfahan’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said that “the prime minister of the Zionist regime hoped that the protests in Iran would lead him to travel to Tehran [in a post-protest, Mullah-free Iran], but God willing, the Islamic Republic will prevail [and quash the protests, once again taking charge of the country] and will frog...

Incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that he would “consider” his request for air-defense systems, the Ukrainian leader told reporters on Wednesday. “We had a normal, substantive conversation, because the list of subjects was provided by our side,” Zelenksky said, referring to a phone call between the two men following Israel’s national election earlier this month.

Incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu said Wednesday that a normalization agreement between Israel and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is within reach and would effectively “end the Arab-Israeli conflict.” The latest statement from the Prime Minister comes as the new conservative coalition vows to confront terrorism in the Middle East and strengthen alliances with Arab allies. Speaking from Israel at an online event hosted by Temple Emanu-El’s Streicker Center, Netanyahu reminded an online audience of nearly 300 people that the Abraham Accords were negotiated by the former Trump administration when he was Israel’s prime minister. The Accords normalized...

My confidence in the Israeli Electoral Process As my fellow citizens, non-citizens, dead-citizens, and fake envelopes prepare to vote today in the USA, I would like to explain the Israeli voting process and why I am have confidence in it. I became an Israeli citizen in 2008 and have voted for Likud/Bibi EVERY single election since my first in 2009 – 8 national election votes in 14 years! How does it work here? No absentee ballots – you either vote in person on election day at your assigned polling station or you don’t vote. Outside the country on vacation on...

Facts about Itamar Ben Gvir:He is of Kurdish and Sephardic background. Non-White.Some 15 years ago he was still a follower of M. Kahana.In recent years, he denounced it and stated he is moderate. Saying goodbye to the extreme right: Ben Gviir in a letter to activists. [Otzma-Yehudit Chairman Itamar Ben-Gvir Shager Evening Letters: "Baruch Marzel and Michael Ben Ari are no longer active (at my party). I do not advocate the "Kach" (M. Kahana) ideology. — Srugim, Aug 30, 2022 | Chairman of Otzma Yehudit Itamar Ben Gvir sent a letter to the activists this evening...*He said he is...

Incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is already busy forming a government, but has yet to receive a congratulatory phone call from U.S. President Joe Biden, several days after the result in the Nov. 1 election was finalized. Netanyahu’s Likud Party was the largest, winning 32 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, as right-wing parties that have agreed to co-govern with Likud won 64 seats — the largest majority that any Israeli government will have enjoyed in several years, heralding a more stable coalition.

The Biden administration will not say when the president plans on calling newly elected Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to congratulate him on his victory, drawing accusations the U.S. administration is trying to isolate the conservative Jewish leader before he even takes office.Asked on Thursday afternoon if President Joe Biden has any plans to phone Netanyahu following his victory this week in the Israeli elections, a White House spokesman told the Washington Free Beacon, "We don’t have any call to preview at this point."The Israeli media reported on Thursday that Biden is expected to call Netanyahu some time over the...

When Naftali Bennett took over Israel’s premiership from Benjamin Netanyahu in June of 2021, the Likud leader was famously derisive and dismissive of his successor, questioning the legitimacy of his government and promising to return to power quickly. Some commentators criticized Netanyahu then for his apparent lack of decorum, noting that previous transfers of power had been more courteous. Now, a little more than a year later and with Netanyahu set to return to the premiership, a new detail has emerged from that handover. Channel 12 news on Friday published a photo of a note that was left for Bennett...

Benjamin Netanyahu has become prime minister of Israel for a record third time as interim Prime Minister Yair Lapid called him on Thursday evening to concede defeat. The election was close, but in the end, Netanyahu’s coalition of right-wing religious parties edged out Lapid’s coalition of moderate, labor, and Arab parties by winning 64 of the 120 seats. Netanyahu first served as prime minister from 1996 to 1999, and then again from 2009 to 2021. He is currently on trial in three different courts on corruption charges, casting a cloud over this continued service. Times of Israel:All eyes are expected...