Free Republic

It appeared to be a big win for the Likud Party and their long-time leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli Prime Minister announced early that it appeared his coalition had won big based on the early results. But in a shift that mirrored the United States elections, his apparent big win got smaller and smaller until now, with 97% of the votes counted, it appears he fell short of securing a majority.Most exit polls show his right-wing bloc will end up with 59 Knesset seats, two short of a majority. Meanwhile, the anti-Netanyahu bloc also fell short with 56 seats projected....

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has met with the Ethiopian Jewish soldier whose beating by two police officers, captured on CCTV, sparked days of violent unrest fuelled by decades of repression suffered by the minority community. Netanyahu met Israeli soldier Damas Pakada a day after thousands demonstrators, who saw the footage as evidence of police racism and brutality, clashed violently with officers on the streets of Tel Aviv. In a tweet on the prime minister's Twitter account accompanying a picture of himself and Mr Pakada embracing, Netanyahu wrote: 'I was shocked by the pictures. We cannot accept it, we will...

In a special session called in the wake of the IDF operation in Gaza and the situation in southern Israel, Netanyahu called upon the citizenry of Israel, Jews and Arabs alike, to stand united behind the IDF’s actions in the south. He likewise called for a change in policy that would restore Israel’s deterrence. “For three transgressions of Gaza, I will turn away but for the fourth, I will not”, Netanyahu opened his address in the plenum session of the Knesset quoting from the Prophet Amos. “For firing upon civilians, for taking cover behind civilians, for causing suffering to our...