TEL AVIV (JTA) — Exit polls in Israel showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party neck and neck at the top with the center-left Zionist Union led by Isaac Herzog. The two parties had 27 seats each, according to the polls by the Channel 1 and Channel 10 television stations. ChannelContinue Reading
By Ben Sales, JTA World News Service TEL AVIV (JTA) — Isaac Herzog paces slowly up and down the stage, one hand in his suit pocket, a slight smile forming through his slender lips. Quietly, his heavy breath audible through the microphone, the center-left candidate for prime minister runs downContinue Reading
By Ron Kampeas, JTA World News Service WASHINGTON (JTA) – The controversy over whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned speech to Congress next month is worrying pro-Israel Democrats about its possible impact on the 2016 elections. Even more worrisome, some Democrats say, are the voter trends underpinning the currentContinue Reading
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he is determined to speak to Congress on March 3. “At a time when there are those who would deal with protocol and politics, an agreement with Iran is taking shape in Munich that would risk Israel’s existence,” Netanyahu said onContinue Reading
PARIS (JTA) — Hundreds gathered with the leaders of France and Israel to remember the victims of an attack at a kosher supermarket near Paris. French President Francois Hollande and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined several hundred members of the Jewish community at the memorial Sunday night at theContinue Reading
By JTA Staff (JTA) — What made headlines (in Israel, the U.S. and around the world) in 2014? Test your knowledge with JTA’s annual news quiz: Palestinian officials apologized to Czech authorities after the Palestinian envoy to Prague, Jamal Al-Jamal, was killed in an explosion in his home because: a) aContinue Reading
By Ron Kampeas, JTA World News Service WASHINGTON (JTA) – Come early next year, there might be yet another world capital that opposes Israeli settlement expansion and sees Benjamin Netanyahu as principally responsible for Israel’s isolation: Jerusalem. Isaac Herzog, the Labor Party leader, is faring well in the polls sinceContinue Reading
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel and the Palestinians held secret back-channel peace negotiations, the New Republic reported. The secret negotiations created substantial progress toward an agreement but collapsed when it became clear the Palestinian negotiator did not have the backing of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, according to the article publishedContinue Reading
JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Knesset committee vote on a law to officially make Israel the nation-state of all Jews was postponed. Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, head of the centrist Hatnua party, on Sunday postponed her ministerial committee for legislation’s vote on the bill known as the Nationality Law. “The explosiveContinue Reading
By Ben Sales, JTA World News Service JERUSALEM (JTA) — An anonymous White House staffer apparently isn’t the only one who thinks Benjamin Netanyahu is shy about taking chances. A piece this week in The Atlantic magazine by journalist Jeffrey Goldberg ignited a firestorm with its revelation that an ObamaContinue Reading
(JNS.org) The White House on Wednesday attempted to distance itself from comments by an anonymous senior U.S. official who called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “chickenshit.” “Certainly that’s not the administration’s view, and we think such comments are inappropriate and counter-productive,” Alistair Baskey, a spokesman for the National SecurityContinue Reading
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for the light rail attack in Jerusalem that killed a 3-month-old girl. The Prime Minister’s Office spokesman, Ofir Gendelman, on his official Twitter feed identified the driver of the car that crashed Wednesday into the AmmunitionContinue Reading
By Uriel Heilman, JTA World News Service ANALYSIS NEW YORK (JTA) — The circus is coming to town. No, there won’t be marching elephants, lion tamers or motorcycles jumping through rings of fire. But there may be wolves in sheep’s clothing, tightrope walking and motorcades blocking traffic. We’re talking, ofContinue Reading
By Abdullah H. Erakat and Linda Gradstein, The Media Line (RAMALLAH) — After the rockets comes the spin machine, and both Israel and Hamas are claming victory in the fighting that has left 2,200 Palestinians, 69 Israelis, and one foreign worker dead, thousands of Palestinians wounded, and widespread devastation inContinue Reading
By Ben Sales, JTA World News Service TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israel’s war is over, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fight may only have just begun. The past month has seen Netanyahu’s approval rating plummet, according to polling by Israel’s Channel 2. On July 23, about a week after IsraelContinue Reading
By Felice Friedson and Linda Gradstein, The Media Line Israeli Economy Minister Naftali Bennett said on Sunday that Israel should annex the 60 percent of the West Bank that is under full Israeli control, and that includes all of the Jewish communities built since acquiring the areas in the 1967Continue Reading
By Linda Gradstein, The Media Line Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas set off a storm in Israel when he reportedly told American negotiators that if the Kerry-brokered talks fail, he could dismantle the Palestinian Authority (PA), and shift responsibility for governing 2.5 million Palestinians to Israel. That would ostensibly meanContinue Reading
With Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas threatening to dissolve the Palestinian Authority and peace negotiations faltering, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be giving up hopes for an agreement by April 29. Read the story at the Jerusalem Post.Continue Reading
