israeli politics - Page 4

WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff condemned harshly a series of leaks to come out of top-level meetings ahead of Netanyahu’s summit with US President Donald Trump, threatening to submit ministers to lie detector tests.

Police questioned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday for a second time as part of a probe into whether he illegally accepted gifts from wealthy supporters, media reports said.

Israeli police are to question Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Monday over whether he illegally accepted gifts from wealthy supporters, media reports said.

The residents of Amona have approved a deal worked out after an all-night session with a government negotiator, with 45 voting to approve the arrangement, 25 opposed and two abstentions.

Israeli ex-president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres has seen a serious deterioration in his health and was “fighting for his life” Tuesday after suffering a stroke earlier this month, a source close to him said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologised Sunday after facing criticism for comments in which he seemed to compare a soldier currently on trial for manslaughter with troops killed in combat.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Doctors treating former Israeli President Shimon Peres for a stroke say his condition has slightly improved. Hospital director Yitzhak Kreiss said Peres’ condition remained serious on Wednesday, 24 hours after he was rushed in for treatment. But he says there has been a “certain improvement” in his neurological functions.

Former prime minister Ehud Barak issued a scathing attack Wednesday on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of being a weak and paranoid leader of a government that harms the security of the state.

Haaretz reports: Following the questioning by law enforcement officials for 15 hours on Thursday of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s former chief of staff Ari Harow, Channel 2 has reported that the interrogation of Harow focused on the conduct of the

Ari Harrow, the former chief of staff of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was questioned under caution by police for 15 hours on Thursday as part of an examination of information regarding the prime minister.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to fill vacancies in his cabinet by the time the Knesset adjourns for its extended summer recess on August 3, a senior Likud source in the cabinet said on Wednesday.

Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid bashed opposition leader Isaac Herzog on Monday for allegedly offering the West Bank and East Jerusalem to the Palestinians in secret talks with PA President Mahmoud Abbas in 2014-2015, calling the move “dangerous and wrong.”

The Jerusalem Post reports: Former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon hinted at a political run in the near future in a letter obtained by The Jerusalem Post he wrote to past campaign donors.

The Jerusalem Post reports: Israeli and Turkish officials confirmed on Monday that, after six years, the two countries are close to normalizing ties.

JERUSALEM (AFP) – A key party in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s newly expanded right-wing coalition threatened to bring it down on Sunday over a demand related to the military.

In first remarks as Israel’s designated defense minister, right-wing settler Avigdor Lieberman joked about his fiery reputation: “I have undergone surgery to lengthen my fuse.”

The Times of Israel reports: Seeking to assuage fears over the expected appointment of Avigdor Liberman as defense minister, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said he has the final word on Israel’s security operations.

The Times of Israel reports: MK Orly Levy-Abekasis, who announced Thursday that she would leave the Yisrael Beytenu party over its expected entry into the Likud-led government, said Saturday that she had been deliberately kept in the dark with regard to coalition talks.

The Times of Israel reports: Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon’s announcement Friday that he was resigning from the Knesset and government drew an avalanche of responses from politicians on all sides of Israeli politics.

The Times of Israel reports: Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon on Thursday accused a vocal minority of Israelis of attacking their country’s “basic values,” adding that Israel’s “moral compass” had been lost, in his first public comments since it emerged that his position had been offered to Avigdor Liberman.

“He’s a magician, he’s a magician,” the partisan crowd chanted as a beaming Benjamin Netanyahu strode into his party headquarters a little over a year ago to declare a come-from-behind victory in Israel’s election.

A key Israeli minister said Thursday that the government is at risk of collapsing if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition is not enlarged soon. Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan’s comments came amid claims that talks have taken place between Netanyahu

TEL AVIV – Weekend talk radio host Aaron Klein, who doubles as Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief, debated an anti-Israel caller to his radio show yesterday after the caller claimed Israel was not a democracy, posed a nuclear threat to the world, and did more harm than good for U.S. national security.

TEL AVIV – “Google must pay tax” was the slogan emblazoned on a blimp next to the Internet giant’s Tel Aviv offices on Sunday, launched by MK Yoav Kisch (Likud) to promote a bill he sponsored. Kisch, a pilot, is one of many activists seeking to close a loophole by which multinational corporations that do business in Israel avoid charging Israelis value-added tax by not registering in the country.

NBC News reports: Israel on Tuesday refuted a White House claim that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “surprised” the Obama administration by cancelling a planned visit to Washington, saying that the White House knew Netanyahu was considering not coming. Netanyahu had been

TEL AVIV – Most Israelis believe that Jerusalem is a divided city and the model of a unified capital has failed, concluded a new poll conducted this week. The Israel Democracy Institute conducted the survey from February 28 to March 1

The Jerusalem Post reports: Yesh Atid’s Yair Lapid and Yisrael Beytenu head Avigdor Liberman – two men who could have been foreign minister had either joined the government – slammed the country’s foreign policy at a joint meeting in the Knesset

TEL AVIV – The incarceration of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on corruption charges has sparked a range of articles in the Arab press praising Israeli democracy and decrying the Arab world’s failure to punish its own corrupt leaders, MEMRI

TEL AVIV –  MK Stav Shaffir is being ridiculed on social media for attempting to educate Minister of Education Naftali Bennett by claiming that Jews originally hail from Egypt. Bennett, the leader of the Jewish Home party, tweeted plans to celebrate

The Jerusalem Post reports: The Jerusalem Post pushed back on Sunday against characterization of the newspaper as politically slanted by an informal adviser to former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton. The assertion, leveled by longtime Clinton family confidant Sidney Blumenthal,

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert started serving a 19-month prison sentence for bribery and obstruction of justice on Monday, becoming the first Israeli premier to be imprisoned and capping a years-long legal saga that forced him

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – An Israeli court on Wednesday tagged a month onto former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s 18-month prison sentence for bribery after rejecting a plea bargain over an obstruction of justice charge. Olmert, 70, will begin serving his term

TEL AVIV – Israel’s Labor party voted Sunday in support of leader Isaac Herzog’s plan calling for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, the Jerusalem Post reported. “The two-state vision did not die, but it will not happen tomorrow,” Herzog told the

The Jerusalem Post reports:  Former Labor Party chairman Amir Peretz will formally return to the party on Monday, at a press conference with current chairman Isaac Herzog. Peretz led the Labor Party from November 2005 to June 2007. During that time

Arutz Sheva reports: Three MKs of the Arab Joint List party met this week with the family members of Arab terrorists, including terrorists who have murdered Israelis during the recent wave of attacks, drawing widespread condemnation from the Knesset on Thursday.

TEL AVIV – A new poll shows that Jewish Israelis rank Barack Obama as the “worst” U.S. president for Israel in the last 30 years, the Jewish Journal reported.