Knesset - Page 3

TEL AVIV – Vice President Mike Pence and his wife on Tuesday visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City a few hours before he was due to leave the country.

The Palestinians on Monday harshly criticized US Vice President Mike Pence’s speech to the Knesset on Monday for its emphasis on Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, which the PLO’s longtime negotiator said was a “gift to extremists.”

TEL AVIV – In a landmark speech in the Israeli Knesset Monday, Vice President Mike Pence said the Trump administration would relocate the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem by the end of 2019.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s planned trip to Israel is on hold and it is not certain when he will be coming, the Times of Israel and other media outlets reported on Monday.

Arab students at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem called for the expulsion of “Zionists” from Israel in a protest attended by a Knesset member on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a double-digit lead over his top potential challengers in a new Israeli general election, according to a poll released Monday.

Joint (Arab) List party leader Ayman Odeh on Tuesday night called Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who heads the Fatah movement, to congratulate them on the reconciliation talks between their respective movements.

TEL AVIV — Israel “is the best place to live for the Druze minority,” declared Shachiv Shnaan, a member of Israeli’s Druze community and a former Israeli Knesset member in an interview with Breitbart Jerusalem.

The Knesset on Wednesday rejected a bill proposed by an opposition lawmaker aimed at enshrining in law plans to build a permanent, pluralistic prayer section at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

The United States Congress held a special commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the liberation and reunification of Jerusalem in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, with a live television link to a similar ceremony at the Israeli Knesset.

Activists of the al-Shabab al-Aqsa organization, who were involved in an attempted terrorist attack against security forces and visitors of Temple Mount, were arrested over the previous month by the Shin Bet and Jerusalem Police. Five people were indicted in accordance to the Anti-Terrorism Law.

TEL AVIV – The Palestinian Authority has paid out NIS 4 billion ($1.12 billion) over the past four years towards salaries for terrorists and their families, a former intelligence chief said on Monday.

On Thursday, the One Israel Fund held a groundbreaking ceremony for the Binyamin Medical Center (BMC), which is the first major medical center in Judea and Samaria, which is the Biblical term for the West Bank.

The Jewish state is a global human rights leader that is serving as an example to others as terrorism continues to plague the world, a prominent former Israeli Supreme Court president said this week, the Hebrew newspaper Makor Rishon reported.

TEL AVIV – The Knesset announced on Tuesday that a ban on short skirts will remain in place but enforcement will be gradual, a committee of lawmakers and parliamentary staff ruled.

Just days after the settlement outpost of Amona was evacuated and demolished by order of Israel’s High Court of Justice, the Knesset passed controversial legislation to retroactively legalize all settlement housing sitting on property that has been identified as private Palestinian land.

TEL AVIV — The Trump administration responded to the recent passage of Israel’s controversial settlements regulation bill by saying only that the president would discuss it when he meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later this month.

TEL AVIV — In a late-night session, the Knesset on Monday passed historic legislation that protects Israeli homes in the West Bank built mostly with government backing on land upon which some Palestinians later claimed ownership.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that the 2,500 new West Bank settlement homes approved a day earlier were just a “taste” of things to come now that Barack Obama is no longer US president.

The Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee has approved a plan to erect a massive compound to house the office and private residence of the prime minister, Israel’s Channel 10 reported on Tuesday.

TEL AVIV – The Knesset Internal Affairs Committee on Wednesday approved a bill banning boycott Israel activists from entering the country.

MAALE ADUMIM – Israel “would only be acting on the property it already owns” if it annexed the West Bank, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said.

JERUSALEM – Israel needs to see the issue of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement as a war that should be waged against on a massive scale, Breitbart Jerusalem’s bureau chief Aaron Klein told a Knesset plenum on Tuesday.

JERUSALEM/ MAALE ADUMIM – Mike Huckabee slammed the United Nations as a “farce” for caring more about “Israelis building bedrooms” in the settlements than the threats posed by Iran and the human rights violations of Syria and North Korea.

Israel’s parliamentary ethics committee on Monday suspended Arab-Israeli lawmaker Bassel Ghattas from participating in all Knesset activities, except for voting on bills in the plenum, following accusations he smuggled mobile phones, SIM cards, and documents to Palestinian security prisoners.

Opposition lawmakers on Friday called on the government to hold a referendum on the fate of the West Bank, after the results of a survey commissioned by Israel Radio showed that around one-third of Israelis would like to see the disputed territory annexed to Israel.

Israel’s parliament will ease its dress code rules, an official said Thursday, after staffers demonstrated when colleagues who wore skirts deemed too short were barred from entering the building.

TEL AVIV – More than thirty parliamentary aides showed up to work at the Knesset Wednesday wearing miniskirts and dresses in protest after a few of their coworkers were barred from entering the building for being dressed “immodestly.”

TEL AVIV – Antisemitism is not just a Jewish or Israeli problem, European Union coordinator on combating antisemitism Katharina von Schnurbein told the Jerusalem Post on Monday.

TEL AVIV – Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid called Saturday for Israel to make the Palestinians “disappear” by building a “high wall,” and added that he is the only viable alternative to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A plan to reduce military service of male soldiers by two months, from 32 to 30, was approved Monday by the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

TEL AVIV – Following the Knesset’s initial approval of the “muezzin bill,” a piece of legislation prohibiting loud noise at places of worship, a Druze Israeli-Arab came out in support of the bill, saying that mosque muezzin speakers disturbs the Arab and Muslim public as well.

Israel’s minister for public security said on Wednesday that forty to fifty percent of the fires that broke out across Israel last week were the result of arson.

Knesset members from across the political spectrum are calling for the government to cover all financial losses suffered by Israeli citizens from a rash of wildfires that spread across the country over the past week, regardless of whether the blazes were a result of intentional arson or not.

Likud MK Yehudah Glick plans to petition the High Court of Justice against the prime minister’s decision to uphold a ban against MKs visiting the Temple Mount, he announced on Wednesday.

TEL AVIV – Comments made by Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem Shlomo Amar that the LGBT community is “a cult of abomination” and gays can be punished by the death penalty according to Jewish law has prompted a firestorm in which police complaints of incitement have been filed against Amar and members of Knesset are calling for his immediate removal.