Knesset - Page 2

TEL AVIV – The Knesset attorney general on Monday faced Likud demands to desist from giving a legal opinion on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s request for immunity after it emerged that he was reportedly in breach of contract over his wife’s involvement in formulating the criminal indictments against the prime minister.

President Reuven Rivlin taps Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to form a new coalition, for the second time in five months. The move comes after efforts to force a unity agreement with Blue and White’s Benny Gantz fail.

With 89.8 percent of votes having been counted by the Central Elections Committee, Benny Gantz’s centrist Blue and White party on Wednesday was projected to secure 32 seats in the Knesset, edging ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud, which stood at 31 seats.

As official Israeli election results continue to trickle out, a major Israeli television network is reporting that around 91% of the national vote has already been counted and the results evidence no clear path to victory for any candidate.

Exit polls from all three of Israel’s major television networks project no clear winner in today’s historic Israeli elections, which took place five months after the last round of voting failed to form a stable governing coalition for the first time in the country’s history.

TEL AVIV – Twenty-one Knesset members cosigned a letter to members of the U.S. Congress on Monday, thanking them for the recent resolution rejecting the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, but warning them that the resolution’s endorsement of a two-state

TEL AVIV – Justice Minister Amir Ohana, who is the Knesset’s first openly gay minister, slammed Luxembourg’s prime minister, who is also gay, for boycotting an Israeli event in protest over an anti-gay comment made by Israel’s education minister while at the same time welcoming Iran’s foreign minister who has defended the execution of gay Iranians. 

TEL AVIV – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will consider a proposal by Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein to cancel the September 17 elections and form a new government, his Likud party announced Tuesday.

TEL AVIV – The Israeli Knesset voted to dissolve the Knesset just after midnight Thursday, prompting an angry Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to blame “left” Yisrael Beytenu head Avigdor Liberman for “dragging the country to unnecessary elections.”

Because of Avigdor Liberman’s personal vendetta against Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli public has been denied their right to a government.

TEL AVIV – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to do everything in his power to prevent snap elections and cobble together a new governing coalition before Wednesday’s deadline.

President Donald Trump chimed in Monday on the political turmoil in Israel, expressing hope that despite stalled coalition negotiations, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be able to form a government in order to further strengthen ties between the countries.

TEL AVIV – Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Wednesday officially appointed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the task of forming a new government for the 21st Knesset and added a plea that the Israeli premier do everything in his fifth term to bridge divides in the nation after an “us versus them” election campaign.

Officials in the Labor and Meretz parties are exploring the possibility of a merger of their two parties in the wake of Labor’s worst-ever election showing on April 9.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wished a “mazal tov” to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday in congratulations for his victory in the Knesset elections.

Following a dismal showing in the polls, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon is negotiating a return to the Likud party. The negotiations are at an advanced stage, with Kahlon’s Kulanu party to be united with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud and Kahlon retaining his position as finance minister, Ynet news reported.

The New Right party on Thursday said it would demand a recount of its votes as it emerged that it had fallen just short of entering the Knesset, after all votes were tallied but with a review of the vote-count process underway.

ADL/AIPAC/AJC’s harsh condemnations against Otzma contrast starkly with those groups’ silence about Israel’s racist and reprehensible Arab parties.

TEL AVIV – A deeply stirred Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday evening charged the left with waging an “unprecedented witch-hunt” aimed at toppling his government and replacing him with the “left-wing” Benny Gantz, an hour after the attorney-general announced his decision to indict the prime minister for bribery, fraud and breach of trust in three cases against him.

TEL AVIV – Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein (Likud) on Monday hit back against a wave of condemnation at Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s push for a merger between the the national-religious Jewish Home party and the extremist Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, saying there was no such outcry when unions were made with Arab parties who had outspoken supporters of terror.

Kahol Lavan, the newly-formed alliance between Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid, will overtake Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud in the April 9 election, a poll published Sunday by Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth predicted.

TEL AVIV – An oversized billboard of President Donald Trump shaking hands with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was visible on Sunday from Tel Aviv’s main highway as part of the prime minister’s reelection campaign. 

TEL AVIV – The new party formed by Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked announced on Tuesday that activist Shirley Pinto will be joining the New Right party’s list as the first-ever deaf Knesset candidate.

TEL AVIV — Caroline Glick, a columnist for Breitbart News and the Jerusalem Post, has joined Israel’s New Right party and will be running on the party’s slate for the upcoming election here in Israel.

Three-and-a-half years after its first sitting following the 2015 elections, the 20th Knesset came to end on Wednesday as lawmakers voted to dissolve parliament and set new elections for April 9.

Israel is due to hold elections early next year after the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, lost his defence minister and talks broke down in his coalition government on Friday, a source close to the cabinet told the Guardian.

TEL AVIV – Arab Israeli Knesset members are collaborating with the Palestinian Authority in a smear campaign against the Jewish state at the United Nations, Israel’s envoy to the international body in New York Danny Danon said on Sunday.

TEL AVIV – The Jewish Democratic Council of America condemned one of its candidates for Congress, a Palestinian-American woman from Detroit, after she said she would “absolutely” oppose military aid to Israel if elected.

The Security Cabinet is to convene for an emergency meeting Sunday afternoon to deal with the escalating violence in Gaza, as Palestinians fired dozens of rockets into Israel and the IDF attacked more than 40 targets in the Strip on Saturday in the most extensive daytime assault since 2014’s Operation Protective Edge.

TEL AVIV – The Palestinian Authority warned Israel that it’s newly passed law to deduct terrorists’ salaries from its monthly tax revenues is “a declaration of war on the Palestinian people.” “The Palestinian presidency strongly refuses to accept this severe

Knesset members are advancing competing laws with the start of Israel’s new parliamentary session to serve as the equivalent to America’s Taylor Force Act, which sanctions the Palestinian Authority’s “pay-to-slay” policy of providing terrorists and their families official stipends for the murder of Jews.

Some 1,500 people took part in a demonstration in the Israeli-Arab town of Sakhnin Saturday in solidarity with the people of the Gaza Strip.

The Knesset passed the state’s budget for 2019 in the early hours of Thursday, closing out the parliament’s winter term just over a day after the coalition managed to solve a crisis that nearly saw the government fall and new elections called.

JERUSALEM – New polls released Monday showed that were elections held today the Likud party would remain in power with the same amount of seats, centrist Yesh Atid would come in second and main opposition party the Zionist Union would lose around half its seats.

JERUSALEM – The so-called Israeli coalition crisis has lawmakers on the fence about whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should call early elections or not amid the threat of an indictment and contention over a draft bill that has parties in the coalition pitted against each other.

With the Israeli political scene galloping toward a snap vote, State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan launched a fierce defense of the justice system on Sunday, warning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that victory at the ballot box would not clear his name of serious corruption allegations.