Benny Gantz’s Blue and White centrist party has opened a two-seat lead over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud, according to updated voting results Thursday morning from the Central Election Committee.
Blue and White leader Benny Gantz on Thursday dismissed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s offer of a unity government that includes all the religious right-wing parties, insisting that the next coalition should have himself as prime minister, not Netanyahu, and be committed to liberal policies on religious issues.
The Central Elections Committee began counting the final votes early Thursday morning, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main challenger, Benny Gantz, still caught in an apparent deadlock.
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.
The veteran Israeli politician Avigdor Lieberman took the political gamble of his life when he spurned his mentor, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and forced an unprecedented repeat election. As results began rolling in from Tuesday’s vote, it appeared to have paid off.
In his first public comments the day after elections, Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz on Wednesday morning said he hoped for a “good unity government.”
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.
As the country awaits final results, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed supporters at a post-election speech in Tel Aviv, declaring that Israel needs “a strong government, a stable government, a Zionist government, a government that is committed to Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.”
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.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu implied that a former strategist for Barack Obama currently working with the Blue and White party in Israel was behind a Politico report claiming the U.S. government concluded that Israel was “most likely” behind the placement of cellphone snooping devices purportedly found in the vicinity of the White House.
TEL AVIV — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party mocked the rival Blue and White for putting out two contradictory statements in the same minute regarding Sunday’s flareup with Hezbollah on Israel’s northern border, and slammed the party’s number 2 Yair Lapid for putting politics before the lives of soldiers.
TEL AVIV – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday secured recommendations from a majority of the 120 Knesset seats, cementing a right-wing coalition of 65 seats.
It took three days after the election, and 24-hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed his election victory over Benny Gantz, for the defeated Blue and White chairman to call the Likud leader and offer his congratulations.
TEL AVIV – After almost all the votes had been tallied Wednesday, a clear picture of a country divided along partisan lines emerged, with Likud and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu representing one half of the map and Blue and White- and the dream of changing the “old guard” that its leader Benny Gantz symbolized for so many – standing in for the other.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party narrowly won the Israeli election Tuesday, with 97% of the ballots counted as of Wednesday morning.
The New York Times had declared the election a “setback” for Netanyahu, based on exit polls that showed Likud losing by a substantial margin to the opposition,
TEL AVIV — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared victory here tonight as revised exit polls projected his clear path to forming a right-wing coalition and early official election results put Netanyahu’s Likud party ahead of his Blue and White rivals.
TEL AVIV – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared a “clear victory” for his Likud party — even as main challenger Benny Gantz insisted that his Blue and White party had won the tight elections Tuesday.
TEL AVIV – Exit polls for Israel’s neck-and-neck election has Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party both tying with and losing to main challenger Benny Gantz’s Blue and White depending on whom you ask. Still, in two out of three
TEL AVIV – The U.S. is fully aware of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s flat rejection of the creation of a Palestinian state along with his plans to annex West Bank settlements, the Israeli premier said on Monday.
TEL AVIV – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called an emergency meeting to warn Likud party leaders that a right-wing government was at real risk of being toppled in favor of a left-wing and Arab-centric coalition put together by main rival party Blue and White following Tuesday’s elections.
TEL AVIV – Senior Likud official Gideon Sa’ar is the latest Israeli political figure to have his phone hacked, according to a report by the Kan public broadcaster on Sunday.
TEL AVIV – President Donald Trump told a Jewish audience Saturday that both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main election challenger, Benny Gantz, are “good people” who would be running neck and neck on April 9.
The final batch of polls conducted before Tuesday’s elections showed the centrist Blue and White widening its lead over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, even as the surveys unanimously indicated that the incumbent prime minister was best positioned to form the next government.
TEL AVIV — Moshe Feiglin, chairman of Israel’s Zehut Party, said in an interview that he is planning to request the Finance Ministry portfolio as part of his conditions for joining a government coalition after next week’s elections here.
If Gantz defeats Netanyahu in the Israeli election, his will be a victory for the establishment — aided by prosecutors — and not a generational change.
TEL AVIV – Blue and White leader Benny Gantz and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s main election rival said he is “not sure” about any of the three senior partners in his party, in a bombshell recording leaked to the Israeli press.
TEL AVIV – A majority of Israelis believe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will beat his main political rival Benny Gantz in April’s elections and serve another term, tie David Ben-Gurion and become the longest-serving prime minister in Israel’s history, a new poll aired Monday showed.
The timing of Trump’s statement on the Golan Heights was less driven by politics and more a function of recent developments in Syria.
TEL AVIV — Moshe Feiglin, chairman of the Zehut Party, characterized his policies as “free state” versus what he claims is the “deep state” big government agenda of top Israeli politicians.
Iran on Wednesday denied reports in Israel that it had hacked election candidate Benny Gantz’s cellphone, accusing the Jewish state of spreading false claims to stoke “Iranophobia.”
TEL AVIV — Moshe Feiglin, chairman of the Zehut party, vowed in an interview with Breitbart Jerusalem that if he enters the Knesset he will work to end unnecessary bureaucracy and lower the cost of living for Israelis.
TEL AVIV – The Likud party is predicted to win the most seats in Israel’s upcoming elections, a poll published Sunday showed, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling party narrowly beating the newcomer Blue and White party by a margin of 31-30.
TEL AVIV – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party has claimed that Iran is meddling in the upcoming Israeli elections by pushing for the ouster of the current government in favor of one run by the newcomer Blue and White party.
TEL AVIV — Moshe Feiglin, chairman of the Zehut party, vowed that if he enters the Knesset following next month’s election here, he will work to “drain the swamp” by fighting corruption and big government policies that, Feiglin argues, are negatively impacting Israelis day-to-day.
Benny Gantz, the chariman of the Kahol Lavan political alliance, said on Friday no compromising data was found on the phone breached by Iran, and claimed the whole matter was ‘a political spin’ meant to obscure Israel’s real issues.
A new survey shows a three-seat drop in support for the Blue and White party ahead in April 9 elections, even as the right-wing bloc has strengthened significantly, which would give Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu the real possibility of again forming the coalition government.
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.
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.
After marathon, all-night talks, the leaders of the two top-polling centrist parties, Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid, announced Thursday that they had agreed to merge their party lists to challenge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s frontrunning Likud in the upcoming elections.