Tagged Knesset

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli President Reuven Rivlin handed the mandate to form a government coalition to the Knesset for the first time. Rivlin met Thursday with Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein to hand him the formal notice a day after Blue and White party head Benny Gantz announced he was… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — President Reuven Rivlin has officially tasked Benjamin Netanyahu, the current prime minister, with forming Israel’s next government. Rivlin met Wednesday evening with Netanyahu at the president’s residence in Jerusalem hours after receiving the official results of last week’s national elections. Party leaders representing 65 of the 120… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The chairman of the far-right Jewish Power party, or Otzma Yehudit, can run in April’s elections, the Israeli Central Elections Commission ruled. The commission approved the candidacy of Michael Ben-Ari, who is in the realistic fifth spot on the candidates’ list of the Union of Right… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli politics looks like a big mess right now. In the past few weeks, three new parties have been launched and one party has kicked out a former partner. More changes are likely, too. It probably will get messier still if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is indicted… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — In over a decade as prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu has created more than his fair share of political memes — from the cartoon bomb he displayed at the United Nations to decry the Iran nuclear deal in 2012 to his “nix it or fix it” speech to… Read more »

MK Nachman Shai (Zionist Camp) slammed the government on Tuesday for displaying indifference to the wave of anti-Semitism that has swept the United States in recent weeks, in contrast to Israel’s history of standing up for Jewish communities under threat in other places. “We have seen dozens of terrible… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — A year and a half ago he was a fringe Temple Mount activist expected to die, the victim of a point-blank assassination attempt. This week he will enter the Knesset, the ruling Likud party’s replacement legislator for outgoing Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon. Yehuda Glick’s journey —… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — As last Tuesday ended, it felt like Israel’s gay community had taken a major step forward. On Feb. 23, eight separate Israeli parliamentary committees convened to discuss a broad set of issues facing the country’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Lawmakers from a range of parties… Read more »

(JTA) — Arab-Israeli lawmaker and political leader Ayman Odeh refused to meet with the umbrella foreign policy body for American Jews because it shares office space with the Jewish Agency, an abrupt and dissonant end to a trip that was aimed at promoting greater Arab-Jewish cooperation. “I came here… Read more »

(JTA) — Michael Oren is my friend. During his nearly five years as Israel’s ambassador to the United States, we’d speak on an almost daily basis. Often those phone calls would come at 3 or 4 a.m., Washington time, and Michael, enduring another sleepless night, would share his fears… Read more »

TAIBEH, Israel (JTA) — To get to her assigned kindergarten, Biyan Azam, then 5, would have had to walk alone through a bustling commercial district and cross a busy intersection. This Arab-Israeli city does not provide school buses and would not transfer Biyan to a school nearer to her home here.… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israel’s last governing coalition — divided on war, peace and economics — did agree on one thing: Israel’s religious policies needed to change. Now it appears that the incoming coalition will be organized around the opposite principle: Those changes must end. A coalition agreement signed… Read more »

Some 30 years ago an American friend who is a political scientist, came to Israel for a professional visit. Before he headed back home, I asked him for his verdict on the Israeli political system. He didn’t hesitate: “Too much democracy.” I asked him to explain, and he said:… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Having coffee with Stav Shaffir is little different from meeting up with other 20-somethings in Tel Aviv. She rushes into the cafe a few minutes late, glances repeatedly at her phone and complains about high rents and an out-of-touch government. It’s hard, she says, being… Read more »

Outgoing Israel President Shimon Peres speaks at the swearing in ceremony for his successor, Reuven Rivlin, July 24, 2014. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — In the midst of a grinding war in Gaza, a sometimes near-empty Knesset gallery was packed last week for an uplifting moment: what probably was the final political act of Israel’s elder statesman. Shimon Peres — former Israeli prime minister, defense minister, foreign minister and now… Read more »

Yair Lapid says he would leave the coalition if the Israeli government did not "exhaust all options" in its peace negotiations with the Palestinians. (Elad Gutman)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid said he supports freezing settlement growth to help jump-start peace negotiations and vowed that his centrist Yesh Atid party would leave Israel’s governing coalition if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were responsible for the collapse of the peace process. In an… Read more »

Demonstrators gathered on Nov. 30, 2013 in the southern Israeli town of Hura during a protest against the government's plan to resettle some 30,000 Bedouin residents of the Negev. (David Buimovitch/Flash 90)

(JTA) — They can’t agree on the project’s goal. They can’t agree on who supports it. They can’t even agree on its name. But when it comes to the Israeli government’s plan to relocate 30,000 Negev Bedouin, representatives and allies of the Bedouin community agree with the right wing… Read more »

Activists at a 20111 rally in Tel Aviv gather under a banner that reads, "We requested refuge, we received prison." (Dima Vazinovich/Flash90)

SAHARONIM, Israel (JTA) — A long chain-link fence with barbed wire seems to rise up out of the desert at the new Sadot facility in Israel for African migrants. Situated along Israel’s barren border with Egypt and across the street from the notorious Ketziot Prison, which houses thousands of… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — It is a cause that elicited cheers from a roomful of participants at the Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly. Leading politicians have long championed it and are now trying to push it through a divided Knesset. Nearly two-thirds of Israelis support it, and activists… Read more »

Former Saudi ambassador Prince Turki bin Faisal al Saud confers with Israeli strategic affairs analyst Yossi Alpher at the National Iranian American Council conference in Washington, Oct. 15, 2013. (NIAC)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is hoping the enemy of one’s enemy truly does become a friend. In recent years, Netanyahu has said the enmity for Iran shared by Israel and the Arab states could become a spur to regional reconciliation. Last week, in a speech… Read more »