JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent an official request to Russian President Vladimir Putin to pardon an Israeli-American woman sentenced in Russia to 7 1/2 years in prison after being convicted of smuggling marijuana into the country. The request submitted on Sunday to pardon Naama Issachar, 26,… Read more »
Tagged Netanyahu
How Syria and natural gas are pushing Israel and Turkey back together

TEL AVIV (JTA) – After years of false starts, Israeli negotiators went to Geneva last week for talks aimed at ending a long-running conflict with a regional adversary. It’s not the Palestinians. It’s Turkey. Once a key partner of Israel, Turkey in recent years has been a thorn in… Read more »
Here’s why Hamas and Israel may be secretly negotiating

TEL AVIV (JTA) — After more than a decade of failed diplomacy, Israel could be close to signing a major agreement with the Palestinians. They’re just not the Palestinians you thought. After years of vowing not to negotiate with Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, Israel may be finalizing… Read more »
As Barak leaves politics, questions remain about his legacy and future

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Is Ehud Barak a calculating political survivor or a military man who, in his own words, “never had any special desire” for political life? Will he be remembered as a warrior or as a seeker of peace? And what will he do next? Barak’s announcement… Read more »
Diverse media boosts Israeli democracy
Can you imagine Israel without a free, independent, vociferous and diverse media? Can you imagine Israel without Maariv and Haaretz? Without biting commentary, investigative reporting and an open, cacophonous marketplace of views and ideas? Such an Israel terrifies me, and it should alarm you, too. It is not the… Read more »
Adelson’s paper brings needed pluralism to Israel’s press
Liberal pundits have coined a new saw: Sheldon Adelson and the newspaper he owns, Israel Hayom, are primarily responsible for the collapse of many Israeli media outlets, and this endangers Israeli democracy. The assertion is wrong on both the business and ideological levels. The imminent failures of Maariv and… Read more »
When Bibi didn’t meet Barack — a story of comity?

WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not meet, but they ended up sounding not so far apart. Netanyahu’s address to the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 28 in many ways echoed Obama’s speech there on Sept. 25, with both ratcheting up the heat… Read more »
Increased Israel chatter on Iran is about sending a message to Washington

WASHINGTON (JTA) — How much noise does Israel’s leadership have to make to get the Obama administration to say what it wants to hear about Iran? It’s a question now preoccupying Israel, along with its corollary: How much noise is too much and risks precipitating a crisis between Jerusalem… Read more »
Are Netanyahu and Barak bluffing on Iran, or are they already committed to war?

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Has Israel’s game of chicken with Iran jumped the shark? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak in recent months have been more explicit than ever about the likelihood of an Israeli strike on Iran to keep it from obtaining nuclear weapons capability.… Read more »
Netanyahu pledges decisive response as rockets slam southern Israel

JERUSALEM (JTA) – As southern Israel was barraged by rockets for a fourth straight day, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was hitting back “strongly and decisively,” and its Iron Dome anti-missile defense system was intercepting many of the rockets coming from the Gaza Strip. “The IDF is continuing… Read more »
Israeli officials escalate war of words with N.Y. Times

Israeli officials are stepping up their criticism of The New York Times, slamming columnist Thomas Friedman and arguing that the newspaper is an unfit venue for an Op-Ed from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In a scathing letter first leaked last week to The Jerusalem Post, Ron Dermer, a top… Read more »
Obama isn’t being treated fairly on Israel

I was amused by Adam Serwer’s recent blog post titled “Is Bibi anti-Israel?” in which he pointed out that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu conditionally offered this month to negotiate with the Palestinians using the pre-1967 borders as a framework. Amazingly, there was no outcry by American Jews that… Read more »
Obama and Israel are not on the same page

It’s high time to face an unpleasant fact: President Obama and Israel are not on the same page. This has been true ever since Obama took office in January 2009, but it was most recently apparent this May when the president ambushed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with an… Read more »
Settlers accuse Netanyahu goverment of imposing silent building freeze
Although the 10-month moratorium on building in Jewish settlements in the West Bank was lifted last September, settler leaders complain that no construction is being allowed in the large urban areas and warn that a de facto freeze on all Jewish building in the West Bank is looming. The… Read more »