January 11th, 20210JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered construction plans advanced on Monday for some 800 Jewish settler homes in the occupied West Bank, anchoring the projects in the final days of the pro-settlement Trump administration.
Palestinians condemned such construction as illegal. The timing of the move appeared to be...
December 23rd, 20200It is convenient to surmise that Israel’s current political crisis is consistent with the country’s unfailing trajectory of short-lived governments and fractious ruling coalitions. While this view is somewhat defensible, it is also hasty.
Israel is currently at the cusp of a fourth general election in less than two years. Even by...
December 10th, 20200No one seemed as excited about the election of Joe Biden being the next president of the United States as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. When all hope seemed lost, where Abbas found himself desperate for political validation and funds, Biden arrived like a conquering knight on a white horse and swept the Palestinian...
December 4th, 20200TEHRAN — Iran is unlikely to retaliate over the assassination of a prominent nuclear scientist before the inauguration of Joe Biden in case it jeopardizes any future sanctions relief, the top U.S. envoy on Iran told Reuters on Thursday.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who had little public profile in Iran, but had been named by Israel as a prime...
December 2nd, 20200Right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has nothing to worry about as Antony J. Blinken, who will directly handle America’s foreign policy in the Middle East is a loyal friend of Israel. Crisis averted.
President-elect Joe Biden’s appointment of Antony J. Blinken as his secretary of state was a master stroke,...
December 1st, 20200In a few words, a close associate of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu summed up the logic behind the ongoing frenzy to expand illegal Jewish settlements in Israel.
“These days are an irreplaceable opportunity to establish our hold on the Land of Israel, and I’m sure that our friend, President (Donald) Trump and Prime...
November 27th, 20200TEHRAN — An Iranian scientist long suspected by the West of masterminding a secret nuclear bomb program was killed in an ambush near Tehran on Friday that could provoke confrontation between Iran and its foes in the last weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency.
The military adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei...
November 26th, 20200RIYADH — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman earlier this week, despite a denial of the meeting by Israeli officials.
On the discussion table was a country that has played the role of boogeyman for both Israel and its allies in the U.S. government: Iran. The two leaders talked...
November 17th, 20200WASHINGTON, D.C. — Joe Biden had a “warm conversation” with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu over the phone on Tuesday. Netanyahu referred to Biden as president-elect in a statement after the talk.
Netanyahu had acknowledged and congratulated Biden’s electoral victory early on, but had refrained from calling him president-elect...
October 16th, 20201This Sunday, Michigan's top elected officials will be addressing and attending the virtual event, "An evening of unity", sponsored by Yeshiva Beth Yehuda, the self-described "oldest and largest Jewish educational institution in Michigan."
Governor Whitmer, Senator Debbie Stabenow, Senator Gary Peters, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan...
September 18th, 20200DEARBORN — So-called “peace agreements” between two Arab countries, the UAE and Bahrain, with Israel were signed on Tuesday, in a ceremony at the White House hosted by President Trump.
The normalization efforts between governments of the two Arab countries and Israel carried little consent from the people of those nations and...
August 15th, 20201On August 4, hours before a massive explosion rocked the Lebanese capital, Beirut, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued an ominous warning to Lebanon.
“We hit a cell and now we hit the dispatchers,” Netanyahu said during an official tour of a military facility in central Israel. “I suggest to all of them, including,...
August 13th, 20200
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Israel and the United Arab Emirates reached a "historic" deal on Thursday that will lead to a full normalization of diplomatic relations between the two nations in an agreement that President Trump helped broker.
Under the agreement, Israel has agreed to suspend applying sovereignty to areas of the West...
July 22nd, 20200For the first time since the Israeli war on Gaza in 2014, the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is signaling its willingness to engage in negotiations regarding the release of the bodies of two Israeli soldiers believed to be held by resistance groups in Gaza. But will another prisoner exchange similar to that of...
June 30th, 20200WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Tuesday, U.S. Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and 11 others members of the House and Senate released a letter addressed to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that calls on him to stop the new unity government of Israel from carrying out its plans to annex Palestinian territory in the...
June 29th, 20203WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and eleven others have signed on to a letter expressing deep concerns over the Israeli government’s plans to annex occupied Palestinian territory.
Former presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has also signed on to the...
February 25th, 20200CAIRO - Egypt’s state-run television announced on Tuesday that the country’s former leader and autocrat Hosni Mubarak died at the age of 91. After a presidency that spanned three decades, long-time U.S. ally Mubarak was ousted by mass popular protests as part of the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011.
Egypt’s State TV said Mubarak...
February 21st, 20200TEL AVIV — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will spend the last days of his election campaign under the shadow of serious and damaging corruption charges, as Israeli courts announced Tuesday that his criminal trial will begin March 17.
Netanyahu is expected to attend the initial hearing just two weeks after the March 2...
January 28th, 20201WASHINGTON, D.C. - President Trump and his hard-line, right-wing ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, unveiled Trump’s long-awaited Middle East peace plan on Tuesday. The plan has been preemptively rejected by Palestinians, who see no signs in the plan of an end to Israeli occupation and illegal settlements. Netanyahu, on...
January 24th, 20200WASHINGTON, D.C. — The White House said in a statement on Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit the White House next Tuesday to meet with President Trump about Trump’s long-awaited Middle East peace plan. Trump confirmed the news, telling reporters on Air Force One that he will release the details of the...
November 23rd, 20190TEL AVIV — Shortly after Israel’s ceremonial President Reven Rivlin informed parliament that neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his main political rival were able to form a coalition, the country’s attorney general formally charged Netanyahu on serious charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.
With an...
October 6th, 20190JERUSULAM — Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz continued his call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to relinquish his long hold of the country’s government Thursday.
The Israeli publication Haaretz reports that Gantz called to establish a broad, liberal unity government without Netanyahu’s involvement.
Gantz...
September 20th, 20190TEL AVIV – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is beseeching his chief rival Benny Gantz to form a “broad unity government” with Netanyahu at the helm, after failing to gain a clear election victory twice in six months.
Gantz declared victory on Thursday after his Kahol Lavan edged over Likud in Israel's Tuesday’s...
May 31st, 20190TEL AVIV — Israeli lawmakers voted to dissolve the Knesset on Thursday, paving the way for a new election after Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a government before a midnight deadline.
Netanyahu preferred a new ballot, set for Sept. 17, to the alternative, under which President Reuven Rivlin could have asked another politician to...
April 29th, 20190NEW YORK — Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif does not believe President Trump wants war with Iran, but he told Reuters on Wednesday that Trump could be lured into a conflict.
“I don’t think he wants war,” Zarif said in an interview at the Iranian mission to the United Nations in New York. “But that doesn’t...
April 19th, 20190
So, what have we learned from the Israeli legislative elections on April 9?
A whole lot.
To start with, don’t let such references as the “tight race” between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and his main rival, Benny Gantz, fool you.
Yes, Israelis are divided on some issues that are particular to...
April 19th, 20190TEL AVIV — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won the backing of a majority of parliament members on Tuesday to form a new government, following the April 9 election.
Netanyahu is heading towards a record fifth term in office confident of being able to put together a bloc of religious-rightist parties.
It would be a slim...
April 12th, 20190Israeli elections have just concluded and the results indicate that Benjamin Netanyahu is set to win a fifth term as Israeli prime minister. The race between Netanyahu and his strongest challenger, Benjamin Gantz, who is a former chief of staff of the Israeli military forces, was very tight. But even if Gantz and his associated political...