EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Former Ambassador David Friedman: ‘Trump administration would have given Israel free reign to defend itself’

Secretary of State Antony Blinken was dispatched to Israel by U.S. President Joe Biden this week in the direct aftermath of an acute conflagration highlighted by 11 days of indiscriminate rocket attacks by Hamas on Israeli population centres and pinpoint Israeli airstrikes on Hamas installations in Gaza in retaliation. Read more

10 takeaways from the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas

Over this past weekend, Arabs were shooting fireworks in the sky, supposedly in celebration of holding Israeli population centres hostage for 11 days with more than 4,000 rockets. Read more

‘AP,’ ‘Al Jazeera’ and the mainstream media are tools in Hamas’s war against Israel

Journalists are expressing their outrage that the 12-story Al-Jalaa building housing the Gaza headquarters of Associated Press and Al Jazeera was targeted during retaliatory Israeli airstrikes on Saturday. Read more

How old politics in Ramallah, Gaza, Jerusalem and Washington have set Israel ablaze

After one of the calmest extended periods in decades in the Middle East—and in Israel, in particular—the tide has suddenly turned, reverting to classic political mistakes that have all but erased the positive gains. Read more

Lapid and Bennett officially on the clock to end Netanyahu’s tenure

For the second time in a little more than a year, incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s mandate to form a government has passed to his political rivals. Read more

Who’s responsible for the Meron disaster?

Israel’s largest religious festival turned into its largest peacetime tragedy late Thursday night, as 45 celebrants were crushed to death, and dozens more were injured, under the feet of fellow worshippers in a horrific stampede at Mount Meron. Read more

Netanyahu’s latest mandate is trial by fire

After the Likud secured a stunning 13-seat electoral margin over the second-largest party, Yesh Atid, an embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has received the official mandate to form a new government, following the fourth election in less than two years. Read more

In fourth consecutive campaign, Netanyahu secures largest-ever electoral lead

The fourth attempt in two years to unseat embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have failed once again, with Netanyahu securing his largest-ever electoral victory over his rivals. Exit polls show Netanyahu’s Likud receiving a strong 30 to 31 mandates. The tally is at least 12 seats higher than the next largest party: the left-wing Yesh Atid led by Yair Lapid. Read more

The differences between Israel’s 2020 and 2021 elections

Israelis will head to the polls next week for the fourth parliamentary elections in two years. Read more

The changing of the guard in US-Israel relations

Like many American policies now expected to undergo an about-face following the inauguration of 46th President Joe Biden, U.S.-Israel relations may be gearing up for a great reset. Read more

Trump’s lasting legacy will be the Abraham Accords

Mainstream media and pundits from across the political spectrum have been quick to assert that the violent riot on the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6 has permanently tarnished the Trump presidency. Read more

Could a fourth election lead to Israel’s largest-ever right-wing government?

In the beginning of March, Israel had just completed its third inconclusive election in less than 12 months, leaving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu barely shy of his preferred right-wing-majority coalition. Read more

Pompeo to JNS: ‘Trump administration will continue to be a force for good’…an exclusive interview

Under the stewardship of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the administration in Washington has taken new approaches to American foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East. Read more

US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman: Mideast is ‘exploding with good opportunities’ under Trump

Over the past four years, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has charted a new direction towards Israel, Iran and the greater Middle East. Read more

Is a ‘New Right’ ascending in Israel?

A constant stream of political polls gives clues to the stability of Israel’s current unity government anchored by Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party and challenger Benny Gantz’s Blue and White Party. Read more

The great myth of Israeli annexation, Part II: De facto sovereignty

For the better part of the past year, one of the major diplomatic agenda items in the Middle East was whether or not Israel would apply its formal sovereignty over lands it controls in parts of Judea and Samaria, surrounding Jewish settlements, and along the strategic Jordan Valley. Read more

Abraham Accords are a paradigm shift of biblical proportions

The signing of normalization agreements between Israel and Muslim-majority Sunni Gulf States the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain represents the end of an era of pan-Arab belligerence towards the Jewish state, and the formal acknowledgment that it is a permanent fixture in the Middle East. Read more

Israelis are not celebrating upcoming holiday lockdown

Back in April and May, Israel halted what appeared to be the rapid trajectory of the coronavirus. A severe lockdown during the Passover holiday pushed the number of new cases per day, down from approximately 700 a few weeks earlier to less than two-dozen daily cases. At the time, many Israelis believed and hoped that the Jewish state’s bout with COVID-19 was coming to a rapid conclusion. Read more

Netanyahu, Trump and Obama doctrines on display with El Al flight to Emirates

When does a three-hour commercial flight from one nation to a neighbouring country represent a major diplomatic achievement? When the flight originates in Israel—a peace-seeking nation that has been subject to more hostility and double-standards than nearly every other nation on earth. Read more

Netanyahu’s five-point battleground to stay in power

Since fortifying Israel’s frayed political system with a victory over his political rivals and the formation of a unity coalition in April, governance for Israel’s embattled prime minister has been anything but simple. Read more

Netanyahu presumed innocent in Israel’s court of public opinion

Israeli media and their left-wing anti-Netanyahu allies have been anticipating for years the moment Benjamin Netanyahu would be dragged into a courtroom. Unable to beat Israel’s longest-serving prime minister at the polls, many have looked to a politically left-leaning legal system to get him out of office. Read more

Top 10 reasons Israel has (so far) survived coronavirus

Israelis are now once again taking to the streets in large numbers. Read more

Supreme Court validates Netanyahu government weeks after attempted putsch

On Wednesday, Israel’s Supreme Court unanimously rejected eight separate petitions filed against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the coalition agreement he signed with former challenger Benny Gantz. Read more

Netanyahu finally wins Israel’s elections, set to form large centre-right government

In a key political victory, embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu secured an additional 18 months in office, as challenger Benny Gantz dismantled his Blue and White Party alignment and agreed to bring his smaller Israel Resilience faction into a Netanyahu-led government. Read more

In his final act as Knesset Speaker, Edelstein ‘upholds dignity’ of Parliament

In the latest chapter in Israel’s political dysfunction, longtime Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein dramatically resigned his post on Wednesday rather than fulfill an overreaching order of the Supreme Court to hold an immediate vote on the assignment of a new speaker. Read more

Gantz fomenting Knesset crisis as Netanyahu leads Coronavirus response

In the midst of a bitter political crisis and without the support of a functioning Knesset, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been leading an aggressive response to Coronavirus to limit the spread of the highly contagious disease. Read more

Israel needs a ‘national responsibility government’

On Sunday, after a year of political deadlock, the eight parties that would be sworn into the Knesset the following day submitted to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin their recommendations for who should be tasked with assembling a government. Read more

A tale of two Israeli leaders

As coronavirus dominates headlines all over the world, Israel is emerging as a leader in the global fight to contain the pandemic, quickly enacting strict quarantine measures and border closures to limit the spread of the virus, as its biotech industries rush to develop home testing kits and vaccines. Read more

Netanyahu’s overwhelming victory and Gantz’s parliamentary putsch

Benjamin Netanyahu’s opponents claim that the results of the three elections the country has held over the past 12 months have been essentially unchanged, with the embattled prime minister and his right-wing bloc repeatedly proving unable to muster a parliamentary majority. Read more

The undemocratic alliance bent on toppling Netanyahu

In Israel’s third election in less than one year, embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defeated his closest challenger by three Knesset seats (36-33), and his bloc of right-wing allies defeated the opposing left-wing bloc supporting challenger Benny Gantz by a stunning 18 seats (58-40). Yet, similar to the first two election contests, Netanyahu still remains precariously shy of a parliamentary majority. Read more

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