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Minister of Science and Technology Daniel Hershkowitz (Jewish Home) used uncharacteristically blunt words to condemn Likud ministers who opposed the bill that would make Supreme Court nominees subject to parliamentary hearings before confirmation. He said they were "serving the Left" by opposing the vetting process. The bill, which was initiated by MKs Yariv Levin and Ze'ev Elkin (Likud), will be debated at the Ministerial Committee for Legislation next week. It was supposed to be debated today (Sunday) but the controversy around it caused the discussion to be postponed by one week. "It is strange that ministers from the Likud are...

The Arab Ra’am party came under fire on Thursday over the State Comptroller’s report, which found that the faction used public taxpayer funding to pay for engraved plaques, which it awarded to six terrorists who took part in the assault on IDF soldiers on board the Mavi Marmara. The 5,000 shekel payment was placed under the item for "expenditures for maintaining contact with the party's supporters and voters," according to a State Comptroller report on Knesset members' expenditures which was released earlier on Thursday. The faction is represented by MKs Ibrahim Sarsour and Masoud Ghanayem, and constitutes half of the...

The Knesset approved in the first reading Wednesday a government-sponsored law that would organize and reframe the legal means for fighting terrorist organizations. Some parts of the law will replace some of the British-era emergency orders of 1945, which are no longer deemed necessary. It is intended to give modern tools for the prevention of the existence and operation of terror organizations, for disrupting the organizational and financing infrastructures that maintain them, for catching perpetrators and bringing them to justice. The law would provide a mechanism for declaring a group a terror organization, including the possibility of declaring an institution,...

Lawmakers are calling on the government to launch an investigation into allegations that Singapore-based Tanker Pacific Ltd. owned by Israeli businessman Sammy Ofer, has been involved in doing business with Iran. Last week the U.S. State Department leveled an allegation that the Ofer Brothers Group had sold an oil tanker to an Iran-based company. In addition, an Israeli financial magazine reported that seven of the firm's vessels had docked in the Islamic Republic over the past decade. The Calcalist published a report revealing the information on Sunday, creating a firestorm among Knesset members as well as top officials, including Prime...

Right wing MKs: Obama is the new Arafat By GIL HOFFMAN Danon, Ben-Ari outraged by US president's call for creation of Palestinian state on '67 lines; Livni says plan in Israel's interests. Knesset members on the Right expressed outrage on Thursday night at US President Barack Obama's call for the creation of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps in an exchange of territory for security. They called upon Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to reject Obama's plan when he meets with him on Friday in Washington. "Barack Hussein Obama adopted the staged plan for Israel's...

The Knesset’s Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs Committee held a special discussion on Wednesday on the subject of J Street, the supposedly pro-Israel organization which in fact is sympathetic towards terror groups such as Hamas. “The committee’s conclusion is very loud and clear,” committee chair MK Danny Danon told Israel National News. “You cannot be pro-Israel if you work against the interests of the State of Israel.” Danon noted that “J Street is pro-Palestinian. It’s not a pro-Israeli organization. We told the people who came to the discussion, especially those who came from Washington, that they have to be Zionist...

The Knesset agreed Tuesday evening in a 34-16 vote to strip freshman MK Hanin Zoabi of three privileges. The move was a response to Zoabi's participation in a flotilla that attempted to dock in Gaza in defiance of Israel's naval blockade of Hamas. Zoabi has lost the following privileges: use of a diplomatic passport, government participation in legal fees, and enhanced freedoms regarding international travel. Following the vote, Zoabi and her fellow Balad party MK Jamal Zahalka nearly came to blows with Kadima MKs Yoel Hasson and Carmel Shama. Knesset workers intervened to subdue the argument.

sraelNN.com) Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin (Likud) said Thursday he was “very worried” by the applause that a Tel Aviv University audience gave Vice President Joe Biden when he expressed his condemnation of construction in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood of Jerusalem. “I am concerned about the erosion of the red lines we set for ourselves and the lessening of the understanding of Israel's strategic needs, about which there can be no compromise,” he said. The moment Rivlin referred to can be seen in the accompanying video, when Biden says that Palestinian Authority leaders' “commitment to peace” is “an opportunity that must...

Kadima Knesset Member Ronit Tirosh has called on government officials to stop flying British Airways and has suggested an Israeli boycott of British goods. Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin of the Likud backed her idea. MK Tirosh's initiative is in retaliation for the British government’s recommendation that its Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs label Jewish products made in Judea and Samaria as "Israeli settlement produce."

(IsraelNN.com) MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) has been engaged in a battle to honor former MK Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was murdered in New York City in 1990, by giving a memorial speech from the Knesset podium. On Wednesday, it was revealed that Ben-Ari's struggle has drawn opposition from well beyond the Knesset, and that U.S. envoy George Mitchell has taken an interest in the matter. Arutz Sheva quotes unnamed sources that said that Mitchell reportedly sent a message via the American embassy asking Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin if he planned to approve Ben-Ari's request to speak about Kahane in...

I read somewhere that one can read on the Knesset a motto that sounds like "peace through science" or "peace through progress". I've been in the Knesset's website but I cannot find anything similar. Does any body have any idea what I'm talking about? Thanks

Is U.S. President Barack Obama a “paritz,” the Hebrew term for cruel Polish landowners who tormented and oppressed Jews in the before the late 19th century? Knesset Member Uri Ariel (National Union) took the podium in an almost totally empty Knesset Tuesday evening to sharply criticize the increasing pressure of the Obama government during President Shimon Peres’s visit to the United States.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was sworn in late Tuesday to lead Israel 32nd government, after cobbling together a coalition amid rising tensions within his own Likud party and with other leading political figures. Lawmakers voted 69 to 45 with five abstentions in favor of Netanyahu's right-wing government after a six-hour debate, making Netanyahu prime minister for the second time in 10 years. The new coalition will comprise 30 ministers and seven deputy ministers. In addition to serving as premier, Netanyahu has also created a position for himself as financial strategy minister and appointed Yuval Steinitz (Likud) to serve as finance...

The basic duty of every state is to guarantee its security and protect its citizens, and the loyalty of citizens to their state constitutes an essential pillar in maintaining a mechanism that would safeguard our home. Therefore, no country in the world allows its citizens to travel to enemy states without a permit; moreover, no country allows those who act in a way that raises reasonable suspicion of undermining national security to be elected to Parliament. Israel, a state that is still fighting for its existence and liberty and which has a unique and complex character because of hostility abroad...

After decades of comparing Nixon to Hitler, Reagan to Hitler and Bush to Hitler, liberals have finally decided it is wrong to make comparisons to Hitler. But the only leader to whom they have applied their newfound rule of thumb is: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Even before that, upon arrival, Bush mentioned the Bush fooled everyone. President George W. Bush finally liberated himself from Condoleezza Rice. There's no question that for most of his presidency he'd been DUI, driving under the influence of his secretary of state, but finally, last week in Israel, he came out and revealed himself to be a Zionist Christian. In fact, that's exactly what Palestinian Arabs are saying, and without gladness. Bush mentioned the Palestinian Arabs only once in his 23-minute speech to the Knesset Jewish longing for Jerusalem, yes, Jerusalem, and if that didn't surprise the Israelis, it sure...

By any measure, President Bush’s speech to the Knesset last week on the occasion of Israel’s 60th birthday was nothing short of stunning. This paean to the bond between the United States and Israel, while personal in many ways, went beyond anything any U.S. president had previously said and expressed sentiments that all people of good faith and seekers of peace can relate to and embrace. The president’s message was that when it comes to Israel, the U.S. would never accommodate terrorist pressure or political importuning from any source, and those who think otherwise had better reevaluate their position. He...

Democrats haven’t done too well trying to win the White House by whining about Republican “attacks.” But now they’re fixing that. If whining doesn’t work, whine faster, louder and more often. Democratic train wrecks Michael Dukakis and John Kerry insist to this day that if only they had “responded to the attacks” fast enough, they would have won. Like his vanquished predecessors, Barack Obama remembers every part of the evil-Republicans-attacked-and-we-didn’t-respond narrative incorrectly. Both Dukakis and Kerry complained that their patriotism was under attack by Republicans, even though no one can find a single example of a Republican attacking the patriotism...

Democrats outraged by Bush "appeasement" remark. Bush said, “America stands with you in breaking up terrorist networks and denying the extremists sanctuary. And America stands with you in firmly opposing Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions. Permitting the world’s leading sponsor of terror to possess the world’s deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.” And: “Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” he said. “We...

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds fired back that Obama’s retort was a “hysterical diatribe in response to a speech in which his name wasn’t even mentioned.”