Free Republic

The State of Israel will be going to vote on Tuesday, November 1, 2022. This will be the fifth election in less than four years. The near parity is between the competing political blocs: the Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-of-center on one hand, and the anti-Netanyahu left-of-center bloc led by Yair Lapid. Netanyahu’s Likud bloc has nevertheless a noticeable advantage; it has a reliable bloc of 60 mandates in the polls, and it may have an even higher number in the real poll – on Election Day. Netanyahu has only to find a single defector to form a narrow coalition government of...

A bill which would outlaw gay conversion therapy passed its preliminary hearing in the Knesset Wednesday afternoon. The bill, which was drafted by MK Nissan Horowitz (Meretz), would ban the controversial practice of treating homosexuals with the aim of reversing same-sex attraction. In its preliminary vote, the 120-member Knesset backed the bill by a margin of 42 to 36, after the coalition split, with Blue and White backing the proposed law, while haredi lawmakers and the Likud opposed it - with the exception of Likud minister Amir Ohana. After the vote, haredi lawmakers fumed at Blue and White chief and...

According to Channel 13, 97.6% of the votes from Tuesday's elections have already been counted, Blue and White stands at 33 seats and Likud at 31 seats, with Blue and White leading by a narrow margin. It is important to note that these are still not the final results. Overnight, the committee was counting the near quarter of a million soldiers' votes cast by Israeli soldiers. The Central Election Committee (CEC) has been updating its website since the close of the polls at 10 p.m. on Tuesday. The last update was at 10:40 a.m. on Thursday: 4,354,991 votes had been...

Right-wing factions convened at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem Wednesday afternoon, deciding to establish a "right-wing bloc" headed by Prime Minister Netanyahu, that will work for the establishment of the next government. It was decided to form a joint coalition negotiations team for all factions in the bloc. In addition to Netanyahu, the meeting saw the participation of Minister Yariv Levin and faction heads: Yaakov Litzman, Moshe Gafni, Naftali Bennett, Ayelet Shaked, and Bezalel Smotrich. Minister Aryeh Deri met with Prime Minister Netanyahu earlier this morning, as he was unable to attend the meeting due to the memorial ceremony...

The American Studies Association (ASA) decision to support an academic boycott of Israel was a subject of debate in Knesset on Tuesday. The Knesset’s Science and Technology Committee discussed the decision and its implications for Israel and the world. Committee head MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) expressed the opinion that all such boycotts are a bad idea. “There is no place for an academic boycott or for any involvement of politics in academia,” he declared. “It’s important for Israel, but no less so, this principle is important for the advancement of humanity,” he continued. “Political debate should take place...