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Netanyahu says he'll meet with Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon on Sunday in final bid to avoid early elections. Education Minister Naftali Bennett said Saturday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not object to his appointment as defense minister during their meeting Friday following the resignation of Avigdor Lieberman. Bennett added, however, that Israel should hold early elections because the coalition holds a razor-thin majority of 61 Knesset seats, saying "there is no right-wing government today"...….

Kulanu party leader Moshe Kahlon told Prime Minister Netanyahu that he will not accept Jewish Home Chairman Naftali Bennett serving as defense minister, following the resignation of current defense minister, Avigdor Liberman. On Wednesday, Bennett issued an ultimatum to the Prime Minister, saying his Jewish Home faction will quit the coalition if he is not appointed defense minister. If Bennett's ultimatum holds, Kahlon's veto likely signals that early elections are on the way. "Bennett doesn't have it coming to get the Defense Ministry portfolio. I'm opposed to it," Kahlon told Netanyahu. Bennett told confidants in response that he will not...

US President Barack Obama’s radical worldview makes it impossible for him to empathize with Israel’s position, Israel’s former Ambassador to Washington said Monday. Former US envoy Michael Oren, who currently serves as a Member of Knesset for the Kulanu party, was speaking at the Yesha Conference in Jerusalem’s Lianardo Hotel, where community leaders and prominent activists from Judea and Samaria (Yesha) were gathered. Speaking in front of a staunchly nationalist audience, the centrist MK warned that the current American administration was gambling with Israel’s future—particularly vis-à-vis Iran. […] Oren’s upcoming book—Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide, set for release...

The best line President Obama delivered in his 2015 State of the Union Address was not one written for him by his speechwriters. When he said he would not be on the ballot again, Republicans who had just taken over both Houses of Congress stood and applauded. Good naturedly, but with a bit of sarcasm, Mr. Obama reminded his opponents that he won both times he was on the national ballot. He was the first Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt to achieve back-to-back election victories. We need to acknowledge that he is a formidable political actor. He has defied the...

On Nov. 8, 2011, President Obama met with then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Cannes after what had been a particularly rough week for US-Israeli relations. Modal Trigger The week prior, the UN agency UNESCO admitted Palestine as a member state. Congress responded by cutting off UNESCO’s funding, a move the Obama administration direly opposed. Michael Oren, who served as Israel’s US ambassador from 2009 to 2013, said the president, having opposed Palestine’s admission to the agency, “thought he had done enough . . . and did not need to punish them further.” President Obama responded to Congress’ act by admonishing Israel for...

Former ambassador to the US Michael Oren, whose book on his experience in Washington is due out on Tuesday, continues to ruffle feathers by criticizing US President Barack Obama’s Mideast policies in op-ed pieces in the US press. In a piece Friday in Foreign Policy, Oren – who left Washington on October 1, 2013, and is now a Kulanu MK -- charged that Obama was naïve as a peacemaker, had blinders to terrorism, and that his abandonment by both his Muslim father and step-father had something to do with his desire to be accepted by their “co-religionists.” And in a...

US. Ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro phoned Prime Minister Netanyahu and asked him to issue a statement disavowing former Israeli Ambassador to Israel Michael Oren’s statements about President Obama. In MK Michael Oren’s new book, he accuses Obama of abandoning the two main principle of US-Israel relations: no public disagreements (“no daylight”) and no suprises in major policy changes. He also primarily lays the blame on Obama for the bad relationship with Israel. He says that while Netanyahu made mistakes, Obama purposely damaged US-Israel relations. The US State Department says Oren’s statements are, “absolutely inaccurate and false.” According to reports,...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a crowd of tens of thousands of people at a rally in support of right-wing parties at Tel Aviv's Rabin Square on Sunday. Netanyahu claimed that "a massive fortune" of foreign money had flowed into Israel from abroad from organizations dedicated to removing him from power. He said that, because of this, currently, the Right does not have enough votes to put together a strong governing coalition, but that closing the gap with the Zionist Union is achievable. "If we don't close the gap, there is a danger that a left-wing government will come into...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may demonstrate foolishness regarding a great many things in public life, but no one ever accused him of demonstrating foolishness with regard to his own electoral prospects. His enemies are suddenly foaming at the mouth. In response to the remarkable jump in Likud popularity in the polls, they claim, Bibi has decided to pull a fast one and has decided to take the undemocratic decision of holding elections. That Netanyahu’s rivals claim it is undemocratic when elections are held is only the tip of their problems. What really has them worried is that the Israeli electorate...

While in most countries immigration moves the electorate to the left, in Israel immigration moved the country to the right. In the United States the left is counting on demographics to make it easier for them to win elections, but in Israel demographic shifts have made it easier for the right to win. But the biggest problem for the Israeli left is that it’s tethered to its own version of ObamaCare in the form of the Palestinian Authority which won’t make peace, won’t stop funding terrorism and won’t stop playing the victim. As with ObamaCare, the Israeli left teeters between...

Former Likud MK Moshe Kahlon will indeed be running for the Knesset – and on Wednesday evening, he introduced his new party to Israelis. The party's name will be “Kulanu,” meaning “all of us.” The name is reminiscent of the campaign phrase used by Ehud Barak in his campaign for the Prime Minister's position in 1999, when he said that he would be the leader of “kulam” - everyone. Kahlon did not announced the names of any of the candidates who would be running with him. However, he said, his slogan to the voters would be “Be like Kahlon” (“Tihyu...

MK Danny Danon, who heads the Likud Central Committee, on Tuesday evening said that elections could have been prevented, and said he hoped the Likud will learn the lesson from the coalition collapse. "The makeup of the coalition undermined the governance, the mistake was that instead of forming a government with Bennett and the hareidi parties, [Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu] first of all added Tzipi Livni. That was a mistake, and we saw that Livni and Lapid did nothing but mess things up,” Danon told Arutz Sheva, hours after Netanyahu fired Finance Minister Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) and Justice Minister...

Noting the "personal attack" directed towards him by Netanyahu - who accused Lapid and Livni of leading a "putsch" from within the coalition - Lapid insisted on issuing a response of his own. "Yesterday you stood in front of the entire nation and announced that you were dragged the State of Israel into unnecessary elections that no one but you wanted, because you are detached. You live in your own aquarium," Lapid fired. Lapid further accused the PM of preferring "to paralyze the economy" via snap elections, rather than to come to an agreement with him over the budget, and...

Eighty-four MKs support measure, which also passes first reading; Livni lashes ‘hysterical’ Netanyahu; Arab party leaders say they’ll unite Knesset members voted overwhelmingly in favor of dissolving the current Knesset in a preliminary vote on Wednesday. Eighty-four MKs supported the measure, none opposed it, and one Knesset member abstained. A first reading of the bill later Wednesday was also approved, with all 22 Knesset members present voting in favor. The move will be finalized on Monday with second and third readings. Knesset faction leaders agreed on March 17, 2015, as the date for new elections, in a meeting with Knesset...

PM says he took a 'personal risk' firing Lapid and Livni, but said they had made it impossible to govern; calls for snap elections. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the nation on Tuesday night shortly after 8 p.m., less than two hours after firing coalition members Finance Minister Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni (Hatnua), effectively disbanding the government. "I turn to you tonight because in the current situation, in the current government, it is impossible to lead the nation," said Netanyahu, saying the impasse is preventing him from fulfilling his role as prime minister. While Netanyahu...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the nation on Tuesday night shortly after 8 p.m., less than two hours after firing coalition members Finance Minister Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni (Hatnua), effectively disbanding the government. "I turn to you tonight because in the current situation, in the current government, it is impossible to lead the nation," said Netanyahu, saying the impasse is preventing him from fulfilling his role as prime minister. While Netanyahu called it "one of the best governments, one of the most stable governments in the history of Israel," adding it was "a true unity...

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni on Tuesday let loose at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying the impending elections will "not be over zero value added tax," but over replacing a government she accused of "extremism, provocativeness and paranoia" without knowing how to fight terror while also "upholding freedom and Zionism."

None of this is a shock in the world of Israeli politics - the current coalition government is the 33rd to be created in the 66 years since the foundation of the state. You do not need the powerful graphics computer of an election night TV programme to tell you that two years is around the average life of a coalition arrangement. At least one poll has suggested that most Israelis are not convinced that it was really necessary to dissolve Parliament and the influential newspaper Haaretz has described the coming elections as superfluous. (snip) One unpredictable factor is the...