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About midnight, on October 21st, a man wielding a knife lunged at a border patrol officer. The assailant was shot four times. Did you hear about this incident? Probably not. That’s because the incident took place took place not somewhere in Israel, where all incidents of this type are recorded and broadcast around the world, but at the border crossing in Calexico, California, just across the border from Mexicali, Mexico. The reason the man was shot by a Border & Patrol Protection officer and, subsequently, died from his wounds, should be obvious. People wielding knives and lunging at police—or anyone...

The Obama administration on Monday hurried to express its opposition to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tentative talk of revoking the permanent residency status of tens of thousands of Arabs living in East Jerusalem. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that, as far as the US government knows, Israel is not actively considering such a move. But if it were, he said, “it would obviously be of some concern to us.” The US, Earnest went on, reiterates the “importance of all sides avoiding provocative actions and rhetoric.” Netanyahu discussed the idea in vague terms at a Knesset committee meeting earlier Monday,...

Politico Magazine published an excerpt from Ambassador Dennis Ross’ latest book “Doomed to Succeed: The US–Israeli relationship from Truman to Obama,” which highlighted how President Barack Obama succeeded with the Iran Deal at the expense of the two allies’ relationship. According to Ross, National Security Adviser Susan Rice told the national director of the Anti-Defamation League Abe Foxman that in reacting to the deal, which Israel knew little about, Netanyahu did everything “but use ‘the n-word’ in describing the president.” In his book, Ross argues that “It didn’t have to play out that way.” Per Politico: From the outset of...

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to the UN General Assembly this week, neither Secretary of State Kerry nor even our UN Ambassador, Samantha Power, was present. Why not? The State Department has said Kerry was involved in some kind of conference call or video conference with the White House. OK, let’s call that plausible. What about Power? Rick Grenell, for years the spokesman at the US Mission to the UN and a very well-informed observer, tweeted yesterday that Power was instructed to stay away. Think of how petty that instruction, which can only have come from the White...

Breitbart News has learned that President Obama called Secretary of State John Kerry and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power into a video conference before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday. “Ambassador Power and Secretary Kerry were unable to attend Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech before the General Assembly because they were called into a meeting with President Obama, which they participated in via video teleconference,” a State Department Official told Breitbart News. Although they were both in New York for the United Nations General Assembly meetings, the two high-ranking...

President Barack Obama on Thursday spoke to American rabbis in a pre-Rosh Hashanah phone call, and told them that security talks with Israel had resumed and he hoped to meet with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu by early next month, The Forward reports. In his annual pre-High Holidays call to the rabbis, Obama said that he was ready to meet with Netanyahu during the United Nations General Assembly opening session, which starts next week and runs through October 6. “Our consultations have already begun with Israeli military and intelligence officials,” Obama said, according to The Forward. “My hope is to have...

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...

The international community does not believe that Israel is serious about a two-state solution, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has placed so many conditions to its establishment that it is unrealistic to think it could come into existence in the near future, US President Barack Obama said Tuesday. Obama, in a Channel 2 interview, said that Netanyahu was “fairly unequivocal” in his statement the day before the election that a Palestinian state would not emerge under his watch. Since then, Obama said, Netanyahu has made comments indicating that there is a possibility of a Palestinian state, but added so many...

President Barack Obama is continuing his criticism of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s comments on a Palestinian state and Arab-Israelis before the last elections. In an interview with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, Obama said that the security relationship between the United States and Israel will remain strong, but reiterated that there will be “consequences” from Netanyahu’s remarks. “In every public pronouncement I’ve made, I said that the bedrock security relationships between our two countries—these are sacrosanct. Military cooperation, intelligence cooperation—none of that has been affected. I have maintained, and I think I can show that no U.S. president has...

What does the State Department’s Wendy Sherman do with her spare time when not negotiating weak nuclear deals with rogue regimes? The same as the rest of the Obama foreign-policy team: threaten Israel with diplomatic isolation at the United Nations. Sherman issued some thinly veiled threats yesterday in remarks to a gathering of Reform movement leaders in which she made clear that the administration expects the next Israeli government to do its bidding with respect to supporting a two-state solution with the Palestinians. While there’s nothing new about this insistence, Sherman’s language followed the same pattern as other remarks issued...

The whole Netanyahu demonization narrative is an attempt to distract from what really happened. A lot of money spent in a failed effort to steal an election. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s campaign manager is predicting a wave of outside spending in future Israeli elections.“I think in every election campaign from this point onward, you’ll see external groups slugging the market. It’ll be very interesting,” Netanyahu’s top strategist, Aron Shaviv, told The Hill.During the campaign, Netanyahu allies decried the influence of foreigners, a group that saw a higher profile this year, arguing they found a loophole by not directly supporting...

In a development that has largely been missed by mainstream media, the Pentagon early last month quietly declassified a Department of Defense top-secret document detailing Israel's nuclear program, a highly covert topic that Israel has never formally announced to avoid a regional nuclear arms race, and which the US until now has respected by remaining silent. But by publishing the declassified document from 1987, the US reportedly breached the silent agreement to keep quiet on Israel's nuclear powers for the first time ever, detailing the nuclear program in great depth. The timing of the revelation is highly suspect, given that...

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s senior advisers have described the relationship between the Obama Administration and the Israeli government as “irreparable,” the UK’s Jewish Chronicle reported on Thursday. Their dire evaluation comes on the heels of weeks of hostility from the White House and State Department towards Netanyahu, a situation which has intensified since Netanyahu’s Likud party won the largest amount of Knesset seats in Israel’s general election last week. Less than 24 hours after polls closed in Israel, and Likud’s win became evident, the administration was already openly talking about a “reevaluation” of the relationship with Israel. The stance was...

A source in the Prime Minister’s office said that PM Netanyahu is not planning to replace Israel’s Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer, according to Galey Tzahal. The Obama administration, besides their open dislike for Netanyahu, apparently aren’t enamored by Ambassador Ron Dermer either, and the administration has purportedly demanded that Netanyahu replace him. The source was responding to the rumors that Dermer would instead be made Ambassador to the UN, and either Yuval Steinitz or Ron Prosor would replace him.

Historian reveals the key clashes between US presidents and Israeli prime ministers, and why none have been as bad as the current one. The current diplomatic crisis between Israel and US President Barack Obama's administration is the most vicious and public yet among only a handful of crises that have marred the close, long-running relationship, says an expert on relations between the two nations. Obama's frosty relationship with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu hit new lows this month, with the White House criticizing remarks Netanyahu made on election day, in which he said a Palestinian state would not be founded if...

RUSH: The Israeli election is today. They had kind of a shocking thing happen yesterday. Here's what's going on. Arabs are being bussed in to the polls to vote. Israel is surrounded by people that don't want it to exist. Surrounded by people that would just as soon obliterate, not just the real estate, but the people who live there. And I would think everybody in Israeli knows it. I don't see, in a sane world, how Netanyahu's opposition in any way even gets close to winning, but they might. It just goes to show -- I don't know whether...

According to the April 18, 2013 U.K. Telegraph: "Mr Kerry, the US secretary of state, told the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday that the 'window' for a two state solution was 'shutting'. 'I think we have some period of time, a year, a year-and-a-half, or two years and it's over,' he said." And what happened two years after Mr. Kerry's prophecy that at the maximum, after two years, the two-state solution is "over"? On March 16, 2015, Netanyahu asserted that there won't be a Palestinian state. And then, a funny thing happened. Instead of rejoicing at...

The Obama administration toed a hard line Monday against Benjamin Netanyahu for his comments about Israeli Arabs and Palestinian statehood leading up to Israel’s election last week, but downplayed concerns over “death to America” remarks Iran’s supreme leader made over the weekend. The White House also seemed to warmly welcome input from 367 House members reiterating Congress‘ role in reaching a final nuclear agreement with Tehran, despite its vigorous attacks on an earlier letter to the Iranian leadership from 47 GOP senators explaining that any deal Iran may strike with the U.S. needs to be submitted to Congress to be...

President Obama is angry with Israeli voters for re-electing Benjamin Netanyahu, and he’s willing to risk the lives and security of Israeli citizens to show it. The State Department is reportedly considering reversing the decades-long policy of protecting Israel’s security at the United Nations and is threatening to allow the Security Council to compel Israel to enter forced negotiations with Hamas-controlled Palestine. This action would be reckless—and shameful. At a time when anti-Semitic attacks are rocking Europe, and the need for a secure, Jewish state has rarely been more apparent, the Obama administration would force Israel to negotiate with entities...

The White House's latest tirade against Israel is due to revenge over failed V15 campaign, to distract Americans from Iran, source says. U.S. President Barack Obama delivers 2015 State of the Union address U.S. President Barack Obama delivers 2015 State of the Union addressReuters US-Israel relations have been especially tense over the past several days, with US President Barack Obama giving a particularly cold reception to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's re-election last week. The many harsh statements that have been made over the past week are not in a vacuum, according to a senior diplomat - who claims that the...