Vladimir Putin has few allies in his war against Ukraine. The democracies of East Asia, Europe and North America are against him, and have imposed unprecedented economic sanctions. Almost the entire rest of the world has condemned the invasion.
A few countries are reluctant, or have outright refused, to take a stand. I asked the Atlantic Sentinel‘s China, India, Israel and South America experts to explain why. (more…)
Israel’s new left-right coalition has suffered its first defeat in the Knesset.
Amichai Chikli, a member of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s Yamina (Rightward) party, sided with the largely conservative opposition to block an extension of the family reunification law.
Two members of the governing United Arab List, known by its Hebrew acronym Ra’am, abstained, arguing a proposed compromise, which would have granted residency to some 1,600 Palestinian families, did not go far enough.
Without their support, the vote ended in a 59-59 tie, which means the law expires. (more…)
Benjamin Netanyahu is finally on the way out after clinging to power through four elections in two years.
The Likud party leader has been Israel’s prime minister since 2009 following a three-year term in the 1990s.
He is facing trial on three charges of bribery and fraud, has disparaged journalists, vilified prosectors and judges, and politicized Israel’s vital relationship with the United States. Republicans adore Netanyahu, but Democrats have become less unanimous in their support of his country.
It’s why I’ve urged his rivals to do a deal with Arab parties, who have been largely excluded from power in the Jewish state. To deny Netanyahu a sixth term requires breaking that taboo. (more…)
Israel’s center-left has a chance to eject Benjamin Netanyahu after twelve years of right-wing government — if they are willing to make a deal with Arab parties.
Deals with non-Zionist parties are almost taboo in Israel, which is 75 percent Jewish. This permanently excludes the 20 percent of Israelis who are Arab from power.
Little wonder Arab turnout is consistently low and fell below 50 percent on Tuesday, according to estimates. (more…)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud is projected to place first in Israel’s parliamentary election with 31 to 33 seats, down from 37.
Yamina, a new right-wing party led by former economy minister Naftali Bennett, would hold the balance of power in the new Knesset with seven or eight seats, according to exit polls.
61 seats are needed for a majority. (more…)
Parliamentary elections are held in Israel on Tuesday. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conservative Likud is projected to place first with around thirty seats, down from 37. Twelve other parties are expected to cross the 3.25 percent electoral threshold, including two new parties on the right.
I asked our man in Tel Aviv, Ariel Reichard, for comment. (more…)
Left-wing Americans weren’t happy when the Democratic Party nominated the center-left Joe Biden for the presidency, but, unlike in 2016, few sat out the election.
Nor there were major spoiler candidates on the right. Voting for Hillary Clinton was apparently too much to ask of five million Donald Trump skeptics in 2016, who voted for libertarian Gary Johnson or conservative Evan McMullin. They could have tipped the election in Clinton’s favor.
In 2020, Democrats wisely nominated the least divisive old white guy they could find and anti-Trumpers voted like the republic depended on it. Biden won fifteen million more votes than Clinton and flipped five states, handing him a comfortable Electoral College victory.
Hungarians and Israelis hoping to get rid of their “Trumps” must take note. (more…)
I haven’t been Donald Trump’s greatest fan, but for once he deserves praise: for facilitating the normalization of ties between Israel and two of its Arab neighbors.
In a treaty signed at the White House on Tuesday, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates entered into diplomatic relations with the Jewish state for the first time.
Only Egypt and Jordan had so far. Other Arab states do not accept Israeli passports and do not exchange embassies with Tel Aviv.
We don’t know how involved Trump was in the negotiations, and the agreements fall short of what he calls a “peace deal”. The countries weren’t at war.
But it’s a significant step and a welcome departure from previous presidents, who allowed the Palestinians a veto over Arab-Israeli relations. (more…)
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu saw the largest protests against him in nearly a decade on Saturday, when some 10,000 rallied outside his residence in Jerusalem and outside his private home in the coastal town of Caesarea.
The protesters are upset about Netanyahu’s handling of the outbreak of coronavirus in Israel and his remaining in power despite standing trial for corruption.
Similar demonstrations took place in Tel Aviv last month. (more…)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declared intention to annex the West Bank has sparked intense debate in Israel. Although many Israelis seem to favor annexation, the consensus among security experts, including military professionals, is that such a move would have severe negative repercussions for the Jewish state’s security, its standing in the world and the prospects of peace with the Palestinians.
They fear Netanyahu will pander to right-wing voters, emboldened by the American president, Donald Trump, whose own peace plan would allow Israel to annex up to 30 percent of the West Bank, including the Jordan Valley, in exchange for ceding territories on the Egyptian border to a Palestinian state. (A part of the plan Netanyahu has, unsurprisingly, said nothing about.) (more…)
Donald Trump has finally unveiled his “deal of the century” for peace and prosperity in the Middle East — and set the region ablaze with criticism.
The president’s plan recognizes Israeli control over most, if not all, of the settlements in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), excludes most of Jerusalem from a future Palestinian state and accepts Israel’s position that “refugees” (the descendants of Palestinians who were displaced in the 1948 war) will be resettled outside Israel.
In return for accepting these conditions and renouncing terrorism and incitement, the Palestinians would receive a municipality-sized, demilitarized and completely dependent “state.” (more…)
Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have all made their beds with Donald Trump. That’s paying dividends for them, but only so long as this president remains in power. What happens in two or six years? (more…)
When Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu called early elections in December, he was probably expecting to shore up his mandate and escape allegations of corruption.
But the decision galvanized his opponents. Three former generals set aside their differences and teamed up with the opposition in a bid to oust Netanyahu, who has been in office since 2009.
It is starting to look like Netanyahu miscalculated. (more…)
I wasn’t expecting this to happen so soon.
Last month, I urged the Israeli right to stop hectoring President Barack Obama and the Democrats lest they politicize support for the Jewish state in America.
Turns out they already have.
The Pew Research Center finds that Democrats are now nearly as likely to sympathize with the Palestinians as they do with Israel.
74 percent of Republicans take Israel’s side. Only 33 percent of Democrats do, against 31 percent who say they sympathize more with the Palestinian people.
Republicans have for decades been more supportive of Israel, but until recently only one in five Democrats said they sympathized with the Palestinians. (more…)
With less than a month left in his presidency, Barack Obama has managed to infuriate the Israeli right by hardening America’s stance on the construction of West Bank settlements.
Whatever the merits of their quarrel with the American president, though — and there are leftwingers in Israel and Jewish supporters of Obama in the United States who are disappointed as well — the over-the-top reaction from the Israeli right is unjustified and, more importantly, ill-advised.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who leads Israel’s ruling Likud party, accused the Obama Administration of not only failing to protect Israel at the United Nations (as if it has an obligation to), but of colluding in a diplomatic “gang-up” to pass a Security Council resolution that condemns Jewish settlement activity in territory that the rest of the world considers occupied.
The same line was trotted out by lower-ranking officials and the same conspiracy theory was peddled in the Israeli right-wing press.
It is also a distraction. The “how” (and Obama officials maintain they were only marginally involved in drafting the resolution) is less important than the thing itself: the fact that the United States, for the first time in 35 years, allowed a UN resolution criticizing Jewish settlements to pass. (more…)
