tagged w/ Benyamin Netanyahu
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Jerusalem’s police have tapped a controversial figure who has been accused of torturing an Arab detainee and threatening East Jerusalem activists as its new adviser on Arab affairs, drawing condemnation from Israeli-Palestinian legislators and human-rights groups.Jerusalem’s police have tapped a controversial figure who has been accused of... more
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The contents of a secretly recorded video threaten to gravely embarrass Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Obama administration. The film was shot, apparently without Netanyahu’s knowledge, nine years ago. In it, he boasts that he deceived the US president at the time, Bill Clinton, into believing he was helping implement the Oslo accords, the US-sponsored peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, by making minor withdrawals from the West Bank while actually entrenching the occupation. He brags that he thereby destroyed the Oslo process.The contents of a secretly recorded video threaten to gravely embarrass Israeli Prime... more
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Israel's Army Radio reported this past week that the United States has sent Israel a secret document committing to nuclear cooperation between the two countries.Israel's Army Radio reported this past week that the United States has sent... more
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Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s far-right foreign minister, set out this past week what he called a “blueprint for a resolution to the conflict” with the Palestinians that demands most of the country’s large Palestinian minority be stripped of citizenship and relocated outside Israel’s future borders.Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s far-right foreign minister, set out this past week... more
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A deputy to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this past week that their country is ready for a war on Iran.A deputy to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this past week that their... more
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Polls show Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni winning next week's party primary and positioning herself to become Israel's first female prime minister since Golda Meir.
A survey in Israel's Yediot Ahronot daily on Friday showed Livni with a 15 per cent lead over her main rival, Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, in the ruling Kadima Party's Sept. 17 primary.
The poll included 850 Kadima members and had a margin of error of 4.5 points.
Kadima is choosing a new leader to replace Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is stepping down because of a series of corruption investigations. Elected in 2006, Olmert was supposed to serve until 2010.
A poll in the Maariv daily gave Livni an 18.8 per cent lead over Mofaz, a former military chief of staff and defense minister. The poll included 400 Kadima members and the margin of error was 4.9 points.
In the race, Mofaz has played up his defense credentials and cultivated a tough image. Livni owes her popularity mainly to her reputation for honesty, which resonates with Israelis fed up with a string of corruption charges against public figures.
A fifty-year-old former lawyer who served a brief stint in the Mossad spy agency, Livni has served in a number of Cabinet posts and is currently Israel's lead negotiator in peace talks with the Palestinians.
She spent much of her career as a member of the hawkish Likud Party, and she is the daughter of a famous fighter of the early militant Zionist group Irgun.
However, she has carved a niche for herself as a leading moderate since leaving Likud along with former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon when he set up the centrist Kadima Party in 2005.
Whoever wins next week's primary would have to cobble together a new coalition in order to become prime minister. If not, the country will hold national elections and Olmert will remain as a caretaker leader in the meantime.
Polls show that if elections were held now the winner would be Benjamin Netanyahu and his hardline Likud Party. That would cast doubt on the continuation of the peace talks Olmert and Livni have been holding with the Palestinians.
If she does become prime minister, Livni would become only the second woman to lead Israel. The first was Meir, a member of Israel's founding generation who governed from 1969 to 1974. Polls show Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni winning next week's party primary and... more
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