By Bassam Tawil, Gatestone Institute— One week after he entered the 17th year of his four-year term in office, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas finally announced new parliamentary and presidential elections, scheduled to take place in May and July 2021. His announcement was carefully timed to coincide with the inauguration week of President Joe Biden…
By TOI Staff— Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Saturday to extend Israeli sovereignty to the settlements of the West Bank if he is re-elected in Tuesday’s elections. Flatly ruling out Palestinian statehood, which he said would “endanger our existence,” Netanyahu promised to permanently maintain overall Israeli security control in the West Bank and to…
By Dov Lieber, Times of Israel— The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations threatened to exact revenge on the US at the world body should President-elect Donald Trump make good on his promise to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Boasting that the Palestinians have a variety of tools at their disposal…
By Times of Israel Staff, Times of Israel— Russia on Thursday confirmed that it had been in touch with President-elect Donald Trump’s team during the election campaign, the privately-owned Interfax Russian news agency reported. The terse announcement quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying, “Russia had contacts with Trump team, this work…
By Israel Today Staff, Israel Today— Israeli politicians and commentators, like most others around the world, woke up Wednesday morning in shock over Donald Trump’s upset victory in the US presidential election. But Israel was probably one of the few countries where most people viewed Trump’s win as a good surprise. For months, local polls…
BY ILAN BEN ZION AND STUART WINER, Times of Israel— Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday congratulated Donald Trump on his election victory, saying the Republican is “a true friend of the State of Israel.” Netanyahu’s remarks were released a few hours after Trump proclaimed victory over his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, in a surprise…
By Eric Cortellessa, Times of Israel— CLEVELAND — Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa has a tendency to ignite controversy. He once advocated building a wall along the US-Mexico border with an electrical wire, saying it would “be a discouragement” for illegal immigrants to cross over, and added, “We do that with livestock all the time.”…
By Herb Keinon, JPOST— Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump – who said in February he wanted to be a “neutral guy” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – selected as his running mate a man who told The Jerusalem Post that the US should not be an “honest broker” in the Mideast, but rather let the…
By Jason Greenblatt, CNN— It seems to be a regular feature of the U.S presidential election cycle: Candidates from both parties solemnly pledge to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, only to sidestep the issue upon taking office. Shouldn’t the selection of a capital city rest solely with the people of the country who reside there? Donald…
By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz, Breaking Israel News— Donald Trump‘s Israel adviser, David Friedman, announced that his boss would probably support an Israeli decision to annex all of Judea and Samaria if Israel deemed it necessary. Friedman made this thrilling revelation in an interview with Haaretz News on Thursday. He also stated that Trump would not…