Knesset votes to dissolve parliament after Benjamin Netanyahu fails to form new government
Israel’s parliament has voted to dissolve itself after Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a government, in a move that will lead to a second round of elections just one month after the country held a national poll.
At a suspenseful gathering that ended weeks of unsuccessful bartering and brinkmanship, the Knesset voted to disperse and call new elections, set for 17 September.
Continue reading...Israeli PM has until midnight to form government but no breakthrough in sight
Benjamin Netanyahu has until midnight to form a new ruling coalition or face the possible end of his decade of leadership of Israel.
As the hours ticked by, there was no sign of a breakthrough in talks with the far-right former defence minister Avigdor Lieberman. Missing the deadline could end the prime minister’s bid to lead the next government, a scenario he intends to avoid by preemptively triggering another election.
Continue reading...Israeli PM needs support of religious and nationalist parties to form government
Benjamin Netanyahu has played a last-minute gambit to persuade politicians to help him form a government, threatening to call fresh Israeli elections if deadlocked negotiations do not succeed.
The prime minister and his rightwing and religious allies won a general election just last month, but the leader is required to announce a new coalition by Wednesday, a deadline mandated by law. If he fails, the Israeli president may assign another legislator to attempt the task.
Continue reading...Air and tank strikes kill 19 Palestinians after Netanyahu orders ‘massive attacks’, while rockets kill four in Israel
Militants in Gaza and Israeli forces engaged in a bloody and spiralling clash over the weekend, with Palestinian factions launching hundreds of rockets towards towns and cities in Israel, which retaliated with more than 250 strikes.
In exchanges that marked some of the worst fighting in recent years, 19 Palestinians, including two pregnant women and a toddler, have been killed since hostilities began on Friday, the health ministry in Gaza said. The dead included at least eight militants and a Hamas commander killed in the first targeted assassination Israel has conducted in the strip for years.
Continue reading...For as long as she can remember, Mary Giacaman, a Christian Palestinian, has watched the outcome of the Israeli election on TV. “But not this year,” she explained. “It was too depressing, and anyway I knew what would happen.”
This Holy Week, the 56-year-old Catholic will be attending mass each morning as usual at Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity across the square from her olive wood carved souvenir shop; she will spend a festive Easter day with her sons, daughters and six grandchildren. If nothing else, it will be a welcome distraction from a “very bad” election result, which saw a decisive victory for prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Continue reading...Ultranationalist PM has been at heart of backlash against peace efforts during 13 years in power
It was a win by the slimmest margin. Back in 1996, Benjamin Netanyahu took the Israeli election by less than 1% of the total votes.
Twenty-three years later, he has pulled off more knife-edge election acrobatics, securing a fifth term even though he tied in the election, after his main rival conceded.
Continue reading...US president tweeted a picture of people waving Trump banners at the Israeli leader’s election celebrations
Donald Trump welcomed Benjamin Netanyahu’s election victory by underlining the personal alliance between the two men, tweeting a picture of people waving Trump banners at the Israeli leader’s celebrations.
Related: 'The future is dark': Palestinians react to Israel's election
Continue reading...Benjamin Netanyahu has already begun to broker deals with religious and far-right parties
Benjamin Netanyahu is set to serve a fifth term as Israel’s prime minister after his main rival conceded that he had lost the election.
With 97% of votes counted, Netanyahu’s Likud party and the Blue and White party, led by former army general Benny Gantz, had tied with 35 seats each in the 120-seat house, the Knesset. However, the rightwing bloc that Netanyahu is part of had 65 in total, a comfortable majority.
Continue reading...Benny Gantz has conceded, meaning Benjamin Netanyahu will serve a fifth term as prime minister
With 97% of votes counted, the prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party are tied on seats won.
Continue reading...Election victory gives Israeli PM confidence he will get his way on Iran and Palestine
His supporters call him a magician. And there is truly something uncanny about how Benjamin Netanyahu has conjured up three-way US, Russian and Arab support for his hardline security and nationalist agenda. For a small country, Israel packs an ever bigger punch – and pugnacious Bibi’s likely fifth term presages a new era of escalating confrontation.
First in line for the Netanyahu treatment is Iran. He claimed credit on Monday for Donald Trump’s unprecedented decision to brand Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, including its al-Quds force, a foreign terrorist organisation. The provocative move, akin to singling out the US marine corps for punishment, bought a vengeful riposte from Tehran.
Continue reading...Polling suggests the race for prime minister will be tight, as Benjamin Netanyahu runs against Benny Gantz
Our correspondent, Oliver Holmes, has this wrap of the night’s results.
Related: Israel election: Netanyahu appears on track for victory despite tied result
It appears that Arab parties have lost three seats in the Knesset in this election, after calls within the Arab community, which makes up almost a fifth of Israel’s population, to boycott the election.
Likud was censured on Tuesday for sending monitors with body-cameras to polling stations with Arab constituents, which Arab politicians condemned as voter intimidation. A Likud party official defended the move, saying the cameras were deployed to ensure there would be no vote rigging.
Continue reading...Major parties neck and neck but incumbent has path to form majority government with right-wing allies
Benjamin Netanyahu was on track on Wednesday morning to become Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, despite his Likud party winning the same number of seats as his rivals.
With 97% of votes counted, both Likud and the Blue and White party, led by former army general Benny Gantz, had won 35 seats in the 120-seat parliament, the Knesset.
Continue reading...With the final votes still being counted, both Benjamin Netanyahu's rightwing Likud and Benny Gantz's more centrist Blue and White party have declared victory. Both are currently tied at 35 seats, which is far below the 60 seats required for a majority in the Knesset. But Likud's right-wing coalition partner options are stronger than the left-wing allies available for the Blue and White party, which gives Likud and Netanyahu a slight advantage in the negotiations to come over the next few days.
The Israeli prime minister is a master storyteller. But his narrative is raising a generation for whom peace would mean betrayal
Israel is a land of storytellers. Authors such as Amos Oz and David Grossman are acclaimed worldwide, and the political thriller Fauda has the nation well and truly addicted. But the best storyteller in our country is Benjamin Netanyahu. The prime minister’s talent allows him to construct a narrative so realistic, one could actually believe in it. Above all, it is his great skill in manipulating characters that makes him transcend mere politics. In fact, I would hazard a guess that Netanyahu is the best storyteller in the world.
The word “storyteller” might sound disrespectful. In the streets where I grew up, in the heart of Tel Aviv, it was usually used as an insult. Jewish mamas want their sons to be doctors, not storytellers. But storytelling is a very serious business. In the case of Netanyahu, you could say it’s deadly serious.
Continue reading...Election seen as a referendum on Benjamin Netanyahu, who could almost certainly become Israel’s longest-serving leader
Israelis are due to cast their votes on Tuesday in an election that could end Benjamin Netanyahu’s astonishing 10-year uninterrupted run as prime minister. Or he will be re-elected, virtually guaranteeing him the title of Israel’s longest-ever serving leader.
Continue reading...The Israeli PM’s West Bank annexation idea is likely to have had the nod from Trump
Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledge to expand Israeli sovereignty over the occupied West Bank was short on specifics. It looks, at first glance, like a typical piece of Bibi electoral gamesmanship, designed to attract rightwing and nationalist voters – and boost his hopes of tipping the balance in Tuesday’s closely fought national polls.
But Netanyahu is not simply playing politics. He has previously flirted with annexation of Judea and Samaria, as the Israeli government calls the West Bank, as part of an apparent drive to prevent the creation of a viable Palestinian state. A Haaretz poll last month found 42% of Israelis supported West Bank annexation. Netanyahu also recently suggested that Israel, in extremis, might reoccupy the Gaza Strip.
Continue reading...Israeli prime minister’s pledge seen as a rallying call in tight election race
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has pledged to annex Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories if he wins his country’s election on Tuesday, a dramatic last-minute rallying call to his nationalist base.
In interviews with domestic media ahead of the polls, Netanyahu repeated his promise and said he would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state by “controlling the entire area”.
Continue reading...It is difficult not to marvel at the scale of Benjamin Netanyahu’s personal achievement. Israel’s prime minister celebrates 10 consecutive years in power on 31 March. His country’s youngest-ever leader in 1996, he has been re-elected three times since 2009, matching David Ben-Gurion’s record. As matters stand, he has a good chance of winning again in polls on 9 April.
Netanyahu’s political achievement is altogether less marvellous. Under his grimly negative, fearful tutelage, Israeli society has shifted steadily rightwards. Attitudes to a peace settlement with the Palestinians have perceptibly hardened. Thanks in large part to Netanyahu’s uncompromising stance, the issue no longer occupies centre stage as it once did.
Continue reading...Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu hails Rafi Eitan as a hero of the intelligence services
Rafi Eitan, a renowned and controversial Israeli spymaster who masterminded the capture of Adolf Eichmann, one of the key architects of the Holocaust, has died aged 92.
The Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu called him a “hero of the Israeli intelligence services”.
Continue reading...Donald Trump has announced that the US will recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in 1967, in a dramatic move likely to bolster Benjamin Netanyahu’s hopes to win re-election, but which will also provoke international opposition.
Previous US administrations have treated Golan Heights as occupied Syrian territory, in line with UN security council resolutions. Trump declared his break with that policy in a tweet.
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