Category Archives: Naftali Bennett

Putin promised me he would not kill Zelenskiy, says former Israeli PM

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Naftali Bennett says Putin also dropped vow to seek disarmament of Ukraine and Zelenskiy agreed to give up on joining Nato

The former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett has said in an interview that Vladimir Putin told him he would not try to kill Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a promise made during a trip to Moscow shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine last year.

Speaking on a podcast with the Israeli journalist Hanoch Daum, published on Sunday, Bennett said he received assurance from Putin that the Ukrainian president’s life was not at risk during a secretive visit to the Russian capital last March aimed at mediation during the war’s early days.

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Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu comeback brings despair for leftwing parties

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Outgoing coalition suffers poor election result as some parties of the left lose voice in Knesset altogether

Israel’s leftwing and pro-Arab-rights parties have been left licking their wounds in the aftermath of this week’s election. When vote-counting finished on Thursday, the former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right partners had won by a comfortable majority.

Last summer a broad coalition succeeded in their mutual desire to kick Netanyahu, leader of Likud, out of office. He is currently standing trial on corruption charges.

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Israel braces for fifth election in less than four years

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Poll set for October after collapse of short-lived coalition that ousted Benjamin Netanyahu from office

Israel is set for its fifth election in less than four years after the approval of a bill to dissolve parliament, following the collapse of a short-lived coalition government that banded together to oust the longtime prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu from office.

Members of the Knesset voted unanimously on Tuesday in favour of the bill, with a deadline of midnight on Wednesday for it to be finalised as law.

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Israel set for general election after collapse of weakened government

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Country faces fifth vote in three years after Naftali Bennett’s unruly anti-Netanyahu grouping gradually fell apart

Israel’s weakened coalition government has announced that it intends to dissolve the Knesset, setting the stage for the country’s fifth election in three years and a potential return to office for longtime prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A statement released by the office of the prime minister, Naftali Bennett, on Monday night said that “attempts to stabilise the coalition had been exhausted” and his fractious government, made up of eight ideologically disparate parties, will submit a bill next week to dissolve parliament.

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A year after ousting, Israel’s Netanyahu gets ready for a comeback

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Analysis: the ex-prime minister is eager to exploit the weakness in the fraying coalition that replaced him

On 13 June 2021, Benjamin Netanyahu made his final address to the Knesset as prime minister. In a proud and bitter half-hour speech, he recounted his successes during 12 years in power and warned of existential threats facing Israel under the incoming coalition government. He also stressed that his conservative Likud party would be back in office soon.

“I will lead you in a daily battle against this bad, dangerous, leftwing government to topple it,” Netanyahu cried, amid heckling and jeers from the plenum. “With God’s help, that will happen much sooner than you think.”

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Israel’s coalition on brink of collapse after losing settler law vote

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Nationalist party New Hope threatens to exit arrangement after vote on West Bank settlers

Israel’s coalition government is teetering on the brink of collapse after a dramatic Knesset showdown over legislation to extend legal protections for settlers in the occupied West Bank.

In what was variously described by Israeli media as “one of the most surreal votes in Israeli history” and “political suicide”, the first reading of a bill renewing civilian legal rights for Jewish settlers in the West Bank failed to pass on Monday night.

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Israeli coalition dealt a blow with loss of West Bank settler law vote

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Two members of government vote against extending emergency regulations, which give 475,000 Jewish settlers the same rights as citizens in Israel

Israel’s government suffered a defeat at the hands of the opposition on Monday when it voted down a push to uphold Israeli law in settlements on the occupied West Bank, posing a challenge for the ruling coalition.

In force since Israel’s 1967 occupation of the West Bank, the law, giving settlers there the same rights as citizens in Israel, is automatically ratified by parliament every five years. But two members of the broad coalition, a member of the Arab Ra’am party and a member of the leftist Meretz party, voted at first reading against the bill.

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Shireen Abu Aqleh: ‘Cold-blooded’ killing and funeral chaos leave West Bank in turmoil

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World criticism mounts over the shooting of Al Jazeera journalist as dispute over chain of events grows

Nahed Araf Imran and her husband Jamal were exhausted but excited on Wednesday morning: Nahed was in labour with their third child at a local hospital in Nablus, in the north of the occupied West Bank.

But when Jamal’s mother arrived at the hospital crying just before the couple’s daughter was born, he knew something was wrong.

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Israel’s Naftali Bennett loses majority after MP quits coalition

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Idit Silman’s departure amid row over Passover bread leaves PM with same number of seats as opposition

A key member of Naftali Bennett’s Yamina party has quit the Israeli coalition government after a row about unleavened bread during Passover, in a surprise move that leaves the prime minister without a parliamentary majority.

Idit Silman’s announcement left Bennett’s coalition, an alliance of parties ranging from the Jewish right and Israeli doves to an Arab Muslim party, with 60 seats – the same as the opposition.

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The world leaders pushing for peace in Ukraine, and their motives

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They claim to be honest brokers, but is that just a fig leaf to cover their moral bankruptcy?

How blessed are the peacemakers? After the first wave of intermediaries led by Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, a new group have beaten their way to Vladimir Putin’s long table since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or at least sought to intervene by phone.

The current crop includes Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, president of Turkey, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohamed bin Zayed of the UAE and now the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi.

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Israel tries to balance backing for Ukrainians and not offending Russia

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Analysis: Criticism of invasion has been muted and officials yet to condemn Moscow for attack on Holocaust memorial

A week ago the sight was unthinkable: a memorial at the site of one of the worst massacres of the Holocaust, engulfed in smoke and flame from an airstrike.

Yet on Tuesday a Russian attack near the Babyn Yar memorial complex in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, achieved exactly that. Five people died in the strike targeting the television broadcast tower next door, while firefighters battled to extinguish a fire caused by the explosion in a building inside the Jewish cemetery.

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Israel’s PM, Naftali Bennett, to visit UAE to discuss deepening ties

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Talks between PM and crown prince of Abu Dhabi come after full diplomatic links brokered last year

Naftali Bennett is to make the first official visit by an Israeli prime minister to the United Arab Emirates since the two countries established diplomatic ties last year.

On Monday, Bennett will meet Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, crown prince of Abu Dhabi, to discuss “deepening the ties between Israel and the UAE, especially economic and regional issues,” his office said.

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Nothing can stop Iran’s World Cup heroes. Except war, of course…

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The ‘Persian Leopards’ are going great guns on the football field, but at nuclear talks in Vienna a far more dangerous game is being played

There is a strikingly topsy-turvy, Saturnalian feel to recent qualifying matches for the 2022 football World Cup. Saudi Arabia (population 35 million) beat China (population 1.4 billion). Canada lead the US in their group. Four-time winners Italy failed to defeat lowly Northern Ireland.

Pursuing an unbeaten run full of political symbolism, unfancied Iran are also over the moon after subjugating the neighbourhood, as is their habit. Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the UAE all succumbed to the soar‑away “Persian Leopards”.

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Reports of mysterious Mossad operation to find Israeli airman confirmed

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Israel prime minister tells Knesset of ‘bold’ mission concerned with fate of missing navigator Lt Col Ron Arad

The Israeli spy agency, the Mossad, launched a complex intelligence operation last month to find information on the whereabouts and fate of an Israeli airman who was shot down over southern Lebanon in 1986.

The existence of the operation to find Lt Col Ron Arad, a navigator on an Israeli jet whose plane went down during a bombing raid, was confirmed by the Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, who told the country’s parliament on Monday that he could share no more details of the “courageous mission”.

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Six Palestinian militants escape high-security Israeli prison – video

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Six Palestinian militants have broken out of a high-security Israeli prison in what the prime minister, Naftali Bennett, called a grave incident.

Israeli police and the military started a search after the escape from Gilboa prison in northern Israel on Monday.

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Six Palestinian militants escape from high-security Israeli prison

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Manhunt under way as prisons service says fugitives accessed passages under their cell

Six Palestinian militants have broken out of a high-security Israeli prison in what the prime minister, Naftali Bennett, called a grave incident.

Israeli police and the military started a search after the escape from Gilboa prison in northern Israel on Monday.

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Among ruins of bombed city towers, Gazans still reel from shock and pain

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Three months on from the devastating conflict, little has been rebuilt of the bombed high-rises that were homes and offices

Four years ago, Jehad Judah was pleased to be able to afford to buy his family a flat in al-Jalaa, a 14-storey building in downtown Gaza City. The upscale tower block was home to about 700 people as well as lawyers, computer software businesses and journalism bureaus belonging to the Associated Press of the US and Qatar’s Al Jazeera.

The 54-year-old bespectacled civil servant spent the first 30 years of his life living in the jumble of breeze-block housing of a nearby refugee camp. After he met his wife in 2001, the couple moved to Gaza to start a family. The Israeli and Egyptian blockade of the strip which came along a few years later made life in the city hard, but al-Jalaa still offered a decent standard of living, he said.

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Israel’s shadow war with Iran

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A spate of attacks on one of the world’s busiest shipping trade routes is part of an escalating tit-for-tat conflict playing out between Iran and Israel, says Martin Chulov, the Guardian’s Middle East correspondent

In the last week of July, an oil tanker managed by an Israeli company was making a routine journey from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates when it was hit by an explosive, believed to be a drone. Two men, a Romanian and a British national, were killed in the attack. The Israeli government immediately blamed Iran who has denied any part in it.

The Guardian’s Middle East correspondent, Martin Chulov, tells Nosheen Iqbal that it is the latest action in what is now a rapidly escalating ‘shadow war’ between Israel and Iran. With both countries under new leadership in recent weeks, there is an added layer of unpredictability to relations that have been tense for some time.

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Palestinians facing eviction from East Jerusalem offered deal

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Judge proposes compromise to settle dispute over home ownership with Israeli settlers in Sheikh Jarrah

Palestinian residents of the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah facing forcible eviction from their homes have been offered a compromise deal with Jewish settlers by Israel’s supreme court, in an unexpected development in the high-profile case.

The session on Monday, which was supposed to reach a final decision on whether to accept an appeal from four Palestinian families over eviction orders in the decades-old legal battle, was instead met with a surprise entreaty from the judges for the two sides to accept a “practical solution”.

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‘Highly likely’ Iran was behind fatal oil tanker attack – Dominic Raab

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Foreign secretary backs Israeli PM’s claims Iran was behind drone strike that killed Briton and Romanian

The UK has said it is “highly likely” that Iran carried out an “unlawful and callous attack” on a ship in the Middle East, which left a Briton dead.

The foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said the government believed the drone attack on the oil tanker off the coast of Oman was “deliberate, targeted, and a clear violation of international law by Iran”.

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