Yashar Party head Gadi Eisenkot inched closer to wresting the premiership from Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, as he secured the majority support of 67 out of 120 parliamentarians, but was not yet granted the mandate to form a government. President Isaac Herzog said that Eisenkot had more backing than the 46’s parliamentarians who favor Netanyahu, […]
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Israeli election officials are batting down charges by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Qatari election interference significantly boosted the Arab vote, as the Likud leader sought to invalidate their ballots and the opposition accused him of trying to undermine the results. Netanyahu claims that the election was “stolen” because, he alleges, Qatar secretly funded efforts […]
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Liberal U.S. Jewish leaders are urging Israel’s opposition parties to abandon their campaign promises and join hands with Arab parties in order to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Following Tuesday’s vote, Netanyahu’s bloc was projected to win 53 seats in the Knesset, Israel’s legislature, while the camp of his main rival, Gadi Eisenkot, is projected […]
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JERUSALEM – As election results from Israel’s parliamentary vote on Tuesday continue to trickle in, what seems clearest is that no side in this political race will have enough votes to form a majority government, meaning the question of who Israel’s next prime minister will be remains uncertain. According to the vote count so far, […]
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JERUSALEM — Forty-five minutes after Israeli channels released their first exit polls, a silence had washed over the Likud election watch party held at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem. Supporters had waited in anticipation for the exit polls to appear on the screen. When Channel 14 — which had a broadcast desk stationed in […]
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Traders on the prediction market Polymarket are betting that former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot will replace incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel’s next prime minister following Tuesday’s election. That assessment comes despite polls released last week showing that neither candidate has a clear path to a governing coalition with a 61-seat majority. […]
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JERUSALEM — On the day before Israel’s Oct. 27 election, Nat Zitomer, a retired licensed tour guide, still hadn’t decided which party to vote for. “I lean center-right, and during the last two elections I voted for Likud and before that, HaBayit HaYehudi,” said Zitomer, referring to the right-wing religious Zionist party founded in 2008. […]
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JERUSALEM — On Oct. 27, Yael Chernyvsky, 18, from Ramat Hasharon in central Israel, plans to cast her ballot for the first time. “I’m voting so we can change the future of this country,” the teen told Jewish Telegraphic Agency earlier this month. She was entering a Tel Aviv auditorium where some of Israel’s top […]
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Whether to extend military conscription to haredi men, a longstanding question fueling political tensions in Israel, has boiled over since Hamas launched the current war with Israel with its deadly raids on Oct. 7, 2023. Hundreds of thousands of Israeli soldiers and reservists battled on Israel’s southern and northern fronts and the manpower needs, especially […]
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JERUSALEM – Yehoshua Pfeffer is a popular British-born haredi rabbi in Jerusalem. He is unusual among the religious leaders in the ultra-Orthodox world because he believes that haredim can and should integrate into and contribute more to the wider Israeli society even as they uphold their Torah observance. Arguably the most fraught implication of this […]
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