With the dust settling on Israel’s fractious and tumultuous election for the 21st Knesset, albeit with the horse-trading of coalition building still in progress, it is valuable to examine the structure of the election and see how it influenced the result. The Israeli electorate are given the choice of a Read more…
Benjamin Netanyahu’s hopes of entering the history books and becoming Israel’s longest serving prime minister appear close to realisation after yesterday’s general election. Netanyahu’s Likud party and Benny Gantz’s centrist Blue and White alliance each emerged from the closely fought contest with 35 seats. But, with counting almost complete, the Read more…
Shortly before he was inaugurated as president in January 2017, Donald Trump said of Jared Kushner: “If you can’t produce peace in the Middle East, nobody can.” Pulling off the “deal of the century” – peace between Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab world – would have been a large task for Read more…
Israel’s closely fought general election campaign is entering its final stretch with Benjamin Netanyahu’s hopes of re-election hanging in the balance. Polls show that the prime minister and his centrist challenger, Benny Gantz, are locked in a tight race as voters prepare to render their verdict in less than two Read more…
Hamas’ twin-track strategy – to bring calm to Gaza while stoking terror in the West Bank – has been on graphic display over the past week. Leaders of the terror group, which rules the coastal enclave, were in talks with senior Egyptian intelligence officials on Thursday evening when two rockets Read more…
Transport policy is not usually a central policy concern of Israeli elections. However, this year’s election is set to be extremely close and dysfunction and strikes among Israel’s railways has the potential to be a decisive factor in determining the election’s outcome. Israel’s state comptroller recently released a damning report Read more…
Benjamin Netanyahu’s apparent effort to make the fear of Arab-Israelis a central part of his re-election campaign came under heavy attack from the country’s president this week. Reuven Rivlin did not name the prime minister, but few would have been unaware of the target of his remarks made at a Read more…
Labour Friends of Israel was delighted to welcome Anshel Pfeffer to Parliament, to speak about the upcoming Israeli elections. Anshel Pfeffer is a leading Israeli Journalist, and currently writes for the Israeli daily Haaretz, the Economist and the Jewish Chronicle. He has also written for the Guardian and is often Read more…
Israel’s general election campaign has been thrown into flux by legal and political developments which may put Benjamin Netanyahu’s long-term future as prime minister at risk. On Thursday, attorney general Avichai Mandelblit announced he was indicting the Israeli leader in relation to three police investigations into alleged corruption. The indictments – for Read more…
Seemingly out of nowhere, Benny Gantz’s newly formed Israel Resilience party has risen to second place in the opinion polls, representing the biggest barrier to Benjamin Netanyahu’s hopes of re-election in April. But the former IDF chief of staff’s surge has thus far been predicated on silence. By barely uttering Read more…
LFI chair Joan Ryan writes to Emily Thornberry in response to Emily’s letter to Jeremy Hunt on the situation in Syria. Joan states that Emily’s letter is “nothing short of a complete misreading of the facts” and that “in a dispute between the Middle East’s only democracy and a brutal Read more…
The deputy leader of the Labour party, Tom Watson, has led the protests against the decision of Malaysia to bar Israeli athletes from participating in the World Para Swimming Championships, a qualifying event for the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games, which takes place in the country this summer. The championships are Read more…