In this week’s Reporters Roundtable podcast, host Josh Nathan-Kazis is joined by Forward opinion editor Gal Beckerman to discuss why all the predictions for a big win by Benjamin Netanyahu were wrong. Then, staff writer Paul Berger looks at the case of ultra-Orthodox counselor Nechemya Weberman who was sentenced to 103 years in prison after…
Israel’s next government must heed voters and devote itself to bread-and-butter issues, not thorny foreign policy problems such as Iran’s nuclear plans and the Palestinian conflict, senior politicians said on Thursday. Israelis worried about housing, prices and taxes have reshaped parliament, forcing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to woo their centrist champion as his main coalition…
Moments after exit polls confirmed his surprise second-place showing in Israel’s January 22 parliamentary elections, political neophyte Yair Lapid faced his giddy supporters and declared: “A serious responsibility has been placed on our shoulders tonight.” That’s for sure. With left and right exactly tied at 60 seats each in the 120-seat parliament (with 99.8% of…
Few in America have a close acquaintance with Yair Lapid, Israel’s new political kingmaker and a top contender for the post of foreign minister in a new Israeli government soon to be formed. Lapid, who emerged as the nation’s new political star, winning 19 Knesset seats in the January 22 elections, has spent time working…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s lacklustre election campaign only got into top gear one hour before polling stations closed. With bleak grassroots reports flowing into his Likud party headquarters, it was clear that Netanyahu risked being outflanked by a centrist newcomer, setting up the possibility of the biggest electoral upset in Israeli history. “Go vote….
A former television news anchor whose new centrist party stormed to second place in Israel’s election may well be the kingmaker holding the keys to the next coalition government. The Yesh Atid (There’s a Future) party led by Yair Lapid, 49, landed 19 seats in parliament in Tuesday’s vote, second only to the bruised victor,…
Israel’s final election results show that the right-wing and left-wing blocs are evenly split. The Likud Party led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a combined campaign with Avidgor Liberman’s right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party, took 31 seats in the 19th Knesset, down from the 42 seats now held by the two parties, according to results…
Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu narrowly won an election in which disgruntled voters catapulted a new centrist challenger into second place and he now faces the daunting task of building a coalition. Tuesday’s vote crystallised demands for attention to bread-and-butter issues over the ambitions of religiously fired hardliners and largely sidelined foreign policy issues such as…
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