Israeli police launched an investigation into a well-known haredi Orthodox rabbi’s statement that Finance Minister Yair Lapid could be assassinated in the same way as Yitzhak Rabin. Rabbi Dov Halbertal made his remarks in an interview this week on Galei Israel Radio. “I had a guest over on Shabbat, an important scholar, and he told…
Israel’s Finance Ministry said on Wednesday it was cutting funds to seminary students exempt from compulsory military service, in the latest battle between the Jewish state’s secular majority and an ultra-Orthodox minority. Seminary students, many of whom rely on state stipends, have for decades been excused from army service under blanket exemptions that have long…
Israel’s finance minister halted the transfer of government funds to West Bank Jewish settlements on Saturday and ordered a probe into allegations that money meant to support municipalities had been funnelled to a pro-settler political group. The money in question had been earmarked to cover security and building maintenance fees that were incurred when Israel…
As the Scarlett Johansson-stoked controversy rages over SodaStream’s West Bank operation, Israel’s centrist Minister of Finance has been considering what effect international opposition to settlement production will have if peace talks fail. And his verdict is pessimistic. In a speech at the Institute for National Security Studies, Minister Yair Lapid said that if Israeli or…
Israel’s peace-pact rejectionists, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon (Wikimedia Commons) Benjamin Netanyahu is looking more and more these days like he’s preparing to take on the pessimists and nay-sayers and prove them wrong. For most of the past year the cynics have been insisting that neither Netanyahu nor Palestinian Authority chief…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s main coalition partner publicly prodded him on Sunday to show “historic courage” and reach a peace deal with the Palestinians even at the risk of his government’s collapse. Finance Minister Yair Lapid, in a speech, reassured Netanyahu of his centrist Yesh Atid party’s support and spoke of possible changes in…
To understand why Shelly Yachimovich was booted out as head of the Israel Labor Party after just two years on the job, it helps to note that Labor has had a bad habit, ever since Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination in 1995, of changing leaders every time it holds a primary. But this time was different. Previous…
Israeli politics were turned upside down this week by the surprise acquittal on Wednesday of Avigdor Lieberman, the blunt-talking, Arab-bashing, Soviet-born former foreign minister and head of the Yisrael Beiteinu party. He had been charged with fraud, witness tampering and breach of trust for allegedly promoting a crony to an ambassadorship. The promotion was allegedly…
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