The Israeli government will allocate NIS 100 million ($28.89 Million Dollars) in extra funding for the Religious Affairs Ministry in order to assist in preparation for the upcoming shemittah year, the sabbatical year in which Jewish farmers are supposed to let their fields lay fallow.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu struck back at Finance Minister Yair Lapid on Monday for calling on the government to put forth its own vision for the contours of a future Palestinian state. Lapid, Israel, the prime minister warned, lacked sufficient experience in defense or negotiations and should refrain from urging Israel toward a hasty and ill-conceived deal with the Palestinians.
Israeli Finance Minister and Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid said on Sunday that Israel should draw a map of its future borders with a Palestinian state.
Gaza-based terror group Hamas is planning to encourage attacks against Israel as well as sap support in the West Bank from the Palestinian Authority (PA) by exploiting the Islamist “Dawa” social and cultural movement, a security source told the Ma’ariv daily on Sunday.
The Middle East is facing “dramatic instability in the entire region, and we must remain alert and prepared,” IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz said Monday at the annual Herzliya Conference.
Israel has no constitution. The reason according to local lore is that the secular majority and the ultra-Orthodox minority could not agree on how to refer to God so they never wrote an actual constitution. Instead there are a series of 13 “Basic Laws” that function as a constitution.
On Sunday, ministers in Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet approved a bill that prohibits presidential pardons for terrorists convicted of murdering Israelis.
International hopes that a Palestinian unity government would strengthen the position of the Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip; however Hamas is taking control of Judea and Samaria, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday.
The first crisis facing the Palestinian unity government was apparently solved over the weekend as Qatar pledged to pay salaries of thousands of Hamas public servants in the Gaza Strip.
The ministerial team tasked by the government with devising countermoves to the newly formed Hamas-Fatah unity government is scheduled to hold its first meeting Sunday, as Israel’s relations with the United States have become strained once more over the latter’s decision to recognize the new Palestinian government.
The Australian government has stopped using the term “occupied” when referring to east Jerusalem, Australian media outlets reported on Thursday.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu left Knesset members in shock this past Monday by suggesting that Israel would have to “separate” from the Palestinians, according to a report which appears in Friday editions of the nationalist-religious newspaper Makor Rishon.
For three of the world’s faiths, the Temple Mount bears special sanctity and significance. For archaeologists, the 3,000-year-old holy site is both an El Dorado and a Holy Grail, for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict precludes a scientist’s pick and shovel ever breaking its ground. But an improbable turn of events has allowed historians a glimpse into the monument’s mighty bowels.
Israeli Minister of Defense Moshe Ya’alon called on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to disarm Hamas and take control of the Gaza Strip after creating a unity government with Hamas.
The European Union said Thursday it was “deeply disappointed” over the Israeli announcement to commence construction of thousands of new homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and called on the government to “reverse this decision.”
Palestinians will pursue Israel in the international legal arena — for war crimes and for apartheid acts — if it takes punitive measures against the newly unified Hamas-Fatah government, warned chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat.
Washington’s support for a new Palestinian government which includes Hamas, a terrorist organization, has left Israel feeling betrayed, triggering a new diplomatic crisis with its closest ally.
The US ambassador to Israel condemned Thursday a plan to build 1,500 housing units in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, announced as a retaliatory measure to the formation of a Palestinian unity government earlier this week.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday the United States would work with the new Palestinian unity government “as is appropriate” but would be monitoring its commitment to continued cooperation with Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday he is “deeply troubled” by the US decision to maintain relations with the new Palestinian unity government, urging Washington to tell the Palestinian president that his alliance with the Hamas militant group is unacceptable.