This is the fifth election in Israel in three years.
Patrick Kingsley and
...Differences (click here) between the coalition’s two ideological wings, compounded by unrelenting pressure from Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing alliance, led two right-wing lawmakers to defect — removing the coalition’s majority in Parliament. When several left-wing and Arab lawmakers also rebelled on key votes, the coalition found it impossible to govern.
The final straw was the government’s inability last week to muster enough votes to extend a two-tier legal system in the West Bank, which has differentiated between Israeli settlers and Palestinians since Israel occupied the territory in 1967.
Several Arab members of the coalition declined to vote for the system, which must be extended every five years. That prevented the bill’s passage and prompted Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, a former settler leader, to collapse the government and thereby delay a final vote until after another election....
...Differences (click here) between the coalition’s two ideological wings, compounded by unrelenting pressure from Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing alliance, led two right-wing lawmakers to defect — removing the coalition’s majority in Parliament. When several left-wing and Arab lawmakers also rebelled on key votes, the coalition found it impossible to govern.
The final straw was the government’s inability last week to muster enough votes to extend a two-tier legal system in the West Bank, which has differentiated between Israeli settlers and Palestinians since Israel occupied the territory in 1967.
Several Arab members of the coalition declined to vote for the system, which must be extended every five years. That prevented the bill’s passage and prompted Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, a former settler leader, to collapse the government and thereby delay a final vote until after another election....
Long standing leaders are leaving.
By Noa Shpigel
Two veteran lawmakers (click here) – Likud Knesset member Yuval Steinitz and Meretz lawmaker-turned-minister Esawi Freige – announced on Tuesday that they would not run in the upcoming Knesset election.
The 64-year-old Steinitz said that “After 23 years as a Knesset member – during which I was honored to serve as finance, intelligence and energy minister and as chairman of the [Knesset] Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee – I felt that my family and I deserve to breathe a little fresh air."...
Regardless of the chronically imploding Knesset, Israel has been making progress on many fronts.
July 5, 2022\
Jerusalem - Israel said on Tuesday (click here) it will reopen its economic and trade office in Turkey, as the countries work to restore diplomatic ties that have been strained for more than a decade.
Both governments expelled ambassadors in 2018 and have often traded barbs over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, though they are now looking to restore representation to ambassador level. Israel cut back its economic representation as well in 2019....
The Associated Press is reopening it's Gaza office.
July 5, 2022
Top executives from the Associated Press (click here) launched the news agency’s new office in the Gaza Strip more than a year after Israel gave AP staff an hour’s notice to leave before bombing the building it said also housed a Hamas intelligence unit.
The importance the agency attached to reopening the bureau was signaled by the presence of Daisy Veerasingham, the AP president, and executive editor Julie Pace at the dedication of the new office on Tuesday. Israel is already under intense scrutiny of how it handles the international media following the shooting death in May of a popular Palestinian American journalist.
“AP’s resilient Gaza team has never wavered, even in the moments our bureau collapsed and in the weeks that followed,” Veerasingham said in a release. “The Associated Press has operated in Gaza for more than half a century and remains committed to telling the story of Gaza and its people.”...
Top executives from the Associated Press (click here) launched the news agency’s new office in the Gaza Strip more than a year after Israel gave AP staff an hour’s notice to leave before bombing the building it said also housed a Hamas intelligence unit.
The importance the agency attached to reopening the bureau was signaled by the presence of Daisy Veerasingham, the AP president, and executive editor Julie Pace at the dedication of the new office on Tuesday. Israel is already under intense scrutiny of how it handles the international media following the shooting death in May of a popular Palestinian American journalist.
“AP’s resilient Gaza team has never wavered, even in the moments our bureau collapsed and in the weeks that followed,” Veerasingham said in a release. “The Associated Press has operated in Gaza for more than half a century and remains committed to telling the story of Gaza and its people.”...
Israel has been accepting Ukraine refugees.
Jerusalem/Warsaw - Israel and Poland have agreed (click here) to improve relations that had deteriorated after Warsaw introduced a law last year limiting the ability of Jews to recover World War Two properties, saying on Monday they would mutually restore ambassadors.
The move marked a shift for new Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who as foreign minister had denounced as "anti-Semitic and immoral" the bill affecting property seized by Nazi German occupiers and retained by Poland's post-war communist rulers....
July 5, 2022
Molokan (55) and Estabel (50), who landed with the special flight, waited in Gondar to immigrate to Israel for about 20 years. They stayed there with their children aged 23, 15, 11 and 4. Molokan, who was waiting to be reunited with his father and brother in Israel said before he took off on the special flight "We didn't think we would wait that long. Our brothers made aliyah 11 years ago and we stayed in Ethiopia. We went through the whole aliyah process with them but ours just stopped."...
Some Israelis would like relations on a social level with Arabia to gain momentum, but, it appears to be slow.
As speculation mounts (click here) over a possible breakthrough in relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia in the near future, an Israeli journalist recently traveled to Riyadh to see how the Saudi people may feel about warming relations with the Jewish state.
While traveling on non-Israeli passports, since individuals with Israeli passports are officially not yet allowed to enter the kingdom, Channel 13 military correspondent Alon Ben-David said he and a fellow Israeli reporter did not hide the fact that they were from Israel. (* See Editor’s note at the foot of this article.)
In a segment broadcast Monday night, the reporter noted that obtaining a visa for the trip was a quick and easy process, and described going through passport control upon landing as a smooth experience....
