(14.02.2018)
The police announcement Tuesday – that the investigations into two cases involving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been completed – came 13 months after Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit decided that a “preliminary examination” of the allegations, which itself took six months, should become full-fledged criminal investigations.
State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan announced Sunday the postponement of a conference for senior prosecutors scheduled for Thursday. His office cited “scheduling constraints” and said a new date would be set for the gathering in Jerusalem.
(14.02.2018)
The police announcement Tuesday – that the investigations into two cases involving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been completed – came 13 months after Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit decided that a “preliminary examination” of the allegations, which itself took six months, should become full-fledged criminal investigations.
Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit will be holding talks in the coming week with aims to reach a decision at the end of November on whether or not to …
Yair Lapid, the No. 2 on the Kahol Lavan roster, said at the party meeting that a government can’t be created in the space of 48 hours, and that all Netanyahu had to agree to was to be second in the rotation – i.e., to agree that Gantz serve as prime minister first, then Netanyahu. But what Netanyahu wants is a third election, Lapid said.
“That’s what his lawyers suggested to him, that’s what he needs because of the indictments,” Lapid said.
According to reports in the Hebrew media, Gantz could offer Netanyahu a “compromise deal” that would force him to choose between including his religious allies in the coalition, and being prime minister first in any rotation deal.
(today)
(23.09.2019)
(24.09.2019)
Yes, this initiative of yours, Mr. President, is very grave indeed! You are dividing the country on an ethnic basis, you are placing one people above another, one public above another, one group above another, when your job is to say loud and clear: They are all my sons. And for this you do not have a mandate. You do not have a mandate to divide the country between Jews and Arabs. You do not have a mandate to exclude a fifth of the population.
Less than a week after his impressive electoral achievement, the head of the largest Knesset faction, Kahol Lavan leader Benny Gantz, conceded his right to be the first to try and form a coalition government. The explanation given by “party sources” for this concession is that Gantz prefers to wait for Netanyahu to try first and fail.
Regrettably, this lame excuse is unconvincing. This move looks like a capitulation without a fight, an admission that the right wing’s long-standing tactic of delegitimizing parties representing Arab society succeeded.
Netanyahu getting a first nod from the president would land a harsh blow on the center-left’s morale, which could facilitate Netanyahu’s plan to divide the party from within. The nightmarish vision of Netanyahu settling back in the driver’s seat and recklessly pushing the gas pedal to reach his target would make a mockery of his clear-cut defeat in last Tuesday’s election. While Gantz and his colleagues rejoice over sucker Netanyahu supposedly falling into their well-laid trap, their supporters will see them as naive novices who could soon add insult to injury by reneging on their main pledge not to participate in his coalition.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) shakes hands with Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz (R) as President Reuven Rivlin looks on, at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, on September 23, 2019.
(14.02.2018)
The police announcement Tuesday – that the investigations into two cases involving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been completed – came 13 months after Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit decided that a “preliminary examination” of the allegations, which itself took six months, should become full-fledged criminal investigations.
The prime minister has branded all three cases a baseless “witch hunt.” and his attorneys accused Mandelblit of interfering with elections by announcing his intention to indict during a campaign season.
What happened to Western culture for people to have become oblivious or indifferent to the notion of truth? After all, if liars get away so easily with their lies, it must be because we no longer value truth so dearly.
In practice, the proposed law would permit parties‘ representatives to maintain a database of voters and record their conversations both inside and outside the polls
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s frontal assault on Channel 12 television was in line with his permanent strategy: If you can’t silence them, incite against them. Plan A failed when the acting chairman of the Central Elections Committee rejected Likud’s request for an injunction that would bar Channel 12’s legal correspondent, Guy Peleg, from continuing to publish statements made by key prosecution witnesses in the cases against Netanyahu prior to the election. So Netanyahu turned to Plan B – libeling Channel 12 as anti-Semitic and urging the public to boycott the station.
After Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu s shocking attack on Channel 12 television, it s clearer than ever who the good guys and the bad guys are, and the current election revolves around this choice.
PM claims Keshet Media Group, which produced the HBO series ‚Our Boys‘ that he blasted as anti-Semitic, is ‚committing a terror attack against democracy‘
We know what should be the fate of perpetrators. The man who more than two decades ago marched in front of a coffin (which he didn’t see, of course, a meter behind him) in a protest against Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and who incited from a balcony in Zion Square, with posters of Rabin in SS uniform below him (which he didn’t see either), has gone back to his evil ways. Or, as the verse says in another context, as a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly. He seeks chaos, violence and loss of restraint that will allow him to show off his “leadership” and take control of what’s happening.
Earlier the Central Elections Committee rejected a petition from Netanyahu’s Likud party to bar news outlets from publishing transcripts and documents from Netanyahu’s corruption investigations ahead of national elections next month.
Until now, we knew from Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit that the prime minister would likely be indicted, with the timing expected to be by December.
However, Netanyahu has a strong chance of getting Mandelblit to drop any indictment in Case 2000, the Yediot Ahronot-Yisrael Hayom Affair, probably has a 50/50 chance of beating the charges in Case 1000, the Illegal Gifts Affair, and has a series of real defenses even in Case 4000.
Such trepidations are valid for any caretaker government, all the more so regarding Netanyahu, who’s already suspected of subverting every value of governance to his personal interests. Someone who doesn’t loathe quashing the rule of law to be saved from the terror of the law, who doesn’t hesitate to shamelessly lie to preserve his rule, who isn’t deterred from overturning the parliamentary rules of the game to keep the charges against him from scrutiny seems destined to raise security tensions to distract public opinion from issues he isn’t comfortable with.
Protests have continued for over two years near Mandelblit’s home in Petah Tikva to pressure him to take a stronger stance in the various probes against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Any doubts about illicit deals between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and fallen telecom tycoon Shaul Elovitch in the police’s Case 4000 should be put to rest after the details of Shlomo Filber’s statements to police investigators were leaked this week.
This is the case where the police believe Netanyahu traded friendly coverage by Bezeq’s Walla news site in exchange for help with regulations for the company, Israel’s dominant telecom provider. Filber, who had been appointed director general of the Communications Ministry in 2015 shortly after Netanyahu took over the portfolio, was the point man for the alleged trade-offs.
In Israel there is no opposition; this disturbing realization is becoming clearer.
In recent years, gender segregation and discrimination against women have been expanding into various aspects of public life. This is seen on army bases where women are marginalized; on academic campuses where female “modesty supervisors” check the length of skirts; in the civil service, which has cadet courses for men only; in funeral ceremonies, where women cannot mourn or stand with their families; in signposts forbidding women to walk on certain sidewalks, while men police their clothing, applying ever harsher modesty rules, occasionally with curses and spitting. Bus drivers refuse to let on a female passenger in shorts, or don’t allow women to board, claiming there’s “room for men only.”
This is merely a partial list. The struggle for woman’s place in public – and for Israeli society – is in full force.
(13.08.2019)
Ominous pre-election right-wing purges inspired by Trump’s brazenness have been met with apathy and impotence on the center-left
Having listened to the debates on Kashmir in the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha, the Prime Minister’s address to the nation, and having watched subsequent developments in Kashmir, we as citizens of India inspired by the life and work of Mahatma Gandhi feel compelled to state that the government has pushed the country into a blind alley. The gun that was used to silence Kashmir is now being used as a telescope through which to see Kashmir. This is shameful, unfortunate and ominous for India.
A whole state has vanished from the map in broad daylight. The Indian Union had 28 states, now it has 27. This is not a magic show, where a magician shows us, we know, something unreal and illusory. Here we are witnessing something cruel, ugly, undemocratic and seemingly irreversible. It reveals the poverty of our democratic politics.
In supporting the European banking union, Germany’s highest court reveals its anti-democratic heart.
“No unilateral step by the Government of India can change this disputed status, as enshrined in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions. Nor will this ever be acceptable to the people of Jammu & Kashmir and Pakistan,” said the press release.
“As the party to this international dispute, Pakistan will exercise all possible options to counter the illegal steps,” it added.
Addressing parliament today (Aug. 5) following two days of heightened security in the state, home minister Amit Shah announced that Article 370 would no longer exist. President of India, Ram Nath Kovind, has signed this notification. Shah’s announcement was met with loud protests from opposition parties.
Now, according to a report broadcast by Channel 13 news, the Likud plans to double its budget for a repeat campaign, spending two million shekels (approximately $570,000) to install cameras in Arab polling stations. The campaign will once again be headed up by Kaizler Inbar, and will be accompanied by increased police presence to monitor Arab voters.
Israel’s Central Election Committee – which oversees the state’s election process – will reportedly meet later this week to discuss the Likud’s program. The Channel 13 news report told how the Likud party plans to ask Supreme Court Judge Hanan Melcer, head of the elections committee, to “detail in writing what their poll watchers can and cannot do with the surveillance cameras”.
The operation is set to be run again by the Kaizler-Inbar communications firm, the source said. Kaizler-Inbar organized the April effort by recruiting activists mainly from national religious seminaries across the country and boasted in a Facebook post shortly after the vote of “success” in bringing turnout among Arabs to below 50 percent, its lowest level in decades.
(24.06.2016)
Brexit has created the potential greater democratic control of trade deals. And we must ensure we use that to craft a trade policy that is geared to justice for the many rather than profits for the few.
Ursula von der Leyen has been confirmed as the next president of the EU Commission, winning a vote in the European Parliament by 383 to 327.
But despite the involvement of MEPs, the process that put von der Leyen in place was nothing short of a coronation.
Netanyahu and Blue and White party co-chairman Benny Gantz are reportedly not personally involved in any negotiations over a unity government.
Blue and White issued a statement reacting to the report, saying, “There is only one option for cancelling the elections: Netanyahu steps down to deal with his legal issues and Blue and White will lead a wide government.”
Yair Lapid, the co-chair of opposition party Kahol Lavan, said on Sunday that he believes a unity government headed by his outfit is the „right thing for Israel.“
Lapid said he would agree to form a coalition with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in response to comments made by former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Saturday.
If Netanyahu refuses to confirm his attendance by today’s deadline, then the hearing will be canceled and a summary decision would be made that could lead to his indictment within days or weeks.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed Likud lawmaker Amir Ohana as justice minister on Wednesday. Political sources told Haaretz that Ohana was appointed because unlike other Likud members, he supports changes that would grant immunity from indictment to acting prime ministers, as Netanyahu is facing possible indictment in three cases of fraud, bribery and breach of trust.
Wittes attributes this dramatic possibility to Israel’s anomalous constitutional regime, which he characterizes as “super-weird.”
Asked to elaborate, he explains in a follow-up email that, beyond the fact that Israel lacks a written constitution (which is not in itself unique), it also has “the combination, on the one hand, of a system of parliamentary supremacy, and, on the other hand, a highly aggressive court that asserts broad authority of judicial review.” Ironically, however, anything the High Court does can be reversed by the legislature, “given that the court’s authority itself is a creature of the Knesset.”
The pro-EU parties crumbled – but a coherent Eurosceptic force is sorely lacking.
As she was arriving for talks with the 28 other EU leaders in Brussels, May told journalist, “The best option for the UK is to leave the EU with a deal.” May is scheduled to meet with EU leaders to name five people to hold the European Union’s top jobs for the next five years.
Arrival and doorstep by Theresa MAY, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, at the Informal Dinner of Heads of State or Government, taking place on 28 May 2019, in Brussels.
If the Tories thought they were having trouble getting rid of Theresa May, they should spare a thought for the German CDU where Angela Merkel has just announced that she won’t be resigning as German Chancellor after all.
Merkel has decided that Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who took over as leader of the Christian Democratic Union in December, is not up to the country’s top job, according to two officials with knowledge of her thinking. As a result, the chancellor has become more determined than ever to stay in power until her term ends in 2021, the officials said.
The European Parliament elections start today. But the body itself is an insult against democracy that exists only to rubber-stamp neoliberal rule.