Tag Archives: Prime Minister Naftali Bennett

Israel officially votes to dissolve Parliament, sets stage for fifth election this fall

Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.

Important Takeaways:

  • Israel’s Parliament Dissolves, Sets Fifth Election in Over Three Years
  • Israel’s parliament officially voted to dissolve itself bringing Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s governing coalition to an end
  • Now, Lapid is preparing to face a resurgent Netanyahu who seeks to reclaim his position as Israel’s prime minister. Bennett announced on Wednesday he will not run in the upcoming elections.
  • Meanwhile, the United States has vowed to support Israel despite the political upheaval.

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Israel setting up for new election in the Fall

  • YAIR LAPID TO BECOME ISRAEL’S NEW PRIME MINISTER AFTER JERUSALEM CALLS FOR NEW ELECTIONS
  • Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid have agreed to disband the current Knesset and head to new elections. A preliminary bill will tentatively be brought during the upcoming parliamentary session on June 27.
  • If the Knesset officially votes to disband, Lapid, who currently serves as foreign minister, will become a transitional prime minister with limited powers until a new government is formed after the elections.
  • This would be the fifth Israeli election cycle in three-and-a-half years with new elections planned for late October, immediately after the High Holidays.
  • The current coalition only has 59 remaining members following resignations by two of its members.
  • Without a majority of 61 members, the coalition can no longer pass laws.
  • Netanyahu, who currently controls a block of 55 Knesset members, may be able to form a new government prior to the final votes to disband parliament and avert new elections if six additional members from the current coalition agree to join a Netanyahu-led government.

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Biden aide says nuclear talks with Iran could be exhausted in ‘weeks’

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -The United States and its partners are discussing time frames for nuclear diplomacy with Iran, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Wednesday, adding that current talks with Tehran may be exhausted within weeks.

“We’re not circling a date on the calendar in public, but I can tell you that behind closed doors we are talking about time frames and they are not long,” he told reporters during a visit to Israel.

Asked to elaborate on the timeline, Sullivan said: “Weeks.”

Israel has long hinted that if it thinks diplomacy, now focused on slow-moving talks between Iran and world powers in Vienna on reviving a 2015 nuclear deal, has hit a dead end, it could resort to pre-emptive strikes against its sworn enemy.

But there have been doubts among security experts whether Israel has the military capability to effectively halt Iran’s program on its own, or if Washington would back its moves.

Sullivan said the United States continues to believe that “diplomacy, deterrence and pressure” remain the best way to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Sullivan said that in his meeting with Israeli leaders in Jerusalem, “we discussed means of ensuring that we are holding the international community together to maintain the pressure on Iran to live up to its obligations and to come back into compliance” with the 2015 pact.

“And in terms of operational matters, I think those are best left for private diplomatic discussions between the United States and Israel,” he added.

Earlier, Sullivan told Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett that the United States and Israel are at a “critical juncture” for forging a shared security strategy.

In public remarks after his own talks with Sullivan, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz called on world powers not to allow Iran to play for time at the nuclear negotiations, in recess at Iran’s request and expected to resume next week.

Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons, saying it only wants to master nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Washington has been spearheading efforts to revive the 2015 deal in which Iran agreed to curb its nuclear program in return for the lifting of sanctions.

Israel bitterly opposed the deal and former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States in 2018.

Sullivan, sent by President Joe Biden on a 30-hour visit to Jerusalem and the occupied Palestinian territories, updated Israel on developments in the Vienna talks and the two sides exchanged views on the way forward, the White House said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said he and Sullivan discussed “the strategy for combating Iran’s nuclear program and the way in which the U.S. and Israel cooperate on this issue.”

Since Trump pulled out of the agreement, Iran has breached the pact with advances in sensitive areas such as uranium enrichment. Sullivan called the U.S. withdrawal “catastrophic.”

(Writing by Dan Williams and Jeffrey Heller; Additional reporting by Stephen Farrell and Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Howard Goller, Alison Williams and Grant McCool)

New friends – UAE de facto ruler, Israel’s Bennett in “historic” meeting

ABU DHABI (Reuters) -Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan hosted Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Monday in the first ever public meeting between the United Arab Emirates’ de facto ruler and an Israeli leader.

Israel’s ambassador to Abu Dhabi said the issue of Iran was on the agenda for their talks, which follow the formalization of Israel-UAE relations last year under a U.S.-led regional initiative.

While shared concern about Iranian activity was among reasons for the diplomatic moves, the UAE has also been trying to improve relations with Tehran.

Releasing photographs of Bennett and Sheikh Mohammed smiling and shaking hands, the Israeli leader’s office described the meeting as “historic.”

Before he flew home later in the day, Bennett’s office said in a statement that Sheikh Mohammed had accepted an invitation to visit Israel. There was no immediate confirmation from UAE officials.

A statement on state news agency WAM said Sheikh Mohammed voiced hope for “stability in the Middle East” and that Bennet’s visit would “advance the relationship of cooperation towards more positive steps in the interests of the people of the two nations and of the region”.

The Palestinians, whose diplomacy with Israel has been stalled since 2014, have deplored the Israeli-Emirati rapprochement.

Israeli Ambassador Amir Hayek declined to elaborate on any discussion of Iran but he told Israel’s Army Radio: “The prime minister did not only come here solely to address the Iranian issue.”

With world powers now trying to renew the Iran nuclear deal, Abu Dhabi last week sent an envoy to Tehran. A U.S. delegation is due in the UAE this week to warn Emirati banks against non-compliance with sanctions on Iran.

Iran is Israel’s arch-foe, but it has not been mentioned publicly by Bennett since he set off on Sunday to the UAE with pledges to promote bilateral commerce and other forms of civilian cooperation.

The Israel Hayom newspaper, quoting unnamed officials, said Bennett was expected to brief Sheikh Mohammed on intelligence regarding Iranian-supplied militias and drones in the region.

Israel last month broached setting up joint defenses against Iran with Gulf Arab states. Hayek said military sales to UAE are in the works, though Israeli industry sources say advanced Israeli air defense systems have yet to be offered.

“Israel is in cooperation with a new friend, with a partner for the long-term, and the considerations will be both considerations of defense and also considerations of how you work with a country which is very, very, very friendly to Israel,” Hayek said.

Bennett said he told his government to step up efforts to reach a free trade agreement with the United Arab Emirates by the first quarter of 2022.

Israel-UAE bilateral trade in goods alone reached nearly $500 million so far in 2021 – up from $125 million in 2020 – and is expected to continue growing rapidly.

(Writing by Dan Williams and Ghaida Ghantous; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Israel sees Iranian atomic bomb in five years, deal or no deal

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Iran is five years away from developing a nuclear weapon, and international talks due to restart next week will do nothing to slow it down, Israel said on Tuesday, adding it reserved the right to act to protect itself.

Indirect negotiations to revive the 2015 accord, under which Iran agreed to curbs on its nuclear program in return for the lifting of international sanctions, are due to resume in Vienna next Monday after a five-month pause.

Israel long opposed the nuclear deal, but Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s government, in power since June, had previously said it could be open to a new deal with tougher restrictions. In remarks on Tuesday to a security forum, however, he sounded less accommodating.

Bennett described Iran, which denies it is pursuing nuclear arms, as being at “the most advanced stage” of a nuclear weapons program.

“In any event, even if there is a return to a deal, Israel is of course not a party to the deal and Israel is not obligated by the deal,” he told the conference, hosted by Reichman University.

Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman said: “With or without an agreement, Iran will be a nuclear state and have a nuclear weapon within five years, tops.”

Israel, itself widely believed to have nuclear weapons, has long argued that the 2015 deal was too weak to prevent Iran from pursuing a bomb. Former U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned the deal in 2018, describing it as too soft, and Iran responded by violating some of the deal’s restrictions. President Joe Biden’s administration aims to revive it.

Israel has also complained that the nuclear agreement does nothing to rein in Iran’s missile program, or hostile activity by Iranian-backed militia.

“The Iranians have encircled the State of Israel with missiles while they sit safely in Tehran,” Bennett said. “To chase the terrorist du jour sent by the (Iranian covert) Qods Force does not pay off anymore. We must go for the dispatcher.”

Speaking separately, the chief of Israel’s air force offered cooperation with Gulf Arab partners against Iranian-made attack drones, a rare public airing of the possibility of joint operations.

(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Britain outlaws Palestinian militant group Hamas -interior minister

By Stephen Farrell and Alistair Smout

JERUSALEM/LONDON (Reuters) -Britain’s interior minister Priti Patel on Friday said she had banned the Palestinian militant group Hamas in a move that brings the UK’s stance on Gaza’s rulers in line with the United States and the European Union.

“Hamas has significant terrorist capability, including access to extensive and sophisticated weaponry, as well as terrorist training facilities,” Patel said in a statement.

“That is why today I have acted to proscribe Hamas in its entirety.”

The organization would be banned under the Terrorism Act and anyone expressing support for Hamas, flying its flag or arranging meetings for the organization would be in breach of the law, the interior ministry confirmed. Patel is expected to present the change to parliament next week.

Hamas has political and military wings. Founded in 1987, it opposes the existence of Israel and peace talks, instead advocating “armed resistance” against Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Until now Britain had banned only its military arm — the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

Hamas political official Sami Abu Zuhri said Britain’s move showed “absolute bias toward the Israeli occupation and is a submission to Israeli blackmail and dictations”.

“Resisting occupation by all available means, including armed resistance, is a right granted to people under occupation as stated by the international law,” said Hamas in a separate statement.

The Palestinian Mission to the United Kingdom, which represents President Mahmoud Abbas’s Western-backed Palestinian Authority, also condemned the move.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett welcomed the decision, saying on Twitter: “Hamas is a terrorist organization, simply put. The ‘political arm’ enables its military activity.”

Hamas and Israel clashed most recently in a deadly 11-day conflict in May. During the second Palestinian uprising two decades ago, Hamas suicide bombers killed hundreds of Israelis, a campaign publicly backed by its political wing.

‘STRENGTHENING TIES’

In 2017 Patel was forced to resign as Britain’s international development secretary after she failed to disclose meetings with senior Israeli officials during a private holiday to the country, including then-opposition leader Yair Lapid.

Lapid, now Israel’s foreign minister, hailed the decision on Hamas as “part of strengthening ties with Britain”.

Hamas is on the U.S. list of designated foreign terrorist organizations. The European Union also deems it a terrorist movement.

Based in Gaza, Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary election, defeating its nationalist rival Fatah. It seized military control of Gaza the following year.

(Reporting by Stephen Farrell in Jerusalem and Aistair Smout in London; Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Israeli ‘wargame’ sees kids suffering vaccine-resistant COVID strain

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and senior aides holed up in a nuclear command bunker on Thursday to simulate an outbreak of a vaccine-resistant COVID-19 variant to which children are vulnerable, describing such an eventuality as “the next war.”

Israel would brief foreign leaders next week on the findings of the drill, he said, citing Britain’s Boris Johnson as among counterparts with whom he is in contact.

Bennett said that, to enhance the challenge of the one-day exercise, he had been kept unaware of specific scenarios of an imagined 10-week crisis that starts over the December holidays.

The script sees a fictitious strain, “Omega,” bypassing the vaccines which Israel rolled out at record pace this year. Omega also sickens children – largely spared by the actual virus – prompting mass hospitalizations and school closures.

“What I’ve learned is if you prepare for the next war and not for the previous war, the next pandemic and not the previous pandemic, that means that you are going to be better prepared,” Bennett told Reuters from the facility in the Jerusalem hills.

“The main lesson is: Move fast, move hard.”

As part of the simulation, Bennett said he had ordered Israeli children – including his own four – confined to their homes while the government sealed off the borders and conferred with the Palestinian Authority, Gaza officials and Jordan.

“Unlike a war-wargame, a pandemic wargame is not secret. Quite the contrary, we want to share the information,” he said.

Israel built the bunker, known as the “National Management Center,” more than a decade ago because of concern about Iran’s nuclear program and missile exchanges with Lebanon and Gaza.

Bennett said he and his aides could manage Israel “indefinitely” from the bunker in any major crisis.

(Writing by Dan Williams, Editing by Timothy Heritage and Giles Elgood)

Israeli rightist seeks to outlaw opening of U.S. Palestinian mission in Jerusalem

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – An Israeli right-wing opposition legislator is seeking to outlaw the planned reopening of a U.S. mission in Jerusalem that has traditionally been a base for diplomatic outreach to the Palestinians.

Israel’s new cross-partisan government led by nationalist Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also opposes the re-inauguration of the consulate, potentially buoying Likud lawmaker Nir Barkat’s effort to scupper the move, though it would strain relations with Washington.

The consulate was subsumed into the U.S. Embassy that was moved to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in 2018 by then-U.S. President Donald Trump, steps hailed by Israel and condemned by Palestinians.

With an eye towards repairing U.S. relations with the Palestinians, and rebuilding mutual trust, President Joe Biden’s administration says it will reopen the consulate while leaving the embassy in place.

Barkat’s legislation, filed in parliament last month and with voting as yet unscheduled, would outlaw opening a foreign mission in Jerusalem without Israel’s consent.

“I think that the current Israeli government is weak. It depends on the left, it depends on radicals on our side,” he told Reuters. “We must do everything we can to maintain the unity of the city of Jerusalem.”

Israel regards all of Jerusalem as its capital. Palestinians want East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in a 1967 war along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as capital of the state they seek.

Ahmed Al-Deek, adviser to the Palestinian foreign ministry, said Barkat “represents the position of far-right parties in Israel which seek to block any chance of reaching a two-state solution”.

Barkat said polling showed some 70% public support for the bill – enough to garner votes from within the coalition. Asked for Bennett’s position, his spokesman cast the bill as a PR stunt, saying: “We don’t comment on trolling.”

U.S. officials have been largely reticent on the issue, saying only that the reopening process remains in effect.

Asked whether precedent existed in U.S. diplomacy for opening a mission over objections of a host country, the State Department’s Office of the Historian declined comment.

Barkat’s bill recognizes that there are a handful of countries with Jerusalem missions, like the former consulate, that predate Israel’s founding in 1948.

In what may signal a bid to persuade Israel to reconsider the former mission as a candidate to rejoin that group, Thomas Nides, Biden’s pick for ambassador, noted in his Sept. 22 confirmation hearing: “That consulate has existed, in one form or another, for almost 130 years.”

Barkat was unmoved, saying: “We respect what happened before 1948 (but) never did we give anybody consent to open up a diplomatic mission for Palestinians in the city of Jerusalem.”

(Additional by Ali Sawafta; Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Mark Heinrich)

At U.N., Israeli PM Bennett says Iran has crossed all nuclear “red lines”

By Michelle Nichols, Matt Spetalnick and Stephen Farrell

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Monday that Iran had crossed “all red lines” in its nuclear program and vowed that Israel would not allow Tehran to acquire a nuclear weapon.

In his first speech before the United Nations General Assembly, Bennett said Iran sought to dominate the Middle East under a “nuclear umbrella” and urged a more concerted international effort to halt Iran’s nuclear activities.

But he also hinted at the potential for Israel to act on its own against Iran, something it has repeatedly threatened in the past.

“Iran’s nuclear program has hit a watershed moment, and so has our tolerance,” Bennett said. “Words do not stop centrifuges from spinning.”

Bennett, a far-right politician who ended Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-year run as prime minister in June, wants U.S. President Joe Biden to harden his stance against Iran, Israel’s regional arch-foe. He opposes the new U.S. administration’s efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that Biden’s White House predecessor, Donald Trump, abandoned in 2018.

Indirect U.S.-Iran talks in Vienna have stalled as Washington awaits the next move by Iran’s new hardline president, Ebrahim Raisi.

Bennett struck a less combative tone before the United Nations than Netanyahu, who often relied on props and visual aids to dramatize his accusations against Iran, an approach that critics derided as political stunts.

But Bennett has been just as adamant as Netanyahu was in pledging to do whatever is necessary to prevent Iran, which Israel views as an existential threat, from building a nuclear weapon. Iran consistently denies it is seeking a bomb.

“Iran’s nuclear weapons program is at a critical point. All red lines have been crossed, inspections ignored,” Bennett said. “They’re getting away with it.”

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols at the UN, Matt Spetalnick in Washington and Stephen Farrell in London, additional reporting by Zainah El-Haroun and Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Israel opposes Biden plan to reopen U.S. Palestinian mission in Jerusalem

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israel said on Wednesday that a U.S. plan to reopen its consulate in Jerusalem that has traditionally been a base for diplomatic outreach to Palestinians is a “bad idea” and could destabilize Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s new government.

The prior administration of President Donald Trump signaled support for Israel’s claim on Jerusalem as its capital by moving the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv. It later subsumed the consulate, in west Jerusalem, in that mission.

It was among several moves that incensed the Palestinians, who want East Jerusalem as capital of a hoped-for, future state.

President Joe Biden has pledged to restore ties with the Palestinians, back a two-state solution and move forward with reopening the consulate. It has been closed since 2019, with Palestinian affairs handled by the embassy.

“We think it’s a bad idea,” Foreign Minister Yair Lapid told a news conference when asked about the reopening. “Jerusalem is the sovereign capital of Israel and Israel alone, and therefore we don’t think it’s a good idea.

“We know that the (Biden) administration has a different way of looking at this, but since it is happening in Israel, we are sure they are listening to us very carefully.”

Wasel Abu Youssef, a senior Palestine Liberation Organization official, told Reuters that the Israeli rejection of the consulate’s opening was expected, adding: “They are trying to maintain the status quo and block any political solution”.

Asked about Lapid’s remarks, a U.S. Embassy spokesperson said: “As Secretary Blinken announced in May, the United States will be moving forward with the process to reopen our consulate in Jerusalem. We do not have additional information to share at this time.”

The spokesperson said the United States was not reversing its decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem nor its recognition of the city as Israel’s capital.

Israel captured the city’s east, along with the occupied West Bank and Gaza, in the 1967 Middle East war.

It deems all of Jerusalem as its undivided capital – a status not recognized internationally. In recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2017, Trump said he was not taking a position on “any final-status issues, including the specific boundaries of the Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem”.

Bennett, a nationalist atop a cross-partisan coalition, opposes Palestinian statehood. Reopening the consulate could unsettle Bennett’s government, which ended long-term premier Benjamin Netanyahu’s tenure in June, Lapid said.

“We have an interesting and yet delicate structure of our government and we think this might destabilize this government and I don’t think the American administration wants this to happen,” he said.

Divisions among Palestinians also cast doubt about the prospects for diplomacy, Lapid said. “I am a devoted believer in the two-state solution … but we’ll have to admit the fact this is not feasible in the current situation.”

(Writing by Rami Ayyub;Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Jonathan Oatis)