Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas threatened to dismantle the P.A., an Israeli newspaper is reporting. Citing unnamed Palestinian sources, the Israeli daily Yediot Acharonot on Sunday reported that Abbas is considering the unilateral action, which would leave Israel with full responsibility for the Palestinians living in the West Bank. The action would annul the 1993…
Israel’s Naftali Bennett / Getty Images On Wednesday, the multi-portfolioed Naftali Bennett – Israel’s Minister of the Economy, Minister of Religious Services, and Minister of Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs – sent a letter to his Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. In that letter, according to Israeli Army Radio, Bennett called for a cabinet meeting “to begin…
A senior Israeli minister has urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to annex a swathe of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, saying peace talks with the Palestinians were dead. The U.S.-backed negotiations came close to collapse last week amidst mutual recrimination and although the two sides are seeking to overcome the crisis, Netanyahu has…
New outpost goes up at Eli, Judea-West Bank, February 2008, courtesy of the World Zionist Organization / Getty Images The settler movement and its right-wing Knesset allies are finding they’ve got their hands full swatting back demands from the center and left — an unusual alliance of Labor, Yesh Atid and Tzipi Livni’s Hatnuah —…
The Robinson’s Arch plaza at the Western Wall will come under the control of a future government-appointed pluralist council. Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett forged an agreement within the government on Thursday that would put the egalitarian prayer site in the hands of the council with non-Orthodox representation. Last week, reports emerged that the…
Getty Images Yesterday in these pages Mira Sucharov explored the concept of qualified Diaspora Jewish citizenship in Israel. She was responding to Naftali Bennett’s floating of the idea (he called it “semi-citizenship”), but she seems open to the notion. However vague, both Bennett and Sucharov meant more than just the ability of ex-pats to vote…
Supporters of Naftali Bennett celebrate in Tel Aviv in 2013. / Getty Images When I heard that the Israeli government and the Jewish Agency were spearheading a three-day “Online Brainstorming Marathon to Plan the Future of the Jewish People,” the international crowdsourcing initiative instantly grabbed my attention. Partly, it was because I’d heard that Israel’s…
(JTA) Israeli Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett said that Jews outside Israel “should have some sort of say” in the Israeli government’s affairs, and even suggested offering “semi-citizenship” to Diaspora Jews. The vague concept is related to the so far somewhat undefined $1 billion-plus project that has been picking up steam this week….
