From The Independent
Mr Netanyahu’s Likud party returned 30 seats in the Knesset to the Zionist Union’s 24 – and is now likely to form the next coalition government with partners on the right and the centre.
But on the eve of the polls, the Likud leader made controversial remarks about the high turnout among Israeli Arab voters, warning that they were being bussed to the polls “in droves”.
Mr Obama, who has not yet called Mr Netanyahu to congratulate him following his success, according to The Guardian, condemned the incendiary remarks – saying that they sought to “marginalise Arab Israeli citizens”.
The US president’s response came after the Israeli PM appeared in a video posted to his Facebook page where he urged his supporters to go out and vote, saying: “The right-wing government is in danger. Arab voters are heading to the polling stations in droves. Left-wing NGOs are bringing them in buses.”
He also ruled out the creation of an independent Palestinian state and vowed to strengthen construction of settlements in occupied east Jerusalem.
“I think that anyone who moves to establish a Palestinian state and evacuate territory gives territory away to radical Islamist attacks against Israel,” he said in a pre-election interview with a website owned by his biggest backer – US casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.
In response, the White House said that it was now preparing to ‘re-evaluate’ its policy on the Middle East process.
Obama in previous talks with Benjamin Netanyahu
Edited time: March 21, 2015 04:49
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From PressTV
Israel-US military ties at full throttle: Official
A senior Israeli official says military ties between Tel Aviv and Washington retain their ultimate strength despite apparent friction of late between the two sides,
Military relations “continue full strength. Everything concerning the security dialogue is deep, broad and intensive,” said Amos Gilad, a top official at the Israeli ministry for military affairs.
“The picture is clear – security relations are extremely strong,” he said and noted, “These ties will continue and are continuing.”
The total American military aid to Israel has amounted to USD 100 billion since Washington began providing assistance to Tel Aviv in 1962.
The largest amount of US aid in a single year reached USD 15.7 billion in 1979, when Israel signed a peace treaty with Egypt.
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From PressTV
Israel bulldozers conduct incursion of Rafah in Gaza
Israeli bulldozers and military vehicles have reportedly intruded into the Palestinian border town of Rafah in the blockaded Gaza Strip, locals say.
Witnesses said four bulldozers and vehicles belonging to the Israeli military conducted an incursion into the southern town in Gaza, where Egyptian forces demolished over 1,000 homes earlier this week to create a so-called buffer zone.
Egyptian officials said Tuesday that the country’s military had razed to the ground at least 1,020 homes in Rafah, near the border with southern Gaza Strip, in the second phase of an operation to create a buffer zone with the Israeli-besieged territory.
In a separate development on Thursday, Israeli naval forces also opened fire at Palestinian fishermen across the al-Sudaniya coastline off Gaza City, the Palestinian news agency cited witnesses and sources as saying.
The sources also said one fishing boat had been damaged in the Israeli assault.
From The Times of Israel
IDF to probe bombing of Gaza UN school
Military announces launch of six new criminal investigations into incidents during 2014 conflict
The Israeli military said Thursday night it had opened six new criminal investigations into soldiers’ actions during 2014’s Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip, including the bombing of a United Nations school that, according to Palestinians, killed 21 civilians and injured dozens.
Chief Military Advocate General Maj. Gen. Danny Efroni announced the probe into the July 30 incident, in which the Israel Defense Forces fired several tank shells at a UN school in the Jabaliya refugee camp, which was housing hundreds of Palestinian refugees.
The Israeli strike elicited widespread international condemnation, including that of UN and US officials. It was one of three incidents between July 24-August 3 in which Israel was accused of striking UN schools serving as shelters, killing almost 50 people and wounding hundreds.
The military defended the action at the time, saying soldiers had targeted Gaza terrorists who had launched mortar shells from the location.
But Efroni said Thursday that findings had given him “reasonable grounds to suspect that the strike was carried out against regulations to which IDF troops are obligated.”
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From The Times of Israel
Post-election, a widening US Jewish split over Israel
Netanyahu’s actions, particularly his disavowal of two-state solution and attitude towards Israeli Arabs, are proving increasingly divisive
NEW YORK (AP) — Well before this week’s elections, Israel had already become a source of division for American Jews, who bitterly debated the ever-expanding Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories and the acceptable boundaries of dissent from Israeli policies.
The outcome of the Israeli election will only deepen that polarization, experts say. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s anti-Arab campaign rhetoric and his rejection of a Palestinian state, they say, will further splinter American Jews into hard left and right camps, and intensify conflicts over what it means to be loyal to the Jewish state.
“The trend toward fragmentation and weakening the center — those trends are already in place and they’re just going to gallop forward now,” said Theodore Sasson, a Jewish-studies professor at Middlebury College and author of “The New American Zionism.”
“It’s going to make Israel an even more divisive issue in the American Jewish community.”
American Jews generally still retain a strong personal link to Israel. In a 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center, about 70 percent of American Jews said they felt very or somewhat attached to Israel, regardless of any misgivings about the country’s policies. Most scholars don’t expect that emotional connection to weaken for now because of Netanyahu’s victory.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Australia’s prime minister apologizes for Goebbels comparison
(JTA)—Australia’s prime minister publicly apologized for comparing the country’s opposition leader to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
On Thursday, Tony Abbott said in a parliament meeting that Labor Party leader Bill Shorten was the “Dr. Goebbels of economic policy.”
Abbott apologized on a radio interview on Friday.
“I accept that in the context of history and the way things developed, that was an over-the-top remark,” Abbott said to Australian Broadcasting Corp. broadcaster Jon Faine, who is Jewish. “All of us from time to time in the heat of debate — and you know how heated the parliament can get — sometimes go too far. I accept that.”
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Reform, Conservative streams condemn Netanyahu’s warning on Arab ‘droves’
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The two largest American Jewish religious streams criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for an election day appeal in which he warned that Arabs were voting in “droves.”
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated that Israel was endangered by Israeli Arabs exercising their right to vote,” the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly said in a statement Thursday. “This statement, which indefensibly singled out the Arab citizens of Israel, is unacceptable and undermines the principles upon which the State of Israel was founded.”
Netanyahu in a video posted on Facebook urged Likud voters to cast ballots saying “droves” of Arab voters were being bused to the polls in a campaign he said was funded from abroad.
Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, in his criticism also noted Netanyahu’s election eve renunciation of a two-state solution; post-election, Netanyahu has walked back those comments, saying a two-state solution is still his goal.
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From Russia Today
Too ‘dramatic’: Monsanto shuns WHO verdict that Roundup ‘probably’ causes cancer
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), in their latest study said that there was“convincing evidence” that glyphosate in Roundup can cause cancer in lab animals.
St. Louis-based Monsanto was not pleased with WHO conclusions, claiming that scientific data does not support their assumptions and urging the health watchdog to hold a meeting to explain the findings.
“We don’t know how IARC could reach a conclusion that is such a dramatic departure from the conclusion reached by all regulatory agencies around the globe,” Philip Miller, Monsanto’s vice-president of global regulatory affairs, said in a brief statement released soon after the report was published.
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From The Times of Israel
AIPAC urges Obama to strengthen ties with Netanyahu
Group criticizes White House plan to reassess its approach to Israel over prime minister’s short-lived rejection of Palestinian state
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on Thursday night called on Washington to strengthen its ties with Israel following the reelection of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and castigated the White House for its cool response to the Israeli leader’s statements that — contrary to his preelection stance — he supports the two-state solution.
“Today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly and clearly reaffirmed his commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” a statement by AIPAC said.
“Unfortunately, administration spokespersons rebuffed the prime minister’s efforts to improve the understandings between Israel and the US,” it continued. “In contrast to their comments, we urge the administration to further strengthen ties with America’s most reliable and only truly democratic ally in the Middle East.
“A solid and unwavering relationship between the US and Israel is in the national security interests of both countries and reflects the values that we both cherish.”
From the Jewish Daily Forward
Bibi Offers Israel Troubled Sleep — and No Hope
By Amy Wilentz
I understand why some Israelis, intending to go vote for Isaac Herzog and the Zionist Union, went in and voted for Benjamin Netanyahu and Likud at the last minute.
Tuesday I was wondering, really, how I would vote if I were Israeli – knowing what I know and having lived through what I lived through in Jerusalem during the peace process in the late 1990s.
A Bibi voter is, perhaps, a liberal whose city has been bus-bombed. Or maybe, better yet, a liberal who is watching Islamic State videos.
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From the Jewish Daily Forward
What’s a Nice Jewish Boy Doing Leading a Fraternity Like This?
Brad Cohen Denies Broad Racism Charge After Oklahoma Video Flap
In his message, Bradley Cohen had planned to hail the achievement of one of his own long-sought goals: the end of hazing at the fraternity, where 10 students nationwide have died in recent years during brutal initiation rituals. But as he monitored the social media response provoked by the surfacing of the video on March 8, Cohen quickly realized that this would be no celebration day.
“I knew this was just going to be bad,” the 52-year-old eminent supreme archon of SAE said.
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