A Reuters report this morning attempts to cut through the noise of Israel’s heavily polled January 22 election, emphasizing that the race remains largely stable despite fluctuations within Israel’s center-right and center-left blocs. The analysis is in tension with coverage from Israeli political analysts to the effect that the Likud is...

• Kindle

Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud/Beiteinu political slate lost ground again this week, ahead of the upcoming January 22 general election which will decide the makeup of Israel’s 19th Knesset. The results were published as part of an Israel Radio poll released Thursday. The survey, which carries a 4.5 percent margin of error,...

• Kindle

Turkey has reportedly lifted long-standing objections that have kept Israel from participating as a partner in NATO activities, albeit non-military ones. Ankara has prevented Israel from participating in NATO activities since May 2010, and has reportedly been under extreme pressure from other NATO members, especially the United States, to reduce...

• Kindle

Israeli diplomats are suggesting that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, having secured non-member U.N. statehood status for the Palestinians, is committed to leveraging that status to “incite a confrontation with Israel no matter what.” The Palestinian Authority announced Thursday that, should Israeli voters choose the Likud Party to lead the next...

• Kindle

A clear view of Israel’s electoral landscape has yet to emerge, even as the country speeds toward the upcoming January 22 election. While polls have been consistent in describing the race’s broad contours — a strong center-right Likud and a fractured political left — the composition within those blocs continues...

• Kindle

United Nations peacekeeping forces on the Israel-Syria border are at risk of collapsing, the French ambassador to the UN warned earlier this week. The spiraling anarchy in western Syria is punctuated by routine clashes between forces loyal to the regime of Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad and rebels seeking its overthrow....

• Kindle

Newly discovered natural gas reserves off Israel’s coast will contribute to greater-than-expected economic growth in 2013, according to statements issued by Israel’s Finance Ministry. A joint U.S.-Israel consortium is expected to start drilling for the gas in 2013, extracting some of the estimated 274 billion cubic meters of reserves from...

• Kindle

The resignation of Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, which comes in the wake of a decision yesterday by Israel’s attorney general to indict Lieberman on corruption charges, has analysts and pundits scrambling to reevaluate electoral scenarios as Israelis prepare to go to the polls on January 22. Lieberman has been...

• Kindle

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has reiterated the Palestinian Authority’s intention to wage an international diplomatic campaign against Israel, which would leverage the Palestinians’ upgraded status at the United Nations to sue Israel in the International Criminal Court. The statements come as Abbas’s Fatah faction, which controls the West Bank, has...

• Kindle

Pentagon officials are pressing Congress to enhance military sales to Israel in the form of an additional $647 million package which would include 6,900 tail kits used to transform free-fall bombs into precise satellite-guided weapons and thousands of 900kg bunker buster bombs. The tail kits would supplement an Israeli arsenal...

• Kindle