Israel Featured Item

The reason for Lieberman upending Netanyahu’s government

Jun 06, 2019 Go comment!

Israelis are going to the polls again over an issue that is as divisive as it is seemingly unsolvable. Should ultra-Orthodox (haredi) men serve in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), or not?
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Netanyahu loses election he has already won

May 30, 2019 Go comment!

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lost an election he had already won. For the first time in the country’s history, a party (in this case Netanyahu’s Likud) was unable to form a majority coalition after parliamentary elections.
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Benjamin Netanyahu re-elected as voters swing to the right

Apr 18, 2019 Go comment!

As expected, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin has named incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the best person to put together the next Israeli government.
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Jews out in space

Apr 18, 2019 Go comment!

“We’re Jews out in space, zooming along protecting the Hebrew race.” This was sung by a bunch of tallit-wearing Jews depicted at the end of Mel Brookes’ 1981 comic classic, History of the World Part 1. Flying a magen david (star of david) shaped spacecraft, the Jews dance a hora each time they destroy an enemy spacecraft while singing, “When goyim attack us, we give them a smack and slap them right back in the face.”
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King Bibi here to stay

Apr 11, 2019 Go comment!

“This is an unimaginable achievement,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told exuberant supporters in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
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Israeli election day dishes up some hard choices

Apr 11, 2019 Go comment!

(JTA) Even by Israeli standards, the country’s latest general elections have been exceptionally dirty, rife with personal attacks between candidates, and fake news.
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Israelis watch the rising star of Gantz

Feb 07, 2019 Go comment!

There’s a popular weekly satirical show in Israel called Eretz Nehederet. In a recent episode, an actor playing Benny Gantz, the former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and newcomer to Israeli politics, is asked how he’s feeling.
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Israel among top five most innovative countries on the globe

Jan 24, 2019 Go comment!

Israel – commonly dubbed the “Start-up Nation” – has jumped to fifth place in the 2019 Bloomberg Innovation Index, skipping five places since last year. It is officially the fifth most innovative country in the world, according to Bloomberg, an international business news network that calls itself “the central nerve system of global finance”.
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Israeli elections down to two men

Jan 17, 2019 Go comment!

Israeli elections are still three months away, which is a lifetime in Israel. So much can happen between now and then that when election day arrives on 9 April, much of what is written here could be obsolete.
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Israel story based on a fake narrative

Dec 06, 2018 Go comment!

The Israel story is “malfunctioning or getting warped in translation”, says Canadian-born Israeli Matti Friedman, who is a senior journalist and author based in Jerusalem.
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Rockets, mortars, retaliation, repeat – welcome to the Gaza belt

Nov 19, 2018 Go comment!

Fifteen hours. That’s all it took for Hamas to shoot 460 rockets and mortars at southern Israel.
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Former deputy Israeli ambassador to SA drawn into Gaza rocket anguish

Nov 15, 2018 Go comment!

On Monday evening, the skirmish raging between Israel and Hamas became very real for former Deputy Israeli Ambassador to South Africa, Michael Freeman, and his wife, Sigalit. They learned that the home of Sigalit’s mother had been hit by rocket fire, and neither of them was in a position to do anything.
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Ex-South Africans under fire near Gaza border

Nov 15, 2018 Go comment!

South African olah, Nava Uner, has lived through two previous Gaza attacks, but this past week was undoubtedly the worst.
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Taking you through some of Israel’s firsts

Apr 19, 2018 Go comment!

1952 High-school dropout Stef Wertheimer sets up a small metal shop and tool-making company in the backyard of his home in Nahariya. His company, ISCAR, is today one of the world’s largest manufacturers of carbide industrial cutting tools used by carmakers like Ford and General Motors, employing 6 000 people in branches in 50 countries.
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Why kibbutzim are thriving again

Apr 19, 2018 1 Comment

If there was ever a quintessential symbol of the Jewish State’s founding pioneers, it is the kibbutz – a phenomenon found only in Israel, and as intrinsic to the fabric of society as the Israeli flag.
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Bibi defends controversial Kotel decision

Jun 29, 2017 1 Comment

Netanyahu says he didn’t betray anyone by effectively cancelling a historic agreement to provide a non-Orthodox space at the Kotel, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, and caving to the interests of his Haredi Orthodox coalition partners.
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Israel’s ‘Facebook bill’ could hamper free speech

Mar 09, 2017 2 Comments

Israel’s Knesset last week passed the first reading of the Criminally Offensive Content from the Internet bill - dubbed the “Facebook bill”.
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Lenk: Jerusalem will always be Israeli capital

Feb 01, 2017 1 Comment

Ambassador Lenk appeared on the popular SABC News morning show, Newsroom, yesterday (Tuesday January 31) and discussed Israel's relationship with the US, the controversy over Donald Trump wanting to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, Israel’s capital city, and the need for the Holy Land’s Palestinian neighbours to reject terror and return to direct peace talks. Watch the full 12-minute interview and hear Ambassador Lenk’s frank and honest responses – and his open and relaxed demeanour.
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Swazi, Israeli PMs meet on expanding relations

Jan 10, 2017 1 Comment

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu last month hosted his counterpart from the Kingdom of Swaziland Dr. Barnabas Sibusiso Dlamini in Jerusalem. The Swazi PM was visiting Israel accompanied by Agriculture Minister Moses Vilakati and the two two leaders discussed expanding their bilateral cooperation in the fields of water, education, agriculture, health and security. Netanyahu said: "We have a solid friendship and a desire to cooperate even more. This is part of 'Israel's return to Africa'. Read what else was said...
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Israel's 'flying car’ one step closer to delivery

Jan 08, 2017 1 Comment

From science fiction to reality, an Israeli tech firm is optimistic it will finally get its 1,500 kg passenger carrying drone on the market by 2020.
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