“Look at what’s happening in the Muslim world. Not one day passed… in recent years without 300 people murdered… There are all kinds of terrorist acts… and everyone is quiet about it.”

In Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman’s eyes, the world is not a very friendly place – at least not to Israelis. There’s a double standard for Israel and for other countries, and the international community closes its eyes to the facts, he repeated several times in an interview conducted in his Tel Aviv office.

Liberman, who will be speaking at next Wednesday’s Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference in Jerusalem, has honed his worldview over decades in Israeli politics, turned it into his own political party with a relatively unwavering platform through the years, and brought it to the Defense Ministry in May. With the reins of the IDF and governance of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) in his hands, he’s now turning his ideas about Israel’s security into action. Continue reading

Anyone who has been paying attention should not be surprised by the outcome. Kahlon is pretty consistent.

If there is one political lesson that has been reinforced again and again since this government came into power last year, it is that Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon really cares only about being finance minister.

It is not necessarily a bad thing to have a finance minister who wants to think about finances. There is a strong argument to be made that Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid’s downfall in that role was related to his lack of Kahlon’s singular focus.

And yet, every time there is some kind of controversy or potential coalition crisis, the Left somehow expects Kahlon to save the day by taking up their cause, even when that cause nothing to do with economic policy.

A little word of advice: Stop pinning your hopes on Kahlon. It’s not gonna happen. Continue reading

If you’re wondering who Bitan is, where he came from and why is he making so many headlines, that’s understandable.

It’s David Bitan’s country; we’re just living in it.

At least that’s how it seems if you’ve been reading the political news lately. The coalition chairman and Likud MK seems to have come out of nowhere and somehow is everywhere, with a finger in every pie and something to say about everything.

On Saturday night, Bitan outdid himself, causing two maelstroms at once. First, he said that former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination was “not a political murder,” and then he announced that he is tracking the Facebook posts of journalists.

Bitan backtracked somewhat on both – Rabin’s murder had political motivations, but didn’t come from a political party, he said, and he’s not actively following journalists, he was sent certain Facebook posts, which are public anyway – but he was still at the eye of both storms.

If you’re wondering who Bitan is, where he came from and why is he making so many headlines, that’s understandable. Continue reading 

iVote Israel and the US Vote Foundation each reported 15,000 Americans in Israel using their services, much lower than the 80,000 iVoteIsrael reported in 2012.

Republican nominee Donald Trump won the US presidential vote among American citizens voting from Israel, according to an iVoteIsrael exit poll taken this week, but in an election plagued with low favorability ratings for both candidates, he had a far less impressive showing than past Republicans have in Israel.

As The Jerusalem Post exclusively reported on Wednesday, Trump received 49% of the Israeli-American vote, while Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton got 44%, according to the poll conducted by get-out-the-vote organization iVoteIsrael and KEEVOON Global Research. Continue reading

Knesset session opens with coalition in turmoil.

The Knesset was set to begin a new session Monday, with disputes within the coalition and a budget deadline looming over the coming months, making the phrase “winter is coming” sound as ominous to MKs as it does to the characters on the hit TV show Game of Thrones. Continue reading

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At 40 and single, Kulanu MK Merav Ben-Ari decided that it was time for her to become a mother, and she made up her mind to step into this life adventure with one of her best friends.

After being elected to the Knesset in 2015, MK Merav Ben-Ari quickly attracted attention for her seemingly endless energy and, more importantly, effectiveness in championing and diverting funds to the needs of students, young adults, and homeless and at-risk youth.

Indeed, Ben-Ari has always been an overachiever, in her own way. In her IDF service in the Education Corps, she became an officer (Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked was one of her soldiers) and received a citation for excellence.

At the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, where she received degrees in law and business administration, she was elected the first-ever female student union leader. In 2005, she came in first place in the reality TV show Wanted: A Leader, winning NIS 5 million, which she invested in establishing a center for at-risk youth in Netanya, and three years later she opened another center in Herzliya.
In recent weeks, however, the MK has been getting attention for an entirely different reason – her personal life.

Ben-Ari, 40, is in an unprecedented situation for an Israeli lawmaker: She’s single and pregnant for the first time, with a child she plans to raise with a close friend, Ophir, 41, who is gay. The two began the in-vitro fertilization process in 2014, before she entered politics, and they’re expecting a daughter in March. Continue reading

“US voters have been very clear – more than half are dissatisfied with the two major party candidates, largely for their personal actions, not just policies.”

Yuli Edelstein hopes MKs will do some introspection on the High Holy Days and start setting a better example for their voters.

Along with the new Jewish year comes a new Knesset session – beginning October 30 – making Yom Kippur a good time for introspection not only for each individual Jew but for Israel’s parliament as well.

Speaking to The Jerusalem Post in his office last week, it was clear that Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein didn’t think 5776 was a year the legislature should be especially proud of and believes there are MKs who should be atoning for their sins.

Some may want to focus on one line in the confessional prayer that reads: “And for the sin which we have committed before You with an utterance of the lips.”

“It keeps me up at night,” Edelstein said, referring to the uncivil and sometimes violent tone the discourse can take in the Knesset.

“The tone in the Knesset influences the public. When we call each other fascists and traitors, that flows outwards, and things can end badly,” he warned.

“If two drivers curse at each other in an intersection, in the end one might pull out a knife.”

The temptation for lawmakers to pander to voters rather than try to set an example is great, Edelstein added. Continue reading 

לעברית, הקליקו כאן

With all the attention Yair Lapid has been getting, you’d be forgiven for thinking Israel has two opposition leaders.

Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid may be proof for Henry Kissinger’s famous statement that “Israel has no foreign policy; it has only a domestic policy.”

At a time when Israel does not have a designated foreign minister, Lapid has spent the last year-plus trying to fill that vacuum, acting as a self-appointed Shadow Foreign Minister, jet-setting around the world to make Israel’s case. Whether it’s accusing the UN Human Rights Commission of bias against Israel in Geneva or calling Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom an anti-Semite in Stockholm, Lapid is there, contributing his trademark charisma to Israel’s defense.

He’s also put pen to paper for Israel, publishing op-eds such as one in Foreign Policy hailing the US-Israel alliance during negotiations on the Memorandum of Understanding for Israel to receive aid.

For Lapid, all politics really is local – even if they take him around the world. Continue reading 

Rozic proudly keeps an Israeli flag at her desk in the assembly, but her connection is not just symbolic.

NEW YORK – When NY State Assemblywoman Nily Rozic is in Albany, she remembers where she came from to connect with her constituents in Queens.

Rozic, 30, a Democrat, is up for reelection in November. She was the youngest woman in the state legislature when she was voted in four years ago. She is also the first-ever NY State Assembly member born in Israel – she still has Israeli citizenship – with parents who made aliya from Argentina.

Rozic proudly keeps an Israeli flag at her desk in the assembly, but her connection is not just symbolic. Being Israeli “definitely brings meaning to the job,” Rozic said, speaking to The Jerusalem Post in Manhattan last week.