Noticias

In one of their many points of friction, presidential hopeful and Knesset member Reuven Rivlin heard that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara accused him of involvement in the choice of journalist Rino Tzror as one of the torch lighters at Israel’s Independence Day ceremony. The ceremony panel that picked the veteran, respected journalist explained that through his work Tzror “serves as a mouthpiece for those citizens who feel they are on the margins of society in Israel and raises pointed human dilemmas and painful social problems.”

On the morning of May 16, just one day after he returned from Japan, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in his office with US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. On the agenda: the spy scandal, Iran's nuclear program, diplomatic negotiations and a long list of other major security

El primer ministro israelí, Benjamín Netanyahu, anunció hoy sus planes de promover una legislación para afianzar el carácter judío del Estado de Israel como estado nacional del pueblo judío.

"Es mi intención presentar una legislación básica a la Knesset (Parlamento israelí) que provea de base constitucional al estatus de Israel como estado nacional del pueblo judío", manifestó Netanyahu en una ceremonia celebrada en el Salón de Independencia de Tel Aviv, lugar donde se leyó la declaración del 14 de mayo de 1948.

The loss of the Nazareth mayoralty in the March 11 recall elections marked the beginning of the end of the Israeli Communist Party in Israel. Ramez Jaraisi, the mayor for nearly four decades, lost to Ali Salam, who won more than 61% of the city’s votes.

Opposition parties panned a Yisrael Beytenu proposal for electoral reform Wednesday night.

The legislation proposed by Knesset Law, Constitution and Justice Committee chairman David Rotem (Yisrael Beytenu) increases the election threshold to four percent, limits the number of ministers including the prime minister to 19 and deputy ministers to four.

Jerusalem (CNN) -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's party got the most votes in Israel's national election Tuesday, but a respectable showing by centrists could slow or halt a rightward swing in the government.

Netanyahu's Likud Beitenu won between 31 and 33 Knesset seats in the Israel election, TV exit polls reported, winning the most, as expected. Jewish Home, an extreme right party with a charismatic leader named Naftali Bennett, got between 11 and 12 seats.

With less than 24 hours until Israelis vote in general elections, party leaders were campaigning down to the wire ahead of a ballot that is expected to return Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to office.

The vote on Tuesday is widely expected to usher in a government which will swing further to the right, whittling away at the chances of a peace deal with the Palestinians and raising the prospect of greater diplomatic isolation for Israel.

Israel's elections have aroused minimal interest from Middle Eastern states who once scrutinized such votes for clues about the fate of the so-called peace process.

Whether they endorsed US-backed negotiations with the Palestinians or were out to sabotage them, regional powers would see Israeli polls at least as significant straws in the wind.