In NBC interview, prime minister insists he still supports creation of Palestinian state, says that he is not a racist

BY REBECCA SHIMONI STOIL, TOI, March 19, 2015, 7:02 pm 19

WASHINGTON – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday walked back statements made during campaigning rejecting the possibility of a two-state solution, telling NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, “I don’t want a one-state solution. I want a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution.”

Netanyahu’s first post-elections interview was delivered to the US news source, indicating a focus on calming tensions with Washington, which have risen steeply following a sharp right turn by Netanyahu in the final days of his campaign.

“I haven’t changed my policy,” Netanyahu insisted. “I never retracted my speech at Bar-Ilan University six years ago calling for a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes a Jewish state.”
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All aspects of relationship up for reevaluation; coming weeks critical as US waits to hear if PM will dial down anti-two-state, anti-Arab rhetoric

BY REBECCA SHIMONI STOIL, toi March 19, 2015,

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration woke up Wednesday morning to a sobering new reality on the ground in Jerusalem – instead of a weakened or rejected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Washington will now face the return of “King Bibi.” The White House has to come to terms with a Netanyahu who, defying the predictions, has been shored up by a strong mandate for his rightward-turning campaign.

In the final days before the election, the Obama administration was on good behavior – both the State Department and the White House barely responded to campaign statements by Netanyahu that walked back his previous comments in support of a two-state agreement. They also abided not-very-veiled accusations of US meddling in an effort to undermine Netanyahu’s candidacy. But on Wednesday, the gloves came off.
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A hawkish new Netanyahu government will face an angry White House and frustrated EU, yet things might not be as bad as they seem

BY RAPHAEL AHREN, TOI,  March 18, 2015, 10:46 pm 53

It was no secret that the international community was keeping its fingers crossed, praying for a change to a more dovish government in Israel. Now that these hopes were crushed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s resounding victory Tuesday, some fear that Europe and the United States will increase pressure on Israel over the stalled peace process with the Palestinians.

There’s certainly cause for concern. The European Union has long threatened to punish Israel for what it perceives as foot-dragging, as well as over ongoing settlement construction, which is considered an obstacle to peace. Neither is US President Barack Obama much of a fan of Netanyahu, especially since the latter’s Congress speech earlier this month, in which he ferociously attacked the administration’s policy on Iran.

How the international community will react to Israel’s 33rd government will, of course, depend to a large degree on its makeup and the policies it pursues.
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According to sources, the consideration is in light of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s remarks against the idea of two states.

Mar 19, 2015, 10:37AM | Gal Cohen

The United States is considering to support the decision of the UN Security Council in defining the boundaries of a Palestinian state with the 1967 borders, reported the New York Times. According to the report, officials in the U.S. government are considering recommending the move after Netanyahu’s remarks against the establishment of a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria, and due to his warning against the high voter turnout in the Arab sector.

The American officials added that despite the fact that relations between Israel and the U.S. will remain strong, they may not be run by President Obama himself, but instead by Secretary of State John Kerry and officials from the Department of Defense.
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Levin: We Now Have a Mandate, And a Responsibility

MK Yariv Levin said that the elections finally gave the Likud a clear mandate to rule Israel in the way the party felt it should be ruled.

By Yaakov Levi, INN

In an interview with Arutz Sheva, MK Yariv Levin, chairman of the outgoing Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, lauded his party’s victory in Tuesday’s elections, and said that it finally gave the Likud a clear mandate to rule Israel in the way the party felt it should be ruled.

“This is a great accomplishment, and I salute the public who supported us, despite all the anti-Netanyahu propaganda in the media and by Yitzhak Herzog and Tzipi Livni, and all the money that was spent to beat us,” said Levin. “

The pressure in the media was great, but the fact that the issues were placedbefore the public allowed us to present out views to the public, turning us into a strong political force.”
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Support for Likud actually rose in the middle-class and peripheral towns compared to the last election, despite the social agenda pushed by the center-left camp.

By Or Kashti, HAARETZ

Zionist Union got the highest number of votes in 28 of the country’s 33 wealthiest towns, while Likud enjoyed a decisive majority among Jewish local authorities in the middle- to lower-middle-class range; in 64 of these 77 towns, Likud came in first.

The Central Bureau of Statistics divides Israeli communities into 10 deciles based on variables like per capita income, the number of new cars, the percentage of students, the ratio of residents to unemployment, and more.

Segmenting the voting by socioeconomic levels reveals a major and probably decisive difference between Likud and Zionist Union; the former got lots of votes in wealthier communities, but the latter did very well almost solely in those richer areas.
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JPOST

Israel will have a new government in place in time for Independence Day celebrations, sources close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday.

Despite exit polls indicating a close race Tuesday night, Netanyahu won a sweeping victory, beating the Zionist Union by at least five seats, 29 to 24. The Likud may receive another seat Thursday after the counting of soldiers’ absentee ballots is complete.

With an unquestionable victory, Netanyahu is not expected to come under pressure to change his mind about forming a right-wing nationalist coalition with Kulanu, Bayit Yehudi, Yisrael Beytenu, Shas and United Torah Judaism, rather than a national-unity government with the Zionist Union.

President Reuven Rivlin is to begin consultations with the elected parties Sunday, with the goal of appointing Netanyahu to form a government after official results come in next Wednesday.
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Is Bibi already reneging on his promises or just a tactic to manage the international pressure?

By Chris Coffee,  ALGEMEINER

Israel’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tzachi Hanegbi (Likud) said yesterday in an interview that the new government is willing to return to the negotiation table with the Palestinians.

“We would be delighted to renew the negotiations,” Hanegbi said in an interview with the Israel Project. “We believe it is in the interest of both people– the Israeli and the Palestinian– to have a dialogue; to discuss our disputes; to try and find [a] common denominator in the issues that are so crucial to both people.”

Hanegbi, a Netanyahu loyalist, also said that the new government will begin an intense effort to renew the trust between the United States and Israel.
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Politico: US May ‘Dump’ Israel at UN, International Forums
Taken aback by Netanyahu’s victory Tuesday, US State Department may drop Israel as ally in international bodies like the UN, report says.

Obama intends to refrain from vetoing a UN resolution which pressures Israel

By John Hudson, FOREIGN POLICY

After years of blocking U.N. efforts to pressure Israelis and Palestinians into accepting a lasting two-state solution, the United States is edging closer toward supporting a U.N. Security Council resolution that would call for the resumption of political talks to conclude a final peace settlement, according to Western diplomats.

The move follows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decisive re-election Tuesday after the incumbent publicly abandoned his commitment to negotiate a Palestinian state — the basis of more than 20 years of U.S. diplomatic efforts — and promised to continue the construction of settlements on occupied territory. The development also reflects deepening pessimism over the prospect of U.S.-brokered negotiations delivering peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
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With tech developed in Israel, those who grow the world’s food will be able to support themselves, says program director, Dr Aliza Belman

BY DAVID SHAMAH, TOI

“Africa is clearly the future of agriculture in the world,” said Belman-Inbal, the program’s director. “It has 60 percent of the available uncultivated arable land in the world, and with the world set to double its population in the coming decades, we are going to have to produce a lot more food than we do now. Israel has a lot of experience and knowledge in these areas, and we believe that we can contribute a great deal to improving the situation in Africa.”

The Pears program intends to focus its efforts on Kenya, a country that already has an active tech innovation scene. “There are dozens of accelerators and incubators in Nairobi – it’s sort of a Silicon Savannah,” said Belman-Inbal. “Our objective is to develop connections between entrepreneurs and developers in Israel and Kenya to develop tech solutions for agricultural needs, and deliver them to small holders in the country.”
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International legal expert outlines Israel’s clear legal right to Judea-Samaria, wonders why Israeli leaders won’t say it out loud.

By Shimon Cohen, Editor, ‘Sovereignty Journal’

The new government must give top priority to making a decision about the ownership structure of Israel’s gas fields.

By Amiran Barkat, GLOBES

By Ted Belman

Shortly after Pres Obama’s inauguration in 2009, Likud, with Netanyahu at its head, was tasked with forming the government. He was concerned to balance the pressure he was under by the right wing of Likud so he invited  Ehud Barak, a former Chief of Staff of the IDF and former Prime Minister to break away from Labour by forming a new party. Netanyahu then invited it to join the Government. For Barak’s troubles he was made the Defense Minister, arguably the second most important ministry in the government. You will recall that Barak made an unprecedented offer to Arafat in the peace negotiations under President Clinton.

He appointed Michael Oren to the post of Ambassador to the US. While Oren had great credentials for the post he was also a left winger.
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By Ted Belman

Bibi makes a huge comeback in the last 72 hours.

He said he will first invite Bayit Yehudi to join him and will not invite Labour.

Bibi will have a nationalist government of about 64 seats but it will be stable.

Eli Yishai’s party did not reach the threshold.

Remember Bibi promised:

– thousands of houses in Jerusalem

– no Palestinian state

– no dividing Jerusalem

-not to release any more prisoner’s

If Israel wants coalitions that last for the duration of a Knesset term, it needs both Likud and Labor to become powerhouse political forces again.

By Moshe Arens, HAARETZ

Whoever ends up forming the next government will have a tough time assembling a coalition and holding it together while preparing for the next election. When the party forming the coalition has no more than 20-something seats in the Knesset, it is a foregone conclusion that it is not going to be stable. So while worrying about the housing crisis, the cost of living, a nuclear Iran, and the Hezbollah and Hamas rockets aimed at Israel, someone better start thinking about the root cause of the instability of Israel’s political system.
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For half a century, memories of the Holocaust limited anti-Semitism on the Continent. That period has ended—the recent fatal attacks in Paris and Copenhagen are merely the latest examples of rising violence against Jews. Renewed vitriol among right-wing fascists and new threats from radicalized Islamists have created a crisis, confronting Jews with an agonizing choice.

Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic

“All comes from the Jew; all returns to the Jew.”

— Édouard Drumont (1844–1917), founder of the Anti-Semitic League of France

I. The Scourge of Our Time

The French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, the son of Holocaust survivors, is an accomplished, even gifted, pessimist. To his disciples, he is a Jewish Zola, accusing France’s bien-pensant intellectual class of complicity in its own suicide. To his foes, he is a reactionary whose nostalgia for a fairy-tale French past is induced by an irrational fear of Muslims.

Finkielkraut’s cast of mind is generally dark, but when we met in Paris in early January, two days after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, he was positively grim.
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by Steven J. Rosen
Justice

http://www.meforum.org/5113/congress-unrwa

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DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis March 16, 2015, 8:56 PM (GMT+02:00)

Rivals or would-be partners?

Monday night, in the final hours before Israel’s fiercely contested general election Tuesday, March 17, the four-seat margin the polls had awarded Yitzhak Herzog’s opposition left-of-center Zionist Union against Binyamin Netanyahu’s right-of-center Likud was shrinking fast.

debkafile’s sources, which tapped into some of the inside estimates, found these two frontrunners frantically crunching numbers in a race that might well turn out to be too close to call.

Whaever happens, neither of the two biggest parties can expect to form a government without coalition partners. According to last-minute estimates, the Zionist Union expected 26 (out of 120) Knesset seats compared with Likud’s 23, while Likud confirmed its rival’s 26 seats, but awarded itself 24.
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