BENJAMIN NETANYAHU

If Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition have their way, my country could deteriorate into a dictatorship.

An act that caused Israeli forces to withdraw from the Gaza Strip has been repealed by the country's lawmakers. This opens up the idea of Israeli forces returning to the West Bank.

Crisis in Israel deepens over the new government's radical plans, which have alienated and dismayed Israelis and Jewish Americans alike.

Israeli lawmakers on Tuesday repealed a 2005 act that saw four Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank dismantled at the same time as Israeli forces withdraw from the Gaza Strip. The development could pave the way for an official return to the abandoned West Bank areas and further deepen the crisis. It was the latest move by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government, which is dominated by settler leaders and allies, to promote settlement activity in the territory.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said during a speech in Paris that there is no such thing as a Palestinian person, nation, history, or language.

While promising to pause some aspects of the overhaul, the right-wing government still vowed to enact measures to give it more say in selecting Supreme Court judges.

A firebrand Israeli minister says there’s “no such thing” as a Palestinian people.

A firebrand Israeli minister claimed there’s “no such thing” as a Palestinian people as Israel's new coalition government, its most hard-line ever, plowed ahead on Monday with a part of its plan to overhaul the judiciary. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition said it was pushing a key part of the overhaul — which would give the coalition control over who becomes a justice or a judge — before the parliament takes a monthlong holiday break next week. The development came a day after an Israeli and Palestinian delegation at a meeting in Egypt, mediated by Egyptian, Jordanian and U.S. officials, pledged to take steps to lower tensions roiling the region ahead of a sensitive holiday season.

President tells Netanyahu that democratic values "must remain a hallmark of the U.S.-Israel relationship"

President Joe Biden spoke Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to express "concern” over his government’s planned overhaul of the country’s judicial system that have sparked widespread protests across Israel and to encourage compromise.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has urged the military’s chief of staff to contain a wave of protest from within the ranks over a contentious government plan to overhaul the judiciary

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the military's chief of staff on Sunday to contain a wave of protest from within the ranks over a contentious government plan to overhaul the judiciary. Netanyahu's remarks come as Israel is embroiled in a major crisis that has sent tens of thousands of people into the streets protesting every week for the last two months. The divide over Netanyahu's plans to change the legal system has not spared the country's military, its most trusted institution, where many reservists have pledged not to show up for duty under what they see as impending regime change.

Israel and the Palestinians have pledged to take a series of steps to lower tensions ahead of a sensitive holiday season.

Israelis took to the streets in protests, now in their 11th week, against plans by Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line government to overhaul the country’s legal system

Israelis took to the streets in protests, now in their 11th week, against plans by Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line government to overhaul the country’s legal system.

Hundreds of elite officers in Israel’s military reserves say they will not show up for duty starting on Sunday in protest over the ruling coalition’s planned overhaul of the judicial system

Hundreds of elite officers in Israel’s military reserves say they will not show up for duty starting on Sunday in protest over the ruling coalition’s planned overhaul of the judicial system.

Hundreds of elite officers in Israel’s military reserves say they will not show up for duty starting on Sunday in protest over the government's plans to overhaul the judicial system. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's controversial legal overhaul has sparked weeks of mass protests across Israel amidst a deteriorating security situation in the occupied West Bank and rising tensions with Palestinians. In two separate letters published Thursday, about 750 elite officers from the Air Force, special forces, and Mossad threatened to stop volunteering for duty.

New polling from Gallup shows a shift in favor of Palestinians among Democrats.

Israeli protesters are pressing on with demonstrations against a contentious government plan to overhaul the judiciary

Israel’s former prime minister is urging world leaders to shun Israel’s current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as he presses ahead with a plan to overhaul Israel’s justice system.

Israel’s former prime minister on Thursday urged world leaders to shun Israel’s current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as he presses ahead with a plan to overhaul the country's justice system. The United States and Germany, two of Israel’s closest allies, called on Netanyahu to slow down. Ehud Olmert, who served as prime minister from 2006-2009, told The Associated Press that global leaders should refuse to meet with Netanyahu.

Israel has signaled to the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, that he is not welcome to visit

The Israeli military says soldiers killed an armed man suspected of entering the country from Lebanon and blowing up a car, raising the risk of renewing tensions with Hezbollah

A senior delegation of Jewish-American leaders is paying a flash visit to Israel to urge leaders to find a compromise over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s contentious plan to overhaul the country’s judicial system

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has swiftly rejected a compromise proposal aimed at resolving a standoff over the future of the country’s legal system.

Allies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel's Knesset have introduced a bill insulating the leader from potential legal challenges over corruption charges.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political allies are pressing ahead with their plan to overhaul the judiciary

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political allies are pressing ahead with their plan to overhaul the judiciary.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the government would assess the effect of Silicon Valley Bank's collapse on Israeli companies and determine whether or not to assist them. Israel is home to a vibrant high-tech industry, and local media said Sunday that hundreds of local firms could be exposed to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Israeli business paper Globes said the bank was considered “the major funding body for Israeli companies” and that its fall was “closing the oxygen pipe” for the sector.

Tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated across the country Saturday in the 10th consecutive week of protests against government judicial reform plans that critics view as a threat to democracy.The demonstrations come as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-right government prepares to press on with its legislative agenda next week, shunning calls for a pause to allow for negotiations on the divisive plan.The biggest demonstration, in the coastal city of Tel Aviv, drew some 100,000 protesters, according to estimates given by Israeli media.Many of them were waving blue and white Israeli flags."I'm demonstrating because the measures that the new government wants to take represent a real and immediate threat to Israeli democracy," one protester, tech entrepreneur Ran Shahor, told AFP.Demonstrations were held in other cities and towns in the country of more than nine million.Some 50,000 Israelis protested in the northern city of Haifa and 10,000 in Beersheba -- the biggest yet in both -- according to Israeli media.The rallies broke up without major incident, although police arrested three protesters who were blocking traffic on Tel Aviv's ring road.The chair of parliament's law committee, Simcha Rotman, has scheduled daily hearings on parts of the government's reforms from Sunday through Wednesday ahead of votes.Justice Minister Yariv Levin has said the coalition plans to pass key elements of the reforms before parliament goes into recess on April 2.The judicial overhaul is a cornerstone of Netanyahu's administration, an alliance with ultra-Orthodox Jewish and extreme-right parties which took office in late December.The legislation would give more weight to the government in the committee that selects judges and would deny the Supreme Court the right to strike down any amendments to so-called Basic Laws, Israel's quasi-constitution.These provisions have already been endorsed by lawmakers at first reading.Israeli President Issac Herzog -- who, in his largely ceremonial role, has tried to broker dialogue -- on Thursday called on the coalition the halt the legislation, dubbing it "a threat to the foundations of democracy".Another element of the reforms would give the 120-member parliament power to overrule Supreme Court decisions with a simple majority of 61 votes.dms/jj/des

Tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated Saturday against a contentious plan to overhaul the judiciary as the government pressed ahead with the plan

News of the rapprochement between long-time regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran sent shock waves through the Middle East and dealt a symbolic blow to Israel's prime minister.

News of the rapprochement between long-time regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran sent shock waves through the Middle East on Saturday and dealt a symbolic blow to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made the threat posed by Tehran a public diplomacy priority and personal crusade. The breakthrough — a culmination of more than a year of negotiations in Baghdad and more recent talks in China — also became ensnared in Israel’s internal politics, reflecting the country’s divisions at a moment of national turmoil. The agreement, which gives Iran and Saudi Arabia two months to reopen their respective embassies and re-establish ties after seven years of rupture, more broadly represents one of the most striking shifts in Middle Eastern diplomacy over recent years.

The shooting came hours after an Israeli military raid killed three Palestinian militants in the occupied West Bank.

Far-right Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni is condemning antisemitic graffiti directed at her main rival

Protestors in Israel prevented the prime minister from driving to the country's main airport. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instead had to be airlifted there.

Protesters in Tel Aviv gathered on Thursday with plans to block Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s route to the country's main international airport ahead of an official trip overseas. (March 9)

Netanyahu's planned judicial overhaul has so divided society that some soldiers are contemplating refusing to serve in the reserves on which Israel’s relatively tiny army relies.

Israeli protesters were intensifying their opposition to a contentious government plan to overhaul the judiciary

Israel's prime minister has been airlifted to the country's main international airport for an official overseas trip after throngs of protesters prevented him from driving there as they demonstrated against his contentious plan to overhaul the judiciary.

U.S. and Israeli officials say Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has been forced to change the schedule of a planned visit to Israel due to anti-government protests that are expected to paralyze traffic across the country

A new coalition has brought extremist politics into the mainstream, but undemocratic strains go back to the country’s founding.

Palestinian health officials say at least six Palestinians were killed and two dozen others were wounded in an Israeli army raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

At least six Palestinians were killed Tuesday in an Israeli military raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, according to Palestinian officials.

A contentious judicial overhaul plan that has divided Israel is also tearing at what Israeli Jews see as the country’s main unifying force: the military.

Palestinians see an "explosive potential" with Israel's new hardline government in power — while Jews from Israel and the U.S. grapple with "a dramatic change."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to Israeli Minister Bezalel Smotrich's earlier comments about wiping out a Palestinian town, calling them "inappropriate."

Israeli Cabinet ministers have advanced a bill that would allow Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to keep a $270,000 donation he received from a relative to pay for his legal bills as he fights corruption charges.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the remarks by a key Cabinet ally calling for a Palestinian village to be erased were inappropriate

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the remarks by a key Cabinet ally calling for a Palestinian village to be erased were inappropriate.

Tens of thousands of Israelis are protesting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s contentious plan to overhaul the legal system in the country, as the government pressed on with the proposed changes despite the mass opposition

Tens of thousands of Israelis are protesting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s contentious plan to overhaul the legal system in the country, as the government pressed on with the proposed changes despite the mass opposition.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned protesters for harassing his wife as she went to a hair salon in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, leading to a police standoff.

Israeli protesters’ siege of a Tel Aviv beauty parlor where Sara Netanyahu was getting her hair done has cast a spotlight on the Israeli prime minister’s wife, a divisive figure long been intertwined with her husband’s political career

Israeli protesters’ siege of a Tel Aviv beauty parlor where Sara Netanyahu was getting her hair done has cast a spotlight on the Israeli prime minister's wife, a divisive figure long been intertwined with her husband’s political career.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies say protesters are “anarchists” after they gathered outside a Tel Aviv salon where his wife was getting her hair done

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies say protesters are “anarchists” after they gathered outside a Tel Aviv salon where his wife was getting her hair done.

Proponents of the Israeli government’s planned legal overhaul often argue that curtailing the power of judges and courts is good for the country

Proponents of the Israeli government's planned legal overhaul often argue that curtailing the power of judges and courts is good for the country.

Amid an intensified Palestinian wave of terrorism over the last few months, three terrorists are suspected of killing an American-Israeli citizen from Connecticut.

Israeli police lobbed hundreds of stun grenades, fired water cannons and arrested at least 40 people in response to Wednesday’s demonstration against a judicial overhaul in Tel Aviv.

Israelis are stepping up their protests against a contentious government plan to overhaul the judicial system

Israeli police have extracted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's wife from a hair salon besieged by anti-government protesters.

The right-wing governing coalition's planned legal overhaul would significantly weaken Israel's judiciary.

Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl told Congress on Tuesday that Iran could make enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb in just 12 days.

An ultranationalist ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has tendered his resignation as a deputy minister in the new government

An ultranationalist ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has tendered his resignation as a deputy minister in the new government.

Talk of a “cycle of violence” between Israelis and Palestinians obscures how the provocative agenda of Israel’s far right may be fanning the flames.

Israel has sent hundreds more troops to the occupied West Bank after a Palestinian gunman killed two Israeli brothers and settlers rampaged through a Palestinian town

Israeli medics say a Palestinian gunman has shot and killed an Israeli motorist with American citizenship on a West Bank highway as part of a multicar shooting spree.

Scores of Israeli settlers have gone on a violent rampage in the northern West Bank, setting cars and homes on fire after two settlers were killed by a Palestinian gunman.

Tens of thousands of Israelis are protesting their far-right government’s plans to overhaul the legal system, three days after parliament advanced a bill that would enable lawmakers to overturn a Supreme Court decision with a simple majority.

Israeli settlement supporters and opponents say Israel’s far-right government has granted approval for the building of over 7,000 new homes in Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

An array of U.S. Jewish leaders are sounding alarms about what they see as a threat to Israel’s democracy posed by its new government.

Iran is directly acknowledging an accusation attributed to international inspectors that it enriched uranium to 84% purity for the first time, which would put the Islamic Republic closer than ever to weapons-grade material.

Palestinian militants in Gaza have launched rockets at southern Israel, and Israeli aircraft struck targets in the coastal enclave.

The heart of the West Bank city of Nablus, the Palestinian commercial center, is in ruins after a daytime Israeli military triggered a firefight that killed at least 10 Palestinians and wounded more than 100 others.

Israel's parliament has for the first time advanced a plan to overhaul the legal system, defying a historic uproar among Israelis and calls for restraint from the United States.

The Biden administration is scrambling to avert a diplomatic crisis this week at the United Nations over Israeli settlement activity.

Tens of thousands of Israelis protested outside the parliament building in Jerusalem in a show of force against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as his government formally launched a contentious plan to overhaul the country's judiciary.

Israeli police say that security personnel have sealed up the family home of a Palestinian man who careened his car into a Jerusalem bus stop, killing three Israelis and injuring several others.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has met with France’s president amid one of the deadliest periods of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in years.

India's Gautam Adani was Asia's richest man when the U.S. short-selling firm Hindenburg Research put out a report last week alleging his businesses have engaged in fraud and stock price manipulation.

Israel’s attorney general says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must not be involved in an overhaul of the country’s judicial system proposed by his government.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has wrapped up a two-day visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank with little to show for his renewed appeals for Israeli-Palestinian calm amid an alarming spike of violence.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is urging Israel and the Palestinians to exercise restraint amid a spike in violence that has put the region on edge.

An alarming spike in Israeli-Palestinian violence and sharp responses by both sides are testing the Biden administration as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken plunges into a cauldron of deepening mistrust and anger on visits to Israel and the West Bank this week.

Israel has sealed the home of an Palestinian man who killed seven people outside an east Jerusalem synagogue in a preliminary step ahead of its expected demolition.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced a series of punitive steps against the Palestinians, including plans to beef up Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, in response to a pair of shooting attacks that killed seven Israelis and wounded five others.

Officials say a Palestinian gunman killed seven people and wounded three others near a synagogue in east Jerusalem in the deadliest attack on Israelis in years.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Egypt, Israel and the West Bank this weekend amid a sharp spike in Israeli-Palestinian violence that has alarmed the Biden administration.

Gaza militants fired rockets and Israel carried out airstrikes as tensions soared following an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made a surprise trip to Jordan to meet with King Abdullah II.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fired a key Cabinet ally, heeding a Supreme Court ruling commanding him to do so and deepening a rift over the power of the courts.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has met with U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, the highest level meeting between the two allies since Israel’s most right-wing government ever took power last month.

Israel’s attorney general has told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he must fire a key Cabinet ally following a court ruling disqualifying the minister from serving in government.

Israel’s Supreme Court has ruled that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must fire a key ally from the country's new Cabinet.

Jordan has summoned the Israeli ambassador to Amman to protest a move by Israeli police to block the Jordanian envoy from entering a volatile holy site in Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his government plans to charge ahead with an overhaul of the country’s judicial system.