Avi Gabbay, a political outsider, was elected leader of the Israeli Labor party on Monday. His upset victory – in the second round of the primary election, Gabbay convincingly defeated Amir Peretz, a one-time party leader and cabinet minister – brought immediate comparisons with the rise of Emmanuel Macron in France.
Once Israel’s dominant political force, Labor has…
The Israeli Labor party will have a new leader after Isaac Herzog lost his bid for re-election earlier this week. With no candidate clearing the 40 percent threshold needed to win outright in the first round, the top two-placed candidates – Amir Peretz (pictured) and Avi Gabbay – will fight for the party’s crown in…
In a House of Commons debate yesterday on Israel-Palestinian peace talks, LFI parliamentary supporters challenged the government on its cuts to co-existence funding, pushed our campaign for an International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace and highlighted the barriers to peace, including PA incitement and terrorism. LFI chair Joan Ryan urged the government to “reverse their elimination of UK support for co-existence projects…
LFI’s campaign in support of the establishment of an International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace received a major boost this week with the endorsement of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council.
In a joint statement backing the Fund, which aims to provide much-needed funding for coexistence projects, Gillian Merron, chief executive of…
Ten years ago this month, Hamas executed a brutal takeover of Gaza, one that saw the terrorist group murder its political opponents and impose an Islamist regime on the poverty-stricken enclave.
On three occasions since, most recently in 2014, the group has provoked bloody conflicts with Israel after sustained attacks on Israeli civilians. In each, it…
Benjamin Netanyahu and the leader of the Israeli Labor party, Isaac Herzog, secretly flew to Cairo last April to engage in clandestine talks with Arab leaders aimed at restarting the Middle East peace process. The meeting between Netanyahu, Herzog and Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi was revealed on Monday in the Israeli media.
The Labor leader later confirmed the…
More than 200,000 people are expected to travel to Tel Aviv this weekend to participate in the annual Pride celebrations – the largest such event in the Middle East and Asia.
The event symbolises Israel ’s strong record on LGBT rights. The new Jewish state inherited Mandate-era laws banning same-sex relationships. While they were not formally repealed…
There are few better examples of the yawning gap between Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric and governing reality than his approach towards Israel .
After eight years of Barack Obama’s alleged cool indifference, the Israeli right were led to believe they would have a “true friend” in the White House once again: one who would stop nagging them about…
Donald Trump’s quixotic attempt to broker what he once he termed the “ultimate deal” – a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians – bore its first tentative signs of success this week when President Mahmoud Abbas indicated he was prepared to begin talks with Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Palestinian president’s announcement came during meetings in Ramallah with…
ISIS fired a rocket into southern Israel from northern Sinai this week, striking a greenhouse but causing no major injuries. The terrorist group, which controls a small region of the peninsula near the Gaza strip, immediately claimed responsibility for the low-grade attack. Under the title Wilayet Sinai, ISIS in Egypt consists of around 1000 fighters,…
