Israelis will go the polls today to choose a new government.
Polls show that current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trailing in the polls to a group that has stated their intent to work with the Palestinian Authority and other Arab groups throughout the region to create Palestine and give up land.
However, the last polls which were released Friday had enough undecided voters to swing the election in either direction.
As much as 70% of Israel’s eligible voters will go to the polls.
The election is expected to be decided by the 20 percent of the population made up of Arabs. The Arab community has long complained of discrimination by Israeli authorities and expressed their desires to join with groups like Hamas and Hexbollah.
One voter told the Associated Press he was backing Netanyahu because he saw it as a way to defend the nation.
“He is not great, but he is better than anything else out there,” she said. “I can’t vote for the left … It’s a Jewish country, not a Palestinian one,” Meshy Alon said.
In Israel, voters vote for party, not individual candidates. No party has ever won a clear majority in the 120 member parliament, meaning it can take weeks to form a coalition government.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a very hard warning Monday to the members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
The nuclear deal the United States is planning with Iran could threaten the very existence of the nation of Israel.
“As prime minister of Israel, I have a moral obligation to speak up in the face of these dangers while there’s still time to avert them,” Netanyahu told a cheering audience.
Netanyahu downplayed conflicts between the White House and Israel.
“My speech (to Congress) is not intended to show disrespect for President Obama and the office that he holds,” Netanyahu said. “I deeply appreciate all that President Obama has done for Israel.”
The White House tried to sound a conciliatory tone after Netanyahu’s speech, saying the U.S. and Israel are united in the goal of a non-nuclear Iran.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu turned down an invitation to meet privately with Senate Democrats during his visit next week to Washington.
Netanyahu said that holding the meeting would “compound the misperception of partisanship” regarding his trip. The White House has accused Republican leaders in Congress with inviting Netanyahu in an attempt to undermine their negotiations with Iran.
Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on Monday invited Netanyahu to meet in a closed-door session with Democrats during his visit.
“I regret that the invitation to address the special joint session of Congress has been perceived by some to be political or partisan,” Netanyahu wrote. “I can assure you that my sole intention in accepting it was to voice Israel’s grave concerns about a potential nuclear agreement with Iran that could threaten the survival of my country.”
More than a half dozen House and Senate Democrats said they will skip the joint session of Congress out of loyalty to President Obama. Vice President Biden has also said he will not attend the joint session of Congress.
In what some observers are calling petty acts of revenge against Israel for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s planned speech to Congress, the Obama administration admitted they have been withholding information about negotiations with Iran from Israeli leaders.
Not only did the administration admit the withholding of information, they also attacked Israeli officials for what they called “cherry picking” of information for complaints about U.S. actions.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said “not everything you’re hearing from the Israeli government is an accurate depiction of the talks.” Critics say, however, that if Israel’s descriptions are not accurate, why the administration is hiding the details of the negotiations.
Meanwhile, the State Department lashed out at Israel by issuing a travel warning to Americans advising them against travel to that nation. The announcement puts Israel on the same level as Iran, Yemen and Nigeria in the eyes of the state department.
The report from the State Department even admits that while conditions in major cities are the same as metro areas around the world, they are still issuing a travel warning.
After the terrorist attack outside a Jewish synagogue in Copenhagen, Denmark, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is calling for Jews to move to Israel.
“Israel is your home. We are preparing and calling for the absorption of mass immigration from Europe,” Netanyahu said in a statement. Netanyahu made a similar statement to French Jews after the Charlie Hebdo and kosher deli attacks.
“Extremist Islamic terrorism has struck Europe again… Jews have been murdered again on European soil only because they were Jews,” Netanyahu said in the statement. “To the Jews of Europe and to the Jews of the world I say that Israel is waiting for you with open arms.”
Israel is working on a $45 million plan to “encourage he absorption of immigrants from France, Belgium and Ukraine.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman sent his condolences to his Danish counterpart saying Israel “appreciates Denmark’s cooperation in maintaining the security of Israelis and Jews in Denmark.”
An anonymous member of the White House has launched criticism of Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. to the New York Times.
The member of President Obama’s inner circle told the Times that Ambassador Ron Dermer is repeatedly placing Prime Minister Netanyahu’s political fortunes over their relationship with the United States.
The White House took issue with Ambassador Dormer working with House Speaker John Boehner to work out the arrangements on Netanyahu addressing a joint session of Congress.
Dermer said he had no regrets advancing his country’s interests.
“My understanding was that it was the speaker’s prerogative to do, and that he would be the one to inform the administration,” Mr. Dermer said to the Times. “The prime minister feels very strongly that he has to speak on this issue. That’s why he accepted the invitation, not to wade into your political debate or make this a partisan issue, and not to be disrespectful to the president.”
The White House says that Dermer should have told Secretary of State Kerry about the invitation during a meeting held before the announcement of the speech.
The Arab political parties in Israel are banding together in one ticket attempting to take out Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Arab politicians, which contain communists, religious Muslims and one Jewish official, feel the joining together of the groups will drive up the historically low Arab voter turnout. They also hope they will be able to stop Netanyahu from forming a unity government should his party get into a position to form a new government.
Masoud Ganaim, a representative of the Islamic movement, said that after the incident this summer where Arab terrorists attacked Israelis in Gaza, many of the Arab residents of Israel asked the parties to unite to represent the beliefs of Arabs in the country.
Arab citizens are about 20% of Israel’s population.
Surveys of potential Arab voters show that the turnout could be as much as 10 percent higher than the last election because of a unity ticket. That would still be about 20 percent lower than average Jewish resident turnout.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that if he was re-elected they would not be removing Israeli settlements from the West Bank.
“I don’t think withdrawing settlers is practical at the moment,” Netanyahu said. “I don’t think it will happen.”
Netanyahu continued his talk to say that he is still supportive of creation of a Palestinian state that he proposed in 2009 but that because of the actions of Palestinians, the plan is basically rendered meaningless.
The Prime Minister spoke about his issues with President Barack Obama but said that despite the actions of the Obama administration, there is a record amount of support for Israel among U.S. citizens.
Netanyahu said that the skyrocketing housing prices were the fault of previous Ehud Olmert. He said that during Olmert’s reign, the construction projects in Tel Aviv area came to a halt causing established property prices to jump.
Officials at the United Nations say Palestinian leaders are quietly putting together a draft resolution that would recognize statehood for Palestine.
Despite opposition from Israel and U.S. officials, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he would be pushing forward with the resolution that calls for a peace deal with Israel within a year and an “end to occupation of Palestinian territories by 2017.”
“Today the Arab group will meet in New York, and we will submit the original draft resolution to the Security Council hoping to conclude the vote by tomorrow or the day after,” senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat told Reuters.
The crux of the resolution would be negotiations for the deal with Israel that would require the land captured by Israel in the 1967 war be returned to Palestine.
The proposal would also say that East Jerusalem is the capital of the Palestinian state and calls for an end to Israeli settlements in Jerusalem and the West Bank.
“We will continue to rebuff vigorously attempts to force terms that would jeopardize our security,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for voters to give him a “clear mandate” as he announced elections will be held on March 17, 2015.
The announcement of the election comes a day after Netanyahu fired members of his governing coalition that had been opposing new settlements in areas that Palestinians want for their own nation.
The five-party coalition that has been ruling the country took power only last year.
“The coming election is about one question – who will lead the country in the face of the tremendous challenges facing Israel – security, economic, regional,” Netanyahu said in public remarks to Likud legislators. “Whoever wants to give a clear mandate to lead the country to a prime minister from Likud needs to give many votes to Likud. That is the main lesson of our experience from the past years. That is the challenge for this election campaign.”
Netanyahu will lead a now-minority government until the elections and swearing in of the new members of the Knesset.