Watch the video below to see what you may have missed this week but shouldn’t have!

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Party head Mansour Abbas says his faction ‘will come with a positive attitude to any candidate’ the president tasks with forming a coalition.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

After being courted by both left- and right-wing politicians since saying he would consider supporting any coalition that would help the Arab sector, Ra’am party leader Mansour Abbas ended up not backing anyone as possible head of state to the president, who selected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday.

“Ra’am is neither on the Left nor the Right, so we have no recommendation for a specific person,” Abbas said when it was his party’s turn to speak to President Reuven Rivlin, who is responsible for handing the task of forming a coalition to the Knesset member he feels has the best chance at doing so.

“We tried to prevent the fourth election, we will try to prevent the fifth election,” Abbas added. “Therefore as a matter of principle, we will come with a positive attitude to any candidate whom [the president] will entrust to create a government.”

Having received four Knesset seats in the March elections, his faction was seen as the potential kingmaker by both the pro-Netanyahu and anti-Netanyahu blocs. Sources close to Abbas told Israel Hayom that “intense negotiations” had gone on with Likud officials regarding Ra’am’s demands. Some of the conditions, such as making concrete plans to fight violence and organized crime in Arab communities, and rejecting pro-LGBTQ laws, are already part of the government’s agenda.

The talks were then seen as unlikely to bear fruit when junior coalition partner Religious Zionist Party head Betzalel Smotrich, vetoed the idea of forming a government even supported from the outside by the anti-Zionist Islamic party.

Yair Lapid, whose Yesh Atid party leads the so-called “change” bloc with 17 seats, also talked with Abbas to urge him to join forces against the prime minister. Defense Minister Benny Gantz, whose Blue and White party sat with Netanyahu for a year in a unity government, tweeted a warning to Abbas after their own meeting.

“Bibi is using you,” he wrote, using Netanyahu’s nickname. Speaking from his own experience, he said that once a government is sworn in, “he will renege on all commitments he gave you, he will dismantle every letter in the coalition agreement.”

While some of Ra’am’s purported conditions could be acceptable to the left, the anti-Netanyahu bloc also contains those on the ideological right, such as the New Hope and Israel Beiteinu parties. It is difficult to see them agreeing to modify the Nation-State Law, scrap the Kaminitz Law against illegal construction, which is rampant in the Arab sector, or give blanket recognition to illegitimate Bedouin villages in the Negev.

Ra’am was not the only party to refuse to recommend anyone to the president. The other Arab party, the Joint List, kept mum, as did New Hope, whose leader, Gidon Sa’ar, asked for more time and Rivlin’s help in promoting an anti-Netanyahu coalition, but was rebuffed.

Since Yemina nominated its own head, Naftali Bennett, for the task, this left Lapid with only 34 MKs supporting his bid. Netanyahu received 52 recommendations, leading Rivlin on Tuesday to give the longtime prime minister the first chance to form a new government.

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Israel’s president told the German parliament that the onus of responsibility to continuously be a beacon for the world in standing up to anti-Semitism falls on them.

By World Israel News Staff

In a rare event, Israel’s president addressed the German parliament on Wednesday in a special sitting to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust 75 years later.

Before speaking about the Holocaust and the relationship between Israel and Germany, President Reuven Rivlin recited the Jewish Yizkor prayer, a blessing dedicated to the memory of the deceased.

“I was born in Jerusalem, in September 1939. When the gates of the death camps were opened, my friends and I started first grade We knew little of the scale of the atrocity,” Rivlin said. “Slowly, we met survivors. We heard testimonies. On them, we saw for the first time, the numbers on the arm.”

“In the beginning, we thought that they had lost their minds. Slowly, we realized that it was the world that had gone mad,” he said.

According to Rivlin, a new page has been turned over ever since Germany accepted responsibility for their crimes and has been standing up against Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism.

“That same country that was the terror of the free world became a beacon for democracy and liberalism, for responsibility and moderation,” he said.

Israel’s president told the German parliament that the onus of responsibility to continuously be a beacon for the world in standing up to anti-Semitism falls on them.

“If Germany fails in trying to prevent the disaster [of rising anti-Semitism], others everywhere are likely to fail. If, in the place that the Holocaust was born Jews cannot live freely, then they cannot live free of fear anywhere in Europe,” Rivlin said.

“Israel and Germany walk together with tension and with courage between past and present and between the obligation to remember and never to forget,” he added.

Rivlin also addressed President Trump’s proposed Mideast peace plan by saying its success is dependent on the ability of both sides to trust one another.

“The future of the Middle East and the integration of Israel in the region hinges on building this trust,” he said.

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“You succeeded in holding elections that were free of interference,” Rivlin told Election Committee Chairman Hanan Melcer.

By World Israel News Staff

President Reuven Rivlin received the official election results for the 22nd Knesset from chairman of the Central Elections Committee, Judge Hanan Melcer in an official ceremony at the President’s Residence on Wednesday.

“Despite the short notice and the various pressures placed on the Central Elections Committee, you succeeded in holding elections that were free of interference and focused on the issues, without fear or favor,” Rivlin told Melcer.

The president spoke about updates to election law, saying “The discussion around changes to supervision of elections came at the wrong time, with campaigns underway and at a time of heightened emotions. But as I said in the past, the election law should be updated to reflect changes that include technological developments.

“Laws that are out of date can be unfair, and since elections are a seminal moment for any democracy, it is important that everyone feels they are fair and transparent and that everyone is invited to participate on an equal basis,” Rivlin said, adding that it would fall to the 22nd Knesset to look at the recommendations of a special committee called together two years ago to examine the election law and suggest changes.

Meltzer thanked the president for visiting the Central Elections Committee on Election Day.

“The visit was a sign of solidarity with our efforts, helping us to fend off attempts to undermine the legitimacy of the election process. The people also showed their faith in democracy and in the election process, seen in the increased turnout.

“I thank all 105,000 of the people – equivalent to an IDF division – who worked on election day, and the committee chairs who led the largest civil operation in Israel,” Melcer said.

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Here is a recap of the top Israel news stories on September 18, 2019.

And in case you missed our last recap…

The post WATCH: Daily Israel News Recap – September 18, 2019 appeared first on World Israel News.

Here is a recap of the top Israel news stories on September 17, 2019.

And in case you missed our last recap…

The post WATCH: Daily Israel News Recap – September 17, 2019 appeared first on World Israel News.

“Anyone aspiring to be a leader” must be “able to listen, accept, and hear,” said President Rivlin.

By World Israel News Staff 

As Israel approaches its September 17 Knesset election, President Reuven Rivlin said Thursday that “anyone aspiring to be a leader” must be “able to listen, accept, and hear” the people of all of Israel’s sectors.

Referring to them as “the four tribes,” Rivlin spoke of the “ultra-Orthodox, Arabs, religious, and secular” Israelis who must all be served.

The president was speaking at a conference at the Presidential Residence in Jerusalem with the participation of heads of religious Zionist institutions and organizations, according to his office.

He praised the “flagship program” of the Presidential Residence, called Israeli Hope, which “brings the tribes together” through meetings and discussions, said Rivlin.

“We believe that we have no other country and no other citizens. None of the tribes is going to disappear from here and no one is going to erase their identity,” the President added.

Hailing the efforts of the Religious Zionist movement in providing leadership, Rivlin spoke of the impact of Jewish life even on non-Jews.

“I just returned from a visit to South Korea, a country that invests vast sums of money, thinking, and strategic planning in the field of education. In South Korea, they look at Jewish learning with great appreciation,” the president told the conference attendees.

“The prime minister of South Korea studied Talmud here in Israel. In my meeting with the Korean president, I gave him a tractate of Baba Kama,” said Rivlin.

The president, 79, spoke of his own school days when Talmud was studied “without fear of religion. We were not afraid of Judaism, we wanted to learn it, each according to his own beliefs, each according to his customs.”

Rivlin told the audience that “we have nothing to be ashamed of in our educational tradition, in our educational institutions. We should be proud of them and nurture them.”

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Here is a recap of the top Israel news stories on June 4, 2019.

And in case you missed our last recap…

The post WATCH: Daily Israel News Recap – June 4, 2019 appeared first on World Israel News.

“We face the same enemies…and we share the same values,” the president told the British and Israeli representatives.

By World Israel News Staff

Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin welcomed injured veterans from the U.K. and Israel to his official residence in Jerusalem on Thursday on the occasion of the first Veterans’ Games, the president’s office said in a statement.

The Games are a new event “during which 100 injured veterans from Israel and the United Kingdom compete in a number of sporting events and meet with international experts on post-trauma and rehabilitation,” said the statement, which added that the event is hosted by the IDF Disabled Veterans Organization.

The English Chelsea Football Club sent a team of coaches to the Games to work with children of veterans from both countries and conduct workshops with Israeli sports instructors, said Rivlin’s office.

“Looking around this room, I see true heroes who answered their country’s call and went to war to preserve our values and protect us all. I salute you!” the president told the participants, adding: “I am proud to see our own IDF soldiers here today who also bear the scars of battle and who took part in the games. You returned from battle but there were those – your comrades, your friends – who did not. Let us pay tribute to those who made the ultimate sacrifice.”

“Israel and Britain are true allies,” said Rivlin. “We face the same enemies: global terrorism and those [who] seek to undermine global security, and we share the same values: democracy, freedom, and tolerance,” he added.

Also present was British Minister for the Middle East Andrew Murrison.

“I am inspired by these games that bring together Israeli and British servicemen and servicewomen,” said MP Murrison. “The mark of a decent society is the way it treats its veterans. That is the essence of the military covenant – the agreement between the state and the military that we will do the best by you, those who have given the most to the state,” the British minister told the gathering.

A representative of the veterans, Warrant Officer Matt Tomlinson of the Royal Marines, said that “during the competition, we shared sweat, pain and more pain, neither side giving up but both sides encouraging and supporting the other.”

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