With one month to go, Netanyahu’s election manipulations

This week, Alpher discusses Netanyahu's real reasons for speaking to Congress next month; the damage the Congress speech initiative has done to US-Israel relations; whether Israel has any serious objective criticism of US policy regarding Iran, or whether it is all election hype and politics; and what message was PM Netanyahu sending the electorate last week, when he attempted to manipulate the Israel Prize for literature and weaken “leftist” trends?

Tuesday, February  17th, at 2:00 PM Eastern Time. 
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A month before Israel’s general elections, Benjamin Netanyau’s Likud party seems to be tied in a neck-and-neck race with Yitzhak Herzog and Tzipi Livni’s Jewish Camp party. What was initially thought to be a snoozy campaign is turning out to be a fascinating electoral exercise, which is redrawing the contours of Israel’s political map, raising serious questions about Netanyahu’s legendary political savvy and may even end his rule as Israel’s second-longest serving prime minister.

Yesterday, the Israeli police arrested three suspects for using forged documents to purchase lands from Palestinians in the West Bank. The police investigation began following a complaint by Peace Now and Palestinian land owners during the High Court petition against the illegal outpost of Migron,after the settlers had provided forged documents to the court. This complaint, together with other cases in which settlers used forged documents to purchase lands in illegal outposts, resulted in a police investigation, leading to yesterday's arrests.

This week, Alpher discusses Jordan being dragged into the Syria conflict on the ground in response to the Islamic State’s horrific execution of its pilot; how the escalated fighting in Sinai between the Egyptian army and Ansar Beit al-Maqdes, which has pledged fealty to Islamic State, affects Israel; whether Israel is affected by Russia’s economic crisis; and offers an election update

Update: this action, now closed, ran in February 2015. 

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ohio Republican John Boehner, has issued an invitation for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress on March 3. According to his own account, Boehner did so in coordination with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

Boehner’s invitation to Netanyahu has drawn criticism, bafflement, and outrage from across the political spectrum – in the U.S., in Israel and around the world. This invitation was made without coordinating with the White House, in violation of protocol – but it violated much more than that.

Codes of violence

This week, Alpher discusses whether there are new components to the Israeli-Hezbollah equation and if the attack of the IDF convoy is the end of this round of violence between them; how that relates to Iran; how Alpher understands the Washington Post’s revelation that the CIA and the Mossad collaborated in the 2009 assassination in Damascus of Hezbollah military chief Imad Moughniyeh; what his take on the film American Sniper and its controversial view of several aspects of US military involvement in Iraq; and why the recent Houthi coup in Yemen brings back interesting memories among a select group of Israeli security veterans.

The Torah forbids the cutting down of fruitful trees, even during a time of war. The basis for this law appears in the book of Deuteronomy, with the verse adding rhetorically, “Is the tree of the field a man that you should make war upon it?”

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ohio Republican John Boehner, has issued an invitation for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress on March 3.

Speaker Boehner issued this invitation without coordinating with the White House, in violation of protocol – but he violated much more than that.

Rabbi Esther L. Lederman is the associate rabbi of Temple Micah, in Washington, DC.  She travelled to Israel this December. 

Before I left for Israel on a quick trip this past December, I told a colleague, “I am going to have my heart broken.”  It had been six years since I had visited.  Way too long, in my opinion.  So off I went, expecting to return even more depressed about the state of affairs than when I left.  I was wrong.