Word: knesset
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Leaders of Shas, which won 11 seats in the Knesset and is the fourth largest member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition government, told TIME the party has no connection to the scandal. Roei Lachmanovich, spokesman for Shas Party leader Eli Yishai, told TIME that fundraising by the American rabbis for Sephardi institutions in Israel did not mean they were connected to Shas. He said that Shas institutions - including the rabbinical schools, or yeshivas - received their budget directly from the Israeli government and denied that Shas had been involved in any money-laundering or illegal activity. Furthermore, he said...
...bluntness has earned Lieberman the devotion of Israeli hawks and the disdain of liberals, Palestinians and just about every government in the Arab world. In February's election, Lieberman's 10-year-old party, Yisrael Beitenu (Israel Is Our Home), won the third highest number of seats in the Knesset, making him a linchpin of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition government. That has complicated the Obama Administration's effort to pressure Israel to freeze settlement growth and restart peace negotiations with the Palestinians. How far Netanyahu travels in Obama's direction may depend on Lieberman's willingness...
...Abbas has to do is sit quietly while Netanyahu takes the heat from Washington - and from his own fractious coalition partners. The Cabinet right wingers want Netanyahu to stand firm against Obama's demands to halt the settlements, while Labor, in the words of Knesset member Ophir Pines, wants Netanyahu to face his "moment of truth." Says Pines: "The government needs to decide whether it prefers good relations with the American Administration or whether it prefers the illegal settlement in the territories. All of the talk about natural growth in the settlements is a bluff, and the Americans know that...
...Lieberman only exacerbates an already existing problem, and he cannot be easily dismissed as a marginal case of excess or as an abnormality of the Israeli political system. Among Yisrael Beiteinu’s elected members of the Knesset are a former ambassador to the U.S. and a former senior commander in the police force. Theirs is not simply a right-wing political insurgency, but an outlook deeply rooted in Israeli politics...
...Tzipi Livni, another so-called centrist, holds similar discriminatory views. On January 23, 2002, she urged members of the Knesset to reject an equal-protection clause according to which equality is the right of every citizen in the state regardless of his or her nationality, religion, or views. The proposed bill was rejected, and formal equality remains outside the Israeli book of laws. Livni also supported bills in the Knesset that would grant settlement and allocation of land for Jews only, such as the one submitted by MK Rabbi Haim Druckman on February 18, 2002. Finally, she repeatedly argued that...