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The prime minister is once again the most preferred leader and the Likud is regaining some ground, but the coalition would still lose its majority.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his party have received a terrific boost in ratings with the perceived success of Operation Shield and Arrow following months of sliding numbers due to the judicial reform controversy.

Channel 12’s poll Sunday showed that Netanyahu had regained his position as “most preferred” for prime minister over the opposition leaders. While he just nosed out National Unity head Benny Gantz 38% to 37%, there was a much wider gap between the prime minister and opposition leader Yair Lapid, head of Yesh Atid, with Netanyahu leading 42% to 28%.

While favoring Netanyahu personally, however, Channel 12’s respondents gave devastating news to the coalition as a whole: The Likud would tie with National Unity at 27 seats apiece – but with a drop from its current 32 MKs and lower numbers for its No. 1 partner, the Religious Zionist party, the bloc would win only 54 mandates. Meanwhile, the 0pposition would squeak into government with 61 seats, including the Arab Ra’am party that sat in the Bennett-Lapid unity coalition.

Kan News gave less favorable numbers to Netanyahu personally, with Gantz beating him 41% to 40% as the preferred leader for the country and only a 10-point spread in the prime minister’s favor when compared to Lapid.

In a twist, Kan’s respondents gave Netanyahu’s party the best results, with most choosing the Likud if a vote was held that day, for a total of 28 seats. Yet the bloc as a whole would not be able to form a government; in its current make-up, it would receive only 55 seats.

On the other hand, its rivals’ 65 seats include five each for the Arab Hadash-Ta’al and Ra’am parties, and it would be extremely doubtful that Hadash-Ta’al would soften its anti-Zionist stance enough to join a government if the Jewish parties would even accept it, leaving the current opposition one mandate shy of what it would need.

The mixed news is still a positive development for the prime minister. On the day the operation against the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror organization began in Gaza last week, Channel 13 reported a just-concluded poll showing that both Gantz and Lapid would beat him in a head-to-head match-up, with Gantz thumping him 51-34% and Lapid edging him out 41-37%.

Party-wise, the Likud had slid all the way down to 20 seats, while the National Unity party had shot up 17 mandates to 29, bypassing Yesh Atid, which fell from 24 to 21 seats. All the parties in the current coalition would lose seats as well, and the bloc would  sink to 46 seats, while the opposition could copy its unity format to easily form a government with 63 mandates.

Now that Operation Shield and Arrow is over for now, it remains to be seen whether Likud can maintain its jump in the polls, especially considering the strike that began Monday by dozens of municipal and regional councils in protest of a clause in this year’s budget that many see as unfair.

The post Netanyahu’s polling numbers up after IDF operation in Gaza appeared first on World Israel News.

Police reported that at least seven people were shot, two of them fatally, at a gathering in Yuma, Arizona on Saturday night. As of Sunday, no one had been arrested and a $1,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of the perpetrator(s).

The shooting occurred shortly before 11 p.m. in a residential area southeast of downtown Yuma, according to Lt. Craig Johnson of the Yuma Police Department. When officers arrived at the scene, they noticed that several people were hurt. In addition, off-duty law enforcement personnel were in the vicinity and promptly assisted in the incident.

A 19-year-old man was found with serious injuries and was taken to a hospital by a private car before police arrived. He was declared dead soon after he got to the Yuma Regional Medical Center. A 20-year-old man was also found at the scene and was taken by Yuma Fire Department to the medical center, where he was pronounced dead.

A 16-year-old boy had life-threatening injuries and was sent to the Yuma Regional Medical Center before being flown to a trauma center in Phoenix. Four other teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19 were being treated at the medical center for non-life-threatening injuries.
Lt. Johnson stated that there was no reason to believe that the community was in any danger from the suspect(s).

Israeli singer and composer Rami Kleinstein entertained at the Monday evening celebration of the 75th anniversary of the modern State of Israel in the UAE.

The Jewish state officially came into existence on May 14, 1948, but Israelis celebrate on the Hebrew date – the fifth day of the month of Iyar – which fell this year on the eve of April 25.

The post WATCH: Israel’s 75th anniversary celebrated in Arab country appeared first on World Israel News.

Women’s Rights and Social Justice: Julia Ward Howe’s 1870 Anti-War Mother’s Day Proclamation, A Day of Peace

By Dr. Gary G. Kohls, May 14, 2023

Mother’s Day in America was officially established in 1914 (May 9) as an annual …

The post Selected Articles: Celebrating Mother’s Day 2023 for Peace appeared first on Global Research.

Protesters throw chairs, beat security guards protecting political conference with flagpoles, then claim they were the victims of “thugs.”

By Adina Katz, World Israel News

Anti-judicial reform demonstrators who disrupted a conference in northern Israel attended by Economy Minister Nir Barkat claimed they were the victims of “serious violence” after they were ejected by the venue’s security.

Barkat was attending a meeting with leaders of local municipalities in a hotel in Kfar Blum in northern Israel when demonstrators broke into the venue with bullhorn and protest signs and began loudly chanting.

In footage from the scene circulating on social media, one woman can be heard screaming into a bullhorn that Barkat is part of a “dictatorship” that will see “freedom of speech” destroyed. She slams the local politicians speaking with him as “collaborators.”

Continuing her rant, she claims that the right-wing government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu will ruin the country, charging that “this hotel won’t even exist” should the judicial reform legislation be passed.

After repeatedly being asked to leave the hall where the meeting was taking place, presumably due to security concerns – a government minister and the heads of numerous municipalities were inside – the protesters were pushed out by the hotel’s security guards.

אלימות קשה של מאבטחים במלון פסטורלי בכפר בלום כלפי מפגינים נגד ההפיכה המשטרית שבאו למחות נגד שר הכלכלה ניר ברקת שצפוי להשתתף בכנס במקום pic.twitter.com/tA5gWbwV8L

— עדי חשמונאי (@adi_hashmonai) May 15, 2023

“It took half an hour for the police to arrive and disperse the protesters, and in the meantime, Minister Barkat had only one security guard who was unable to deal with the dozens of demonstrators who were physically trying to reach him,” a witness told Ynet.

Giora Ben-Ze’ev, an 81-year-old protester, told Ynet that he and other demonstrators were victimized by overzealous security guards.

“We are a group of protesters, all of us 40 to 80 years of age and older,” he said. He admitted that they were asked to leave and refused to do so, yet he framed the security as a “group of thugs” who “attacked us because we were demonstrating for democracy.”

A look at footage recorded by some of the demonstrators reveals a different picture about the physical aggression during the incident.

Clips circulating on social media do show security guards shoving protesters out of the space, as well as seizing pointed flag poles from protesters’ hands.

One critical detail, as Ben-Giora noted, is that many of the participants are older and seem to be physically unsteady on their feet.

A video from the incident depicts a protester, who appears to be in his 60s, charging a security guard while wielding a flagpole, hitting him in the shoulder. The security guard successfully blocks the man in a defensive manner, and the demonstrator apparently loses his footing and falls to the ground without being pushed by the guard.

Another video taken by one of the protesters clearly shows a demonstrator hurling a chair, which strikes a security guard in the back.

The man who threw the chair did so while sitting down. He appears to lose his balance afterwards, toppling over backwards and continuing to lay on the ground, creating the impression that he was knocked over by the security guard.

However, the video did not show any physical contact between the protester and the security guard, save for the chair throw.

In another part of the video, another protester can be seen walking backwards away from the security guards, losing his balance and falling down.

The post Violent anti-judicial reform protesters play victim – video reveals a different story appeared first on World Israel News.

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Lebanon-based terrorists threaten violent response to Flag March scheduled for Thursday if parade route includes Muslim neighborhood.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

Terror groups based in Lebanon said that they were gearing up for a violent response to the Jerusalem Day flag march scheduled for Thursday, despite the fragile ceasefire between Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Israel.

Speaking to the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Akhbar newspaper, a senior terrorist said that multiple terror groups were coordinating regarding retaliatory measures – presumably firing rockets at Israeli civilian communities – ahead of the march in Jerusalem.

“The issue of the Flag March was not included in the ceasefire agreement, and the resistance has not taken its eye off the city at the moment and is ready to deal with any development or provocation by the occupation government,” the terrorist told the outlet.

The march could serve as a “grenade that may blow up the situation in all the Palestinian territories,” he warned.

Developments at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount are also being watched closely, he added. Any change to the status quo, such as allowing Jews freedom to pray at the site, could lead to a “campaign that will be bigger, more extensive and not limited to the Gaza Strip.”

Each year, Israelis parade through the streets of Jerusalem, including the Muslim Quarter in the Old City, while waving Israeli flags as part of a public holiday commemorating the reunification of the capital city in 1967.

Pro-Palestinian activists and Arab-Israeli Palestinians have framed the presence of the country’s national flags in the Muslim neighborhood as a provocation, and recent years have seen clashes between Arabs and Jews during the event.

In May 2021, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu caved to threats from terror groups and rerouted the march to avoid Muslim areas. Despite the concession, Hamas launched a rocket at Jerusalem during the celebrations, setting off the Operation Guardian of the Walls clash.

Less than 24 hours after the current ceasefire between Islamic Jihad and Israel, several rockets were launched towards Asheklon and other communities in southern Israel. Gaza terror groups claimed that the launch was the result of a “technical malfunction,” but Israel swiftly retaliated by bombing Hamas assets in the Strip.

The post Jerusalem Flag march is ‘grenade that could blow up region,’ terror groups warn appeared first on World Israel News.