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The Daily Edition

What Matters Most On Thursday, February 21, 2019

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From L to R: Former defense minister Moshe Ya'alon, Israel Resilience leader Benny Gantz, Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid and former IDF chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi on February 21, 2019. (Courtesy Israel Resilience)

'From a feeling of national responsibility'

After marathon talks Gantz, Lapid forge alliance in challenge to Netanyahu

Former IDF chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi also joining united centrist list as leaders agree to rotate being prime minister should they win the elections

The Blue and White Top 30United Gantz-Lapid party to be called ‘Blue and White’; no women in top 6

By ToI Staff and Raoul Wootliff

Likud: Gantz and Lapid will usher in ‘leftist’ government ‘backed by Arabs’

Israel media reviewThe Gantz mishpacha: 8 things to know for February 21

By Joshua Davidovich

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a televised statement after a meeting of his ruling Likud party in Ramat Gan on February 21, 2019. (Menahem Kahana/AFP)

Live updates (closed)

Netanyahu defends his efforts to fold extremist Otzma Yehudit into Jewish Home

Premier calls it ‘absurd’ that ‘Zionist bloc’ he’s forming is considered by critics as prohibited, while a Gantz-led coalition supported by Arab-Israeli parties is seen as kosher

8:18 pm

Likud offers creative solution to allow Jewish Home MK to take spot on slate
7:43 pm

Netanyahu appears to go after Gantz's English-speaking skills
7:42 pm

Netanyahu: A Palestinian state will endanger our existence

Left, Benny Gantz, center, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, Yair Lapid. (Hadas Parush, Noam Revkin Fenton, Hadas Parush/ Flash90)

Analysis

After a decade of Netanyahu, Israel finally has a real election contest

In uniting, Gantz and Lapid have potentially upended years of political predictability. With their move, for the first time in years, the prime minister has a fight on his hands

Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon leads a faction meeting of his Kulanu party at the Knesset on March 5, 2018. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Kahlon says he could support Gantz-led coalition ‘if it’s not leftist’

MK Orly Levy Abekasis speaks during an campaign event in Tel Aviv for her Gesher party on February 5, 2019. (Flash90)

Levy-Abekasis: No merger with Gantz after his ‘weird, hallucinatory’ behavior

The Jewish Home party votes on a pre-election alliance with Otzma Yehudit in Petah Tikva, February 20, 2019. (Gili Yaari/Flash90)

Jewish Home votes overwhelmingly to back merger with extremist party

While wary of Otzma Yehudit, religious Zionist party’s members convinced alliance allows it to fight another day, after slumping in polls, thanks to ministerial posts pledged by PM

AnalysisExtremist party that backs booting non-Jews seen by PM as vital for his victory

Far-right candidate defends extremist Kahane after merger with Jewish Home

By ToI Staff and Jacob Magid

Netanyahu promises Jewish Home 2 ministries to join with extremist party

By Alexander Fulbright and Jacob Magid

Avi Gabbay, leader of the Labor Party, at the 16th annual Jerusalem Conference of the 'Besheva' group, on February 12, 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Labor MKs: Gabbay has ‘zero intention’ of uniting with Meretz in left-wing bloc

By Raoul Wootliff

Tamar Zandberg urges following the lead of centrist parties, which formed alliance led by Gantz and Lapid, vows to ‘leave no stone unturned’ in her efforts to merge

Labor announces last 2 names on Knesset list: MKs from Hatnua, Yesh Atid

By Raoul Wootliff and ToI Staff

Ahead of key deadline, Arab parties haven’t reached deal to revive Joint List

Naming ex-general Labor No. 2, Gabbay says party will push for a ‘secure peace’

By Raoul Wootliff

Illustrative: Masked Palestinians calling themselves the "night confusion units" hold incendiary devices attached to balloons to be flown toward Israel, near the border with Israel east of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on September 26, 2018. (AFP Photo/Said Khatib)

Report: IDF drone fires at Gaza motorbike after arson balloons launched at south

By Judah Ari Gross

Army mum on claim it targeted suspect east of Rafah in southern Strip; no injuries; reported strike comes amid uptick in Palestinians launching incendiary devices into Israel

Palestinian rioters take part in a night demonstration near the fence along the border with Israel, east of Gaza City, on February 11, 2019. (Mahmud Hams/AFP)

UN envoy says risk of Israeli-Palestinian war looms large

By Agencies and ToI Staff

A cluster of balloons carrying what appears to be a cardboard model of a drone that was launched from the Gaza Strip touches down in southern Israel on February 20, 2019. (Eshkol Security)

Multiple arson balloons launched from Gaza; IDF hits Hamas post in response

By Judah Ari Gross

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif speaks during the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, February 17, 2019. (AP Photo/Kerstin Joensson)

Iran says it cannot rule out possibility of war with Israel

Foreign minister Zarif accuses Jerusalem of ‘adventurism’ with its campaign of airstrikes against Iranian targets in Syria, and cautions situation could deteriorate

Iran announces another navy drill in key Strait of Hormuz

By AP and ToI Staff

Democratic Party passes resolution calling for US to re-enter Iran nuke deal

By Eric Cortellessa

PM speaks with Putin, agrees to hold postponed Moscow meeting ‘in near future’

Mark Hetfield, president and CEO of HIAS, welcomes hundreds to the Jewish Rally for Refugees in Battery Park, New York, on February 12, 2017. (Courtesy HIAS)

Interview

Eric Cortellessa

The Jewish organization on the frontlines against Trump’s war on refugees

The Pittsburgh synagogue attack forced HIAS to evolve, says CEO Mark Hetfield. But in an era that saw the organization sue its biggest patron, the US government, that’s nothing new

Hoda Muthana, a US-born former Islamic State propagandist, who is being barred from returning to the US (Screen capture/ABC News)

Trump bars US-born woman who joined IS from returning

By Shaun Tandon and Gianrigo Marletta

Screen capture from video of an interview with Shamima Begum, right, a British teen who joined the Islamic State. Her newborn baby is held by a woman, left, during the interview from Syria, February 2019. (YouTube)

Britain and Bangladesh wash their hands of Islamic State teen mother

By Alice Ritchie

White supremacists exchange insults with counter-protesters as they attempt to guard the entrance to Emancipation Park in Charlottesville, Virginia, August 12, 2017. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images via JTA)

Number of active hate groups in US at record high, civil rights watchdog says

By Josefin Dolsten

Southern Poverty Law Center records rise in both white supremacist and black nationalist organizations, warns of future violence like Pittsburgh synagogue shooting

This image provided by the U.S. District Court in Maryland shows a photo of firearms and ammunition that was in the motion for detention pending trial in the case against Christopher Paul Hasson. Prosecutors say that Hasson, a Coast Guard lieutenant is a "domestic terrorist" (US District Court via AP)

US Coast Guard officer arrested for white supremacist mass murder plot

By AFP

Derek Hatton (Screen capture: YouTube)

UK’s Labour suspends activist for anti-Semitic tweet

French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during the 34th annual dinner of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF - Conseil Representatif des Institutions juives de France) on February 20, 2019, at the Louvre Carrousel in Paris. LUDOVIC MARIN / POOL / AFP)

Anti-Semitism worst since WWII, Macron tells French Jewish group

President vows to ban racist groups and recognize anti-Zionism as a form of anti-Semitism after spate of recent incidents targeting Jews

French President Emmanuel Macron (R) shakes hands with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a ceremony commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Vel d'Hiv roundup in Paris on July 16, 2017. (AFP Photo/Pool/Kamil Zihnioglu)

Macron tells PM France will adopt definition of anti-Semitism mentioning Israel

By ToI Staff and Agencies

A swastika and the words 'Shoa blabla' was on the monument in the Garden of Remembrance in the Champagne-au-Mont-d'Or cemetery, on February 20, 2019. (Jeff Pachoud/AFP)

Anti-Semitic graffiti scrawled on monument in French cemetery

By AFP and ToI Staff

Michael Aarenau

Banned, assassinated, and now mainstreamed: Kahane lives

It’s the boiling frog phenomenon: what began innocently enough with a few bad eggs ends with hatred and extremism engulfing the Knesset

Parshat Ki Tisa: Thread count

The loom inspired the tabulating machine, which developed into the computer, which allows you to read this blog post

Declared undead: A strange ruling in NY court

A brain dead beating heart cadaver can never come to back to life, regardless of a NY judge’s decision

Jeff Tweedy has opened up about his Jewish conversion while promoting his memoir and his first solo album. (Whitten Sabbatini/via JTA)

Jeff Tweedy on converting, the next Wilco album and why he loves his synagogue

By Stephen Silver

The Budapest Operetta Theater (Eszter Gordon)

Danube days: Hungary launches culture year in Israel with song and dance

By Itamar Sharon

More Headlines

Illustrative image of a 9-10-week-old human fetus. (Flickr/lunar caustic/CC BY-SA)

Israeli team develops way to find genetic flaws in fetus at 11 weeks

By Shoshanna Solomon

In this Monday, May 14, 2018 file photo, actor and singer Jussie Smollett attends the Fox Networks Group 2018 programming presentation after party at Wollman Rink in Central Park in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Actor Jussie Smollett charged with felony for faking his assault

An F-16 fighter jet carrying a 'Rocks' air-to-surface 'bunker buster' missile takes off from an Israeli air base in an undated photograph. (Rafael Advanced Defense Systems)

Israeli arms makers unveil new bunker buster and suicide drone in India air show

By Judah Ari Gross

A car with slashed tires and spray painted Star of David found in the West Bank village of Ras Karkar, February 21, 2019. (Courtesy)

Tires slashed, graffiti daubed in apparent hate crime in Palestinian village

German carmaker BMW to set up Tel Aviv center to scout for new tech

By Shoshanna Solomon

Scene of a fatal road accident on Route 4, February 21, 2019. (Issachar Weiss/MDA)

Woman hits motorcycle, injuring 2, continues driving and dies in another crash

By Stuart Winer

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, left, speaks to the media alongside Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne at the Parliament House in Canberra, October 16, 2018. (Mick Tsikas/AAP Image via AP)

Australian leaders praise Israel in parliament as they mark 70 years of ties

By henry Benjamin

Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman speaks during a press conference at the Health Ministry in Jerusalem on January 3, 2019. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

Breaking silence on Leifer allegations, Litzman says ‘everything was legal’

By ToI Staff and Jacob Magid

Cannabis plant. (Kobi Gideon/Flash90)

Am Yisrael HighPro-marijuana legalization party to sit out elections

The cover of the first 'Second Coming' comic, from DC Comics unit Vertigo, depicts a Jesus Christ, right, who returns to Earth and fights for good alongside the superhero Sun-Man, left. (Screen capture, DC Comics website)

No JC for DCDC Comics drops plans for Jesus superhero series after complaints

By AFP

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