Opposition leader Yair Lapid, addressing the Knesset, praises Donald Trump for brokering the Gaza peace plan, calls on his fellow Israelis to renew their values-based democracy, and warns Israel’s enemies in the Middle East and beyond that the Jewish state is here to stay.
In a Knesset speech, Prime Minister Netanyahu delivers effusive praise for President Trump’s Middle East peacemaking even though the U.S. plan appears to have put the support of key Muslim powers in the region ahead of sign-on from Israeli or Palestinian officials.
Prime Minister Golda Meir in her address to the Knesset since the beginning of the October War, recounts the war’s status on the Golan Heights and in the Suez Canal area. She reveals that an Israeli task force had crossed the Suez Canal and was fighting on the west bank of that waterway.
Abbas is a dentist who lives in the Galilee town of Maghar. Since 2019, he has served in the Knesset as the head of the Islamist party Ra’am. After Ra’am broke from the Joint List…
Israel’s 13th prime minister, Bennett was born in Haifa to U.S. immigrants. He was an IDF Sayeret Matkal commando and a software entrepreneur. He became the leader of the settler-supported Jewish Home party in 2012…
The first female speaker of the Knesset from 2006 to 2009, Itzik was a teacher who began her political career as the chair of the Jerusalem Teachers Union for five years. She was elected to…
A two-time foreign minister, Liberman was the finance minister in the coalition formed in June 2021. Born in Moldova, Liberman arrived in Israel in 1978. He worked closely with Benjamin Netanyahu before splitting with him…
Sharansky, a physicist and writer, was a Soviet refusenik imprisoned in a Siberian labor camp from 1977 to 1986. Upon his release, he joined his wife, Avital, in Israel. He became an activist for immigrant…
Allon led the Palmach and was an IDF major general who oversaw the Southern Command. He served in the Knesset from 1955 until his death. After the 1967 war, he proposed returning the West Bank…
Founder of the Meretz party, Aloni was known for advocating for peace and for human and civil rights, especially as a voice for women and against Orthodox control of society. She fought in the Palmach…
Labor Party politician Sapir played a vital role in the development of the Israeli economy. Born in Poland as Pinhas Kozlowski, he immigrated to the Land of Israel in 1929. He served in the Cabinet…
Belarus-born Warhaftig persuaded Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara to issue 3,500 visas for Jews fleeing Lithuania at the start of World War II, then escaped to Canada via Japan. He reached the Land of Israel in…
Yadin was a military commander and an archaeologist. He led the Negev campaign against the Egyptians in the War of Independence and served as the second IDF chief of staff from 1949 to 1952. He…
Former three-term Knesset member is motivated to run in the March 23 elections to create a better Israel for his children and grandchildren, provide a voice for the vital senior population, topple Prime Minister Netanyahu, and restore the Labor Party’s legacy.
Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Immunity for the Prime Minister—IDI experts explain Israel’s immunity law, what happens when it’s requested and what the implications may be for the political system.
Source documents: The Israeli Knesset Debates, 1948-1981 are available online through the prodigious work of Dr. Natanel Lorch and good offices of the the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. Six volumes cover this period. Each…
In an impassioned Knesset speech, Menachem Begin staunchly opposes accepting $1.5 billion in German reparations for Jewish deaths during WWII. No price, he believes, can be put on the lives lost.
March 16, 2017 Basel Ghattas, an Arab member of the Knesset for the Joint List, signs a plea deal to resolve charges that he used his position as a Knesset member to smuggle cellphones and…
Rabbi Zerach Warhaftig, a founder of Israel’s National Religious Party and signatory of Israel’s Declaration of Independence, passes away in Jerusalem at the age of 96.
Israeli intellectual and former Knesset member Dov Sadan dies at the age of 87.
Moshe Dayan, Israel’s iconic military and political leader, passes away from a heart attack in a Tel Aviv hospital at the age of 66.
May 23, 1969 Pioneering Knesset member Hanin Zoabi is born into a Muslim family in Nazareth. Zoabi earns a bachelor’s in philosophy and psychology from the University of Haifa and a master’s from the Hebrew…
Nir Barkat is born in Jerusalem. He serves as the city’s mayor from 2008 to 2018, then joins the Likud party to run for the Knesset.
June 9, 1959 Benjamin “Benny” Gantz, who rises to chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces and a top candidate for prime minister, is born in Kfar Ahim. His father is a native of…
