As Israel heads to the polls on Sept. 17, the fate of the release of the Trump administration’s entire Mideast peace plan for the Israelis and the Palestinians remains to be seen, an administration official told JNS on Thursday.
“The Bahrain workshop will go on as scheduled, June 25-26,” said the official in an email. “As far as the rest of the plan/rollout, we’ve long said that we will release the plan when the timing is right.”
The White House declined to note exactly when that time may be.
Kushner said in April that the so-called “deal of the century” would be released after Ramadan, which concludes on June 4.
The Bahrain workshop is the first part of the peace proposal rollout and is expected to deal with revitalizing the Palestinian economy.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reportedly ordered the execution of several top officials in March after they were unable to reach an agreement with President Trump at a second summit between the two leaders earlier this year.
Bloomberg News reported Thursday citing a South Korean newspaper that Kim Hyok Chol, North Korea’s special envoy to the U.S., was executed in March along with four other North Korean foreign ministry officials involved in the Hanoi, Vietnam, summit.
A fifth official, Kim Jong Un’s top deputy, Kim Yong Chol, has reportedly been sentenced to hard labor, according to the newspaper.
Read more at The Hill.

In a stunning and first-ever circumstance in the history of the State of Israel, there will be a second Knesset election held this year. The blame for these additional elections, which are estimated to be costing the state around $500 million, has been placed on a number of doorsteps, including that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, head of the Israel Beiteinu Party Avigdor Lieberman and the ultra-Orthodox, depending on who you ask.
After the 21st Knesset voted to disband itself and go to elections, Netanyahu appeared upset, insisting that it was unnecessary, and that Lieberman was to blame for the impasse in coalition negotiations. For his part, Lieberman gave a press conference on Thursday and laid the blame at the feet of Netanyahu and the ultra-Orthodox parties.

In a letter sent to a top UN official on Thursday, the Jewish state’s envoy to the global body bemoaned the plight of Israeli children exposed to Hamas rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.
“Life in Israel’s southern population centers has been abruptly halted on numerous occasions due to the violent attacks coming from the Gaza Strip,” Ambassador Danny Danon wrote to Virginia Gamba, the UN secretary-general’s special representative for children and armed conflict. “Hamas continues to instigate violence against southern Israel, forcing our civilians to live under a constant cloud of fear.”

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday voiced concern over a warning to Jews by a German official about the dangers of wearing a yarmulke in Germany in the face of rising anti-Semitic attacks.
Pompeo expressed his disquiet over the warning during a visit to Berlin on Friday.
“We were concerned to see Jews discouraged from wearing the yarmulke in public out of safety concerns. None of us should shrink in the face of prejudice,” he said at a press conference.
Earlier this week, the German government’s commissioner combating anti-Semitism warned that he cannot guarantee safety for Jews wearing traditional religious skullcaps in public ‘anywhere’ in the country.

Yediot Ahronot’s military correspondent, Yossi Yehoshua, claims that the defense establishment doesn’t need more charedi soldiers, and therefore the discussion of the draft law is completely unnecessary.
“You ask if the IDF needs more charedim in service and the answer is no,” Yehoshua told Army Radio. “There are about 3,000 charedim who enlist in the army every year, the majority for combat units, and more charedi soldiers will cause another headache for the IDF.”

The United States has reported 971 cases of measles in the first five months of 2019, the greatest number since 1992, when 963 cases were reported for the entire year, federal health officials said Thursday.
The agency has typically been updating its measles cases weekly, on Mondays, but announced the case count Thursday because it had reached this new milestone.
The biggest source of this year’s surging measles cases is New York, where Rockland County and New York City have been battling outbreaks for nearly eight months. The two jurisdictions account for the majority of the cases this year, with a total of 643. The outbreaks have been concentrated in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.

A Palestinian teenager was shot dead by Israeli forces in the West Bank on Friday, the Palestinian health ministry said.
In a statement, the ministry said Abdullah Ghaith, 16, “died after he was shot by Israeli occupation soldiers close to Bethlehem and his heart and lungs were penetrated.” Another man, 21, was shot in the stomach at the same location and was being treated in hospital, the ministry said.
Israeli police said that the Palestinian teenager was shot while attempting to climb over the heavily guarded security barrier from Bethlehem into Yerushalayim. The police added that they were launching a probe into the incident.

Hundreds of thousands of Muslims took part in the final Friday prayers of Ramadan at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City, as Israel heightened security following a Palestinian stabbing attack.
The Jerusalem Islamic Waqf organization which administers the site, the third holiest site in Islam, said in total 260,000 worshipers gathered for the lunchtime prayers.
The prayers came only hours after a Palestinian teenager stabbed two Israelis inside the Old City before being shot dead by Israeli police.
Read more at Times of Israel.
{Matzav.com}

In the months since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., assumed her role, there’s one subject she can never seem to avoid being asked about: President Donald Trump. But on Thursday night, she said she’s over it.
“I’m done with him, in terms of talking about him,” Pelosi told late-night host Jimmy Kimmel on his ABC show. “What we want to talk about is, let’s build the infrastructure of America and not have him stomp out of the room.”