The Palestinian Authority on Thursday scoffed at US presidential adviser Jared Kushner’s announcement that the administration’s plan for peace in the Middle East – also known as the “Deal of the Century” – would be published after the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which ends in June.
The PA noted that the timing of the announcement of the plan will coincide with Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim festival marking the end of Ramadan.
“We don’t want Kushner’s Eid al-Fitr gift because it does not offer the Palestinians an independent and sovereign state,” said a PA official in Ramallah.
Read more at JPOST.
{Matzav.com}

MK Moshe Gafni threatened on Thursday morning that his party would rather go back to the hustings and fight another election than back down on its demands for mass military service exemptions for yeshiva bochurim.
UTJ rejected a draft charedi enlistment law drawn up by a Defense Ministry committee convened by Yisrael Beytenu leader and former defense minister Avigdor Liberman during the last government, which led in part to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dissolving the Knesset and calling early elections.
Liberman for his part has stated following the election that he will not accept “even one comma to be changed” in the draft law, setting up a head-on collision between him and the charedi parties during the negotiations to form a new government.

President Trump took a victory lap after Attorney General William Barr’s press conference on special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russia investigation, with a dramatic photo featuring the President along the words “Game Over.”
“No collusion. No obstruction. For the haters and the radical left Democrats—Game Over,” the text on the image reads.
Read more at The Hill.
{Matzav.com}

The Justice Department posts online a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election online; chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge reports.
WATCH:

President Donald Trump pushed for obtaining Democratic rival Hillary Clinton’s private emails and his campaign was in touch with allies who were pursuing them, according to the redacted special counsel’s report released Thursday.
On July 27, 2016, Trump famously said at a campaign rally, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” referring to emails that Clinton said she had deleted from her private server. She had used a private account during her tenure as secretary of state.

Attorney General William Barr and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein hold a press conference on the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report.
WATCH:

Special Counsel Robert Mueller said he lacked confidence to clear Donald Trump of obstruction of justice but suggested Congress could take action on at least 10 instances where the president sought to interfere with the probe.
“We concluded that Congress has authority to prohibit a president’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice,” he said in the report sent to Congress on Thursday.
Mueller said acts of possible obstruction include “discouragement of cooperation with the government and suggestions of possible future pardons.” The 448-page report cited actions including Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey and efforts to have former Attorney General Jeff Sessions take control of the investigation.

Attorney General William Barr spoke to reporters in advance of the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which was submitted last month. A lightly redacted version of the report will be released publicly on Thursday.
Here are Barr’s remarks as prepared for delivery.
Good morning. Thank you all for being here today.
On March 22, 2019, Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded his investigation of matters related to Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and submitted his confidential report to me pursuant to Department of Justice regulations.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) on Tuesday, as the freshman legislator continued to face accusations of antisemitism led by President Donald Trump.
“I don’t think the congresswoman is antisemitic,” Pelosi said during an interview with CNN‘s Cristiane Amanpour.
Last weekend, Trump published a tweet featuring a video of Omar saying that Muslims had been treated as second-class citizens because “some people did something,” on September 11, 2001 — when the Al Qaeda terror group carried out attack that claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people in New York City, Pennsylvania and Washington, DC.

Israeli startups raised a total of $1.55 billion in the first quarter of 2019 across 128 deals, according to a new report published Tuesday by Tel Aviv-based market research firm IVC Research Center Ltd. and law firm Zysman Aharoni Gayer & Co. (ZAG/S&W). The sum represents a 28 percent increase compared to the first quarter of 2018, spread across 15 percent more deals. Venture capital players accounted for 71 deals and $1.3 billion of the total sum raised.