Israel’s election impasse doesn’t appear to be waning as the country is closing in on nearly two months since its second national election in September. In the past several days, various reports have emerged and faded over proposals to break the logjam, which have led to more discussion over the possibility of an unprecedented third election in less than a year.
Likud Knesset member Keti Sheetrit, who has been close with Benjamin Netanyahu for years, insists that the prime minister does not want a third election, but that he does want to be remain in the job as part of a unity government.
“Sadly, the ‘Just not Bibi’ campaign has continued beyond the election and into the coalition negotiations,” Sheetrit told JNS.

An Italian Jewish survivor of the Auschwitz extermination camp was under the protection of police officers on Thursday after she received hundreds of death threats on social media from far-right fanatics.
89-year-old Liliana Segre — a life senator in the Italian parliament — had called on fellow legislators to establish a committee to combat racist and antisemitic hatred. Italy’s right-wing and nationalist parties — including former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party — all abstained on the vote.
After the vote, Segre — who was deported to Auschwitz at the age of 13 — said that the abstentions made her feel “like a Martian in the Senate.”

Senior Trump administration officials considered resigning en masse last year in a “midnight self-massacre” to sound a public alarm about President Donald Trump’s conduct, but rejected the idea because they believed it would further destabilize an already teetering government, according to a new book by an unnamed author.
In “A Warning” by Anonymous, obtained by The Washington Post ahead of its release, a writer described only as “a senior official in the Trump administration” paints a chilling portrait of the president as cruel, inept and a danger to the nation he was elected to lead.

The centrist Blue and White and secular-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu parties have reached preliminary agreements on several issues in ongoing coalition talks, amid Israel’s ongoing political stalemate.
The Israeli news site Mako reported that, with only 13 days left for Blue and White leader Benny Gantz to form a government, the negotiating teams for the two parties reached a consensus on several economic issues, including raising income for the elderly and disability payments.
There was nothing conclusive, however, on the most important issue — that of religion and state. However, Blue and White said the two parties had agreed on the issue in principal during previous meetings.

 

Ex-US Ambassador to the UN — and potential future Republican presidential candidate — Nikki Haley articulated her deep-felt support for Israel on Wednesday night in Manhattan, as she accepted the World Jewish Congress’ Theodor Herzl Award.
“The UN’s bias against Israel has long undermined peace, by encouraging an illusion that Israel will go away,” the 47-year-old former South Carolina governor said. “Israel is not going away. When the world recognizes that, then peace becomes possible.

Police are investigating an apparent anti-Semitic attack at a gym in the German city of Freiburg.
In a Facebook post, Samuel Kantorovych, 19, said he was attacked on Tuesday night while wearing a kipah he started wearing regularly six months ago.
In the locker room at the Mcfit Freiburg gym, a man allegedly tore off Kantorovych’s head covering, threatened to beat him, called him a “dirty Jew” and shouted “Free Palestine” before he spat on it and tossed it into the garbage.
Kantorovych stated that he was “shocked” by what transpired.
“He looked at me and asked me, ‘Do you want me to beat you up? () dirty Jew!’ I was overwhelmed by this situation and (for whatever reason) I asked him, ‘Here, in front of everybody?’”

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Donald Trump legally overthrew the Obama presidency, says Dan Henninger of The Wall Street Journal, who explains that Mark Zaid was speaking for the entire anti-Trump resistance determined to stop Trump.
WATCH:

German airline Lufthansa grounded 1,300 flights Thursday due to thousands of its flight attendants going on strike.
UFO, the airline’s union, said in a statement that the strike was inevitable because both the airline and the flight attendants failed to find common ground in labor negotiations.
NPR reports that the strike is affecting 180,000 passengers.
“Lufthansa and the union representing the flight attendants have been at odds for months over the union’s legal status, and a last-minute effort by the airline to halt the strike failed after a court in Frankfurt confirmed the walkout was legal,” NPR’s Rob Schmitz told the station’s Newscast Unit Thursday.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren welcomed billionaire Michael Bloomberg to the Democratic primary race by referring him to her newly launched “Calculator for Billionaires.”
“Welcome to the race, @MikeBloomberg!” Warren tweeted Thursday evening.
“If you’re looking for policy plans that will make a huge difference for working people and which are very popular, start here,” attaching a link to Warren’s “Calculator for Billionaires,” which was released earlier on Thursday.
The web tool allows voters to see how much some of the country’s most prominent billionaires would pay in taxes under Warren’s new tax plan, which features a two percent tax on household net worth between $50 million and $1 billion, and a three percent tax on net worth above $1 billion.