Shlomo Filber told investigators Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explicitly ordered him to hand classified documents to the Bezeq telecommunications conglomerate, claiming he was unknowingly “manipulated” into breaking the law…

Filber gave this testimony as part of the state’s witness deal he signed earlier that day. The details of his testimony were revealed in the Hadashot News report.

Kahlon and Bennett, each for his own political reasons, don’t want the government to fall or for Netanyahu to be replaced with a different Likud figure…This is the behavior of a group of individuals with vested interests who are tied together in a utilitarian relationship, not of a properly functioning government in a democratic state.

Looking at the polls from the last two days one has no choice but to reach one of two conclusions:

1. The public is slow-witted. It takes time for them to digest the events of the last couple of days and do what you’d expect them to do: show less support for the ruling party and its head.
2. The public doesn’t care. Israelis indeed understand the meaning of recent revelations, and choose to ignore them, either because they are not bothered by corruption, or because they have more important considerations (such as: corruption aside, Netanyahu is a great PM).

For now, the result is self-evident: the leaders of the coalition take their cue from the public and stick with the PM.

…there’s a good case to be made that in nearly every way, save rhetoric, the president has been tougher on Russia than his predecessor.

This isn’t necessarily a heavy lift when we consider Obama spent most of his eight years placating Vladimir Putin and his allies in the Middle East. Much of the trouble we find ourselves in now can be directly traced to Obama’s feckless policies.

Obama simply didn’t take Russia seriously. What he said to Romney at the debate reflected exactly how he viewed the Russian threat; it will be remembered as one of the greatest presidential foreign policy failures in American history…

Obama was the President when Russia decided to meddle and hack an American presidential election, and he ought to get the blame for pursuing vanity projects rather than detecting and protecting America from what was an act of war by a hostile foreign power.

Trump’s attacks on Obama also omit critical context about how politics curtailed the president’s options during the fall of 2016. When the administration made the case for a unified, bipartisan response to the Russian attack, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell balked. “According to several officials, McConnell raised doubts about the underlying intelligence and made clear to the administration that he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics,” The Washington Post reported in December of that year.

Using the term “negotiations” 15 times, Abbas drove home Palestinian willingness to negotiate a peace deal. But the jury is still out on whether he succeeded in convincing the US and Israel to allow any other international party to co-chair future peace efforts.

Abbas came to New York after a global tour that took him to major European, Asian and African capitals with the aim of convincing major world powers to create a new peace formula.

Abbas feels lonely and wants to make a comeback. He wants Israel and the Americans to know that it’s too early to mourn him. He has apparently learned that tough talk won’t get him anywhere, especially not with this American administration…

From his UN speech, Abbas is trying to present himself to the world in a less negative manner. By refraining from the fiery anti-US rhetoric of the past few weeks, and by authorizing meetings between his officials and Israel, the 82-year-old president is probably trying to show that he’s still a relevant player.

“We are ready to begin negotiations immediately in order to achieve the freedom and independence of our people,” Abbas said in a speech to the United Nation’s Security Council in New York.

Accusing the U.S. of overrunning its power as chief negotiator for the peace process, the Palestinian leader told the Security Council: “It is essential to establish a multilateral international mechanism.”  A peace conference by mid-2018 would set the course for full U.N. membership for Palestine and a two-state solution, he added.

I, too, would have wished for less vitriolic words from Rev. Graham in private conversations. But that should not blind us Jews to his constructive words, which benefited all religions, including my own. Many of his statements and actions were in sync both with many enlightened Jews own attitudes to religion, and to the role that religion should play in the town square.

The elder Graham was an early and avid backer of Israel. A tour of the country in 1960 raised the country’s profile among American evangelicals, establishing the seeds of strong pro-Israel support that persist in that community until now. In 1967, he urged Israeli leaders not to yield to diplomatic pressures that could endanger the country’s security; such entreaties, commonplace now on the American right, were unusual at the time. He made a film, “His Land,” about Israel that continues to be screened among pro-Israel evangelicals.

Billy Graham was an anti-Semite. He bought off on Henry Ford and Adolf Hitler’s views that Jews control the media. He wanted to stand up to them “under the proper circumstances.” We will never know what those circumstances were to Billy Graham…

The news of Graham’s anti-Semitism first appeared in the press. Graham denied the charges. It was not until the release of the White House tapes that we heard the familiar voice that preached the love of Jesus to millions of people speak hateful words about Jews.

Another war between Israel and Hezbollah is almost inevitable. Although neither side wants a conflict now, the shifting balance of power in the Levant and shrinking areas of contestation are indicators of a looming showdown. The real questions are how and where—not if—the impending conflagration will occur.

Amir Toumaj, a researcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said, “The ultimate goal is, in the case of another war, to make Syria a new front between Israel, Hezbollah and Iran. They are making that not just a goal, but a reality.”

Israeli officials, meanwhile, maintain that Iran and its allies are attempting to create a land corridor from Iran itself into the Mediterranean—passing through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon along the way.

Once completed, the corridor could then greatly facilitate the transfer of arms and the construction of underground armament factories in both Lebanon and Syria.

Hezbollah may yet go to war if Iran demands it, just as Israel may strike Lebanon, seeing an opportunity to neutralise the party. Yet this complex reality stands against a crude reading of Lebanon as a country controlled by Hezbollah. In fact, a majority of Lebanese oppose a war with Israel today, realising what ruin it would bring. Hezbollah cannot ignore this, knowing that Lebanon’s sectarian politics has undone stronger parties than it.

If all goes as the FCC’s Republican commissioners planned, December 14th will be known as the day that net neutrality died. But thanks to the mercifully slow gears of the federal bureaucracy, big changes don’t happen immediately. On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of net neutrality protections is scheduled to hit the federal register. Sixty days later, it’ll be official.

A quick look at the webpage of the Federal Register shows that the order axing net neutrality will be published Thursday, and, according to Reuters, that will give those opposed to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s vision of the internet a chance to fight back.

That’s because once that ruling, known as the Restoring Internet Freedom order (ha!), officially drops, opponents will have something to sink their teeth into and can begin the long process of fighting the rules in court.

The more practical route for preserving net neutrality likely lies with the states. In January, Montana Governor Steve Bullock issued an executive order placing net neutrality regulations on any internet service provider (ISP) that wants to do business directly with the state. Since then, more than half of U.S. states have taken measures to preserve the overwhelmingly popular regulation within their borders as best they can.

These safeguarding moves are not guaranteed to work, however, and ISPs are busy preparing to challenge the resulting orders and legislation in the courts.