KOENIG

Former US president Donald Trump warmly welcomed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Friday for their first meeting since their ties very publicly soured after Trump lost re-election in 2020.

With cameras rolling and flashing, the two men sought to repair what had been seen as one of the closest relationships between leaders when they were in office, now that Trump is once again the Republican presidential nominee three months out from a new election.

“Now I’m honored. Come on in, come on in,” Trump said as Netanyahu and his wife Sara walked up the steps of the Mar-a-Lago entrance.

Vice President Kamala Harris publicly pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to "get this deal done" and agree to a cease-fire to end Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza, but Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, won't say whether she's also pushing terror group Hamas to relent at the negotiating table.

Harris' remarks urging Israel to make a deal, which came after her "frank and constructive" meeting with Netanyahu on Thursday, were lambasted by former President Donald Trump in public and, reportedly, by Netanyahu in private.

"I think her remarks were disrespectful," Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, told reporters while standing alongside Netanyahu on Friday afternoon. "They weren't very nice pertaining to Israel. I actually don't know how a person who's Jewish can vote for her, but that's up to them. But she was certainly disrespectful to Israel, in my opinion."

The current iteration of the proposed deal has two phases, Harris revealed. Phase one calls for a full cease-fire, "including a withdrawal of the Israeli military from population centers in Gaza." The second phase would see the Israeli military withdraw from Gaza "entirely."

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Thursday invoked the annihilation of US adversary Iran in a social media post reminiscent of his most incendiary outbursts while in the White House.

“If they do ‘assassinate President Trump,’ which is always a possibility, I hope that America obliterates Iran, wipes it off the face of the Earth — If that does not happen, American Leaders will be considered ‘gutless’ cowards!” he wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social.

Trump made the remarks alongside a brief video of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bringing up alleged Iranian plots against Trump in his address to the US Congress on Wednesday. “As we recently learned, they even brazenly threatened to assassinate President Trump,” Netanyahu said.

Welcome, Mr. Prime Minister,” Kamala Harris, the U.S. vice president and presumptive Democratic nominee in November, told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as she shook his hand in her ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, part of the White House complex.

“I look forward to our conversation,” she added, standing in front of two U.S. and two Israeli flags. “We have a lot to talk about.”

The press appeared to be ushered out of the room as reporters shouted questions at the two leaders. It wasn’t immediately clear from a video feed what Netanyahu responded to Harris before the two, and their respective staff members, sat at a table.

Netanyahu’s office later said that the meeting lasted 40 minutes.

U.S. President Joe Biden, who announced over the weekend that he would not seek re-election, opened the public portion of his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House today by deferring to his colleague.

A senior U.S. official told reporters ahead of the meeting that Biden would stress “his ironclad commitment to Israel’s security, the very serious threats from Iran and from Iranian proxy and terrorist groups, including Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis.”

Ongoing efforts to secure a hostages-for-ceasefire-and-terrorists-release agreement with the Hamas terrorist organization were expected to take center stage during the meeting, the official said.

House Republicans visited Union Station late Wednesday night and replaced the American flags anti-Israel protesters had burned and replaced with Palestinian flags earlier in the day.

House Speaker Mike Johnson spoke with the press as the American flags were being put back up. The anti-Israel protesters descended on the nation's capital as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered an address before Congress.

At Union Station, protesters removed all three American flags flying outside the historic metro transit hub. They flew Palestinian flags in their place and burned at least one of the American flags that were taken down. Protesters also covered nearby monuments in grafitti.

"We recognize that they flew Palestinian flags on these polls. It is outrageous," Johnson said. "They were pulled down thankfully."

Follow the link above to see photos from the protests in Washington, DC on Wednesday. The photos make clear that many of the pro-Palestinian protestors are extremists that are willing to vandalize property and desecrate flags.

State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said Thursday that "something is seriously wrong" with the way anti-Israel protests are unfolding in the nation's capital.

"Something is seriously wrong when you see people marching through the streets of Washington carrying Hamas banners, literal, literal Hamas banners, carrying the Hamas flag down the streets of Washington, D.C. When you see people spray painting on fountains in Washington that Hamas is coming, when you see them displaying signs calling for the death of Jews, when you see them burning American flags, it's despicable," Miller said.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz sends a letter to his French counterpart, Stéphane Séjourné, warning him of an Iranian-backed plot to attack the Israeli delegation to the 2024 Paris Olympics.

“There are those who seek to undermine the celebratory nature of this joyous event,” writes Katz. “We currently have assessments regarding the potential threat posed by Iranian terrorist proxies and other terrorist organizations who aim to carry out attacks against members of the Israeli delegation and Israeli tourists during the Olympics.”

Katz expresses “gratitude” to French officials for the “unprecedented security measures” to protect Israelis at the Games, as well as the French government’s rejection of calls to ban Israel from the Olympics.

The Democratic Party will select its new nominee, virtually, as soon as Aug. 1, according to new rules passed Wednesday by the party's convention rules committee. 

The Democratic National Committee also established that the party's candidate, which is likely to be Vice President Kamala Harris, must pick a running mate by Aug. 7...

[Koenig News side note: With the dates set the way they are, it seems like it is becoming less likely that the Democrats will try to make a last-minute switch to someone like Michelle Obama and/or Gavin Newsom at next month's DNC. Time will tell how things play out.]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the US Congress in Washington, DC, on Wednesday for the first time since Hamas launched its brutal attacks on southern Israel last year, triggering the ensuring Israel-Hamas War in Gaza.

Netanyahu began his speech by thanking Congress for allowing him "to visit the great citadel of democracy for the fourth time.

"It's a clash between barbarism and civilization. It's a battle between glorifying death and those who cherish life. America and Israel must stand together. Because when we stand together, something very simple happens, we win, they lose. I came to assure you, my friends, of one thing, we will win."

All countries who are at peace with Israel and who will make peace with Israel must join a military alliance against Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said as he delivered his historic fourth address to a joint session of Congress.

“We saw a glimpse of that alliance in April,” when five armies took to the skies to shoot down an Iranian missile and drone attack against the Jewish state, he said,

This new alliance would be a natural extension of the groundbreaking Abraham Accords, he stated, noting that it should be called the Abraham Arms.

Donald Trump on Tuesday shared on his Truth social media platform a letter that he received from Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas condemning the assassination attempt against the former U.S. president.

Trump responded to Abbas with a handwritten note on the letter: “So nice. Thank you. Everything will be good. Best wishes.” He then signed his name.

The Republican nominee for the White House posted the letter ahead of his scheduled Friday meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago.

“Looking forward to seeing Bibi Netanyahu on Friday, and even more forward to achieving Peace in the Middle East! DJT,” Trump wrote.

[Koenig News side note: We need to be actively praying that Trump will back away from any support for a two-state plan that would divide Israel.]

After the U.S. presidential election in November, Israel should claim sovereignty over Judea and Samaria and offer local autonomy but not voting rights to Palestinians, David Friedman, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel, said at the Knesset on Tuesday.

Friedman’s remarks came a day before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress, and about four years after former President Donald Trump approved the Jewish state’s annexation of some 30% of the disputed territory.

“It doesn’t matter if you are a person of faith or an atheist, this is the best outcome for regional stability, for Israel and all its neighbors,” Friedman said in a keynote address at the Knesset’s Israel Victory Caucus.

The former U.S. envoy admitted that his plan couldn’t “get done tomorrow” and needs “buy-in from the rest of the world.” But he said that it’s the best alternative to a two-state solution...

Former president Donald Trump confirmed plans to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this Friday at his private Mar-a-lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida.

Netanyahu, who is making a swing through Washington, D.C. to meet with President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and members of Congress this week, requested the in-person meeting with Trump.

“Looking forward to welcoming Bibi Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Senior Hamas terrorist Musa Abu Marzouk announced on Tuesday the signing of a Palestinian unity agreement that includes Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction, which rules areas of Judea and Samaria.

The “Beijing declaration” was signed by 14 Palestinian factions that took part in negotiations hosted by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Fatah, based in Ramallah, and Hamas have been split since 2007 following the latter’s violent takeover of Gaza.

“In reality, this won’t happen because Hamas’s rule will be crushed, and Abbas will be watching Gaza from afar. Israel’s security will remain solely in Israel’s hands,” [Israeli Foreign Minister Michael Katz said].

hen U.S. President Joe Biden meets in Washington with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will likely be in attendance too.

“I would expect that he would attend the meeting with the president,” , Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, told reporters on Monday. “But that meeting has not yet been formally announced.” 

Originally announced for Tuesday, the meeting has reportedly been rescheduled to Thursday.

U.S. regulators are investigating how Delta Air Lines is treating passengers affected by canceled and delayed flights as the airline struggles to recover from a global technology outage.

The outage began Thursday night into Friday morning, after a faulty software upgrade from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike to more than 8 million Microsoft computers around the world.

The Atlanta-based carrier has canceled more than 6,600 flights since the outage started, far more than any other airline, according to figures from FlightAware and travel-data provider Cirium.

After landing in the US, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells the families of Israelis held hostage by Hamas that the conditions for a deal “are coming together, without a doubt.”

He says a potential deal to release hostages is coming together because of intense military pressure Israel is applying to Hamas.

“This is a good sign,” he continues, “and the other sign is that we are also seeing that the enemy’s spirit is starting to break.”

“We are seeing a certain change,” says Netanyahu, “and I think that this change will continue to get bigger.”

The sudden withdrawal of US President Joe Biden from the 2024 presidential race has left the Democratic Party scrambling to regain its footing. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Sunday, former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman predicted a significant shift of American Jewish voters towards the Republican Party and Donald Trump due to Kamala Harris's ascension as the Democratic candidate.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took off on Monday for Washington, where he will seek to solidify bipartisan support for the Jewish state on the backdrop of President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 election.

“I am leaving this for a very important trip to the United States at a time when Israel is fighting on seven fronts and when there is great political uncertainty in Washington,” said Netanyahu on the tarmac before boarding his flight.

Israel will be the United States' strongest ally in the Middle East regardless of who is elected president in November, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday before flying to Washington, where he was due to address the U.S. Congress.

The Israeli Air Force on Sunday released footage showing its airstrikes a day earlier against the Houthi-controlled port of Hodeida in western Yemen, which came following a deadly drone attack on Tel Aviv Thursday overnight carried out by the Iran-backed group.

The video showed missiles launched by IAF fighter jets striking four large container cranes at the port used to unload shipments.

The IAF also released footage showing fighter jets being refueled amid the operation, dubbed “Outstretched Arm,” as well as the arrival of some of the aircraft back at Israeli airbases following the strike.

The IDF has maintained ambiguity regarding the number of aircraft participating in the attack. Still, the fact that the fighter jets reached a range of 1,700 km is enough to demonstrate air power.

The name of the operation sends a message to all of Israel's enemies, led by Iran, who should now perform a simple calculation. If the air force attacks the port of Hodeidah in Yemen, at a range of 1,700 km, it can certainly attack targets in Tehran, at a range of 1,500 km.

President Biden announced Sunday that he will suspend his 2024 re-election campaign amid mounting pressure from his Democratic colleagues on Capitol Hill, top donors and Hollywood stars after a disastrous debate performance last month.

The unprecedented announcement came as an increasing number of Democrat lawmakers had begun to publicly call for Biden to step aside and the party's leadership reportedly was engaged in efforts to convince Biden, 81, he could not win in November's general election against former President Trump, the 2024 GOP nominee who Biden defeated four years ago to win the White House.

President Biden took to X to ask for donations for Vice President Kamala Harris, who he endorsed to replace him at the top of the ticket after dropping out of the 2024 race Sunday.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on [July 11] predicted Democrats will force President Biden to withdraw from the 2024 race and will nominate Vice President Harris or former first lady Michelle Obama to replace him at the top of the party’s ticket.

Kamala Harris’s hopes of a smooth coronation to become the Democrats’ nominee for president took a blow on Sunday when she failed to secure the immediate endorsement of the party’s most influential figure. ... Barack Obama, who was reported to have been involved in the campaign to convince Mr Biden to step down, called for a thorough process to select an “outstanding nominee”.

[Koenig News side note: Could this be in part because former President Obama is attempting to talk Michelle Obama into running even though she has not previously been interested?]

Israel’s attack in Yemen today “makes it clear to our enemies that there is no place that the long arm of Israel will not reach,” says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a video statement released on Saturday evening, shortly after the end of Shabbat.

“I have a message for Israel’s enemies – don’t be mistaken about us,” Netanyahu says, a day before he is scheduled to fly to Washington DC. “We will protect ourselves in every way, on every front. Anyone who harms us will pay a very heavy price for his aggression.”

An Israeli man was killed and four others were wounded overnight Thursday when what the Israel Defense Forces described as an “aerial target” exploded in a residential neighborhood in central Tel Aviv.

A spokesman for Yemen’s Houthi terrorists claimed responsibility for the “high-quality” attack using an advanced UAV dubbed “Jaffa.”

IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari later told reporters that the drone was an Iranian-made Samad-3, which was upgraded to increase its strike range.

On Monday, U.S. Central Command said that the Houthis had attacked an Israeli tanker, carrying vegetable oil from Russia to China in the Red Sea, multiple times in 24 hours.

 Major U.S. carriers including American Airlines, Delta Airlines and United Airlines issued ground stops on Friday morning citing communication issues, less than an hour after Microsoft resolved its cloud services outage that impacted several low-cost carriers.

It was not immediately clear whether the call to keep flights from taking off were related to the earlier Microsoft cloud outage. Apart from American and Delta, UAL and Allegiant Air  too grounded flights.

A series of technical glitches disrupted services at airlines, banks and the London Stock Exchange (LSEG.L) on Friday, an unusually widespread cascade of failures that erupted from the US to Asia after Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) reported an outage across its online services.

An Israeli man was killed and four others were wounded overnight Thursday when what the Israel Defense Forces described as an “aerial target” exploded in a residential neighborhood in central Tel Aviv.

During the search of a building, Magen David Adom emergency medics found the lifeless body of a man in his 50s with “penetrating injuries” and determined the fatality was caused by the blast.

The Israel Defense Forces said it had killed Mohammed Hamed Jabara, a military commander leading Hamas-affiliated forces in Lebanon, in an airstrike in the Bekaa region.

The airstrike targeted a vehicle in Gaza, a town with the same name as the Palestinian enclave, in the eastern part of Lebanon.

Jabara planned and executed attacks against Israel. Leading the Fajr forces of the Muslim Brotherhood in Lebanon, called Jama'at Islamiya, he was a key figure in tying Hamas efforts north of Israel's border.

"His elimination diminishes the capabilities of the Hamas terrorist organization to plan and carry out attacks against the State of Israel in the area of the northern border," the IDF said in a statement.