Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump this week in Washington. The meeting comes as Netanyahu's Likud party is lagging in opinion polls ahead of elections next month.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his chief rival, former chief of staff, Benny Gantz are speaking at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee meeting this week in Washington.

 

 But only Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump and attend a state dinner at the White House.

 

 Trump announced a change in American policy on the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in 1967 and later annexed. Trump tweeted last week that the United States recognizes Israeli sovereignty over the territory, and later explained in the move in an interview with Fox News Business. He compared it to his decision last year to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.



 "I was inundated with calls from the leaders. Mostly the leaders saying, 'Please do not do it'. I did it. It has been done and it is fine. Golan Heights is the same thing ... This is sovereignty. This is security, regional security, so it is not about Netanyahu's re-election. No, I would not know about that," said Trump.

Netanyahu is facing a series of corruption allegations, and the latest opinion polls show the new Blue and White Party headed by Gant edging past Netanyahu's Likud.

The Israeli prime minister has stressed his close relationship with Trump, and he lauded close U.S.-Israel ties in a meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week.

 

 "Our alliance in recent years has never been stronger," he said. "It is an unbreakable bond. It is based on shared values of liberty and democracy and shared interest to fight the enemies of democracy, the enemies of our way of life, the terrorists that prowl our airspace and our countries, and working together we have been able to achieve an enormous amount."

 

 Netanyahu also thanked the United States for walking away from what he called the “disastrous” Iran nuclear deal.</s>WASHINGTON — He kept up a fist-pumping victory lap over the end of the Mueller probe. Basked in gushy accolades from a foreign leader. Saw a former nemesis humiliated by the feds.

To most of America, it was just another Monday. For President Donald Trump, it was, perhaps, his best day ever.

Trump started his day firing off exuberant tweets over the end of the special counsel investigation , segued to a back-slapping meeting with the Israeli prime minister and held a celebratory photo-op with the Stanley Cup-winning Washington Capitals. To top it off, news broke along the way of the arrest of attorney Michael Avenatti , who rose to fame representing a porn actress who alleged she had sex with a married Trump, though Trump denied it.

By any measure it was a good day for Trump. But the president’s hot streak was all the more noticeable given just how many tough days he has had. Since taking office, he’s been dogged by investigations and staff turnover. He has clashed repeatedly with Congress, governed over a deeply divided country and seen huge pushback against his presidency in the midterm elections.

On Monday, though, everything was coming up Trump.

As is his habit, the president woke early and turned to feeding his Twitter account just after 6 a.m. There was no venting or heckling on this particular morning. Instead, he was eager to celebrate on the day after his attorney general issued a summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that found Trump’s campaign did not collude with Russia to swing the 2016 presidential campaign in his favor.

After spending nearly two years shadowed by the investigation and uncertain how it would turn out, an elated Trump gleefully tweeted out quotes and headlines from news reports and watched as aides and allies fanned out across cable news to praise the outcome.

Perhaps of particular delight to Trump was a headline that he tweeted from MSNBC, a network he often rails against. His tweet: “’Breaking News: Mueller Report Finds No Trump-Russia Conspiracy.’ @MSNBC”

Trump’s big day was just getting started. After aides roundly excoriated Democrats and journalists — two of Trump’s favorite targets — on morning news shows, the administration turned to welcoming Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House.

Trump, who has long enjoyed a close bond with Netanyahu, welcomed the Israeli leader on the South Lawn before escorting him to the Diplomatic Room, where the president signed a proclamation recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a reversal of U.S. policy and a political boost for the embattled Netanyahu.

Slathering on the praise, Netanyahu told Trump: “You’ve always been there, including today, and I thank you.”

Netanyahu joked that he’d brought Trump a case “of the finest wine from the Golan.” But he added that Trump, who doesn’t drink alcohol, is “not a great wine drinker” so he would give it to the president’s staff instead.

The day was punctuated by more news that Trump was likely to welcome: As Trump’s meetings with Netanyahu were winding down, word surfaced that Avenatti had been arrested. The outspoken attorney, who no longer represents Stormy Daniels, is charged with trying to extort millions of dollars from Nike and embezzle a client’s money to pay his own expenses.

While the president did not immediately publicly react to Avenatti’s arrest, his eldest son — who had been a frequent target of Avenatti’s barbs — happily jumped into the fray. On Twitter, Donald Trump Jr. said: “Don’t get overconfident guys. Michael Avenatti has @realDonaldTrump right where he wants him.” He added “#MAGA - aka - Michael Avenatti Got Arrested.”

Trump capped off his day by welcoming the Capitals to the Oval Office, joking back and forth as he sung their praises and reminisced about watching hockey great Bobby Orr play the New York Rangers.

“They’re winners. They know how to win,” Trump said of the Caps.

Standing at the back of the room, watching: Trump’s outside attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Jay Sekulow, celebrating their own win with backslapping and wide grins.

Associated Press writer Jill Colvin contributed to this report.

This story has been corrected to show that Trump reminisced about watching Orr play the Rangers, not play with the Rangers.

Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — He took a fist-pumping victory lap over the end of the Mueller probe. Basked in gushy accolades from a foreign leader. Saw a former nemesis humiliated by the feds.

To most of America, it was just another Monday. For President Donald Trump, it was, perhaps, his best day ever.

Trump started his day firing off exuberant tweets over the end of the special counsel investigation , segued to a back-slapping meeting with the Israeli prime minister and held a celebratory photo-op with the Stanley Cup-winning Washington Capitals. To top it off, news broke along the way of the arrest of attorney Michael Avenatti , who rose to fame representing a porn actress who alleged she had sex with a married Trump, though Trump denied it.

By any measure it was a good day for Trump. But the president's hot streak was all the more noticeable given just how many tough days he has had. Since taking office, he's been dogged by investigations and staff turnover. He has clashed repeatedly with Congress, governed over a deeply divided country and seen huge pushback against his presidency in the midterm elections.

On Monday, though, everything was coming up Trump.

As is his habit, the president woke early and turned to feeding his Twitter account just after 6 a.m. There was no venting or heckling on this particular morning. Instead, he was eager to celebrate on the day after his attorney general issued a summary of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation that found Trump's campaign did not collude with Russia to swing the 2016 presidential campaign in his favor.

After spending nearly two years shadowed by the investigation and uncertain how it would turn out, an elated Trump gleefully tweeted out quotes and headlines from news reports and watched as aides and allies fanned out across cable news to praise the outcome.

Perhaps of particular delight to Trump was a headline that he tweeted from MSNBC, a network he often rails against. His tweet: "'Breaking News: Mueller Report Finds No Trump-Russia Conspiracy.' @MSNBC"

Trump's big day was just getting started. After aides roundly excoriated Democrats and journalists — two of Trump's favorite targets — on morning news shows, the administration turned to welcoming Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House.

Trump, who has long enjoyed a close bond with Netanyahu, welcomed the Israeli leader on the South Lawn before escorting him to the Diplomatic Room, where the president signed a proclamation recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a reversal of U.S. policy and a political boost for the embattled Netanyahu.

Slathering on the praise, Netanyahu told Trump: "You've always been there, including today, and I thank you."

Netanyahu joked that he'd brought Trump a case "of the finest wine from the Golan." But he added that Trump, who doesn't drink alcohol, is "not a great wine drinker" so he would give it to the president's staff instead.

The day was punctuated by more news that Trump was likely to welcome: As Trump's meetings with Netanyahu were winding down, word surfaced that Avenatti had been arrested. The outspoken attorney, who no longer represents Stormy Daniels, is charged with trying to extort millions of dollars from Nike and embezzle a client's money to pay his own expenses.

While the president did not immediately publicly react to Avenatti's arrest, his eldest son — who had been a frequent target of Avenatti's barbs — happily jumped into the fray. On Twitter, Donald Trump Jr. said: "Hey @MichaelAvenatti - It looks like you'll be the one spending time behind bars after all. #basta"

Trump capped off his day by welcoming the Capitals to the Oval Office, joking back and forth as he sung their praises and reminisced about watching hockey great Bobby Orr play the New York Rangers.

"They're winners. They know how to win," Trump said of the Caps.

Standing at the back of the room, watching: Trump's outside attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Jay Sekulow, celebrating their own win with backslapping and wide grins.

Associated Press writer Jill Colvin contributed to this report.

This story has been corrected to show that Trump reminisced about watching Orr play the Rangers, not play with the Rangers.</s>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was cutting his trip to the U.S. short after a rocket strike from Gaza hit a home north of Tel Aviv and injured several people, according to Reuters.

“In light of the security events I decided to cut short my visit to the U.S.,” he told Reuters.

Netanyahu, who had arrived Sunday for a four-day visit, will still meet with President Trump today before boarding his return flight to Israel this afternoon.

The rocket from Gaza landed on a home in the small agricultural town of Mishmeret, north of Tel Aviv, in early morning hours.

A military spokesman told The Wall Street Journal that Israel’s Iron Dome rocket interception system had not been deployed in the area and was unable to bring down the rocket.

TRENDING: Barr Will Not Immediately Give Congress Access to Mueller Findings

It left one house destroyed in addition to the surrounding damage.

Reuters reported one infant, a 3-year-old boy, a 12-year-old girl and 60-year-old woman were among those being treated for injuries.

Gaza had not claimed responsibility for the rocket but was reported to be preparing for retaliation.

“There was a criminal attack on the state of Israel and we will respond forcefully,” Netanyahu said in a video statement sent to The Wall Street Journal.

The border along Israel and Gaza just marked one year of continued border protests.

President Trump recently expressed support for Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and is reportedly planning to make that statement official by signing a decree during today’s meeting, according to Reuters.

Netanyahu is running for an unprecedented fifth term.

The prime minister’s chief political rival, Benny Gantz, immediately issued a statement accusing Netanyahu of having “bankrupted national security” by permitting such attacks.

The election will be held Tuesday, April 9.

A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — He kept up a fist-pumping victory lap over the end of the Mueller probe. Basked in gushy accolades from a foreign leader. Saw a former nemesis humiliated by the feds.

To most of America, it was just another Monday. For President Donald Trump, it was, perhaps, his best day ever.

Trump started his day firing off exuberant tweets over the end of the special counsel investigation , segued to a back-slapping meeting with the Israeli prime minister and held a celebratory photo-op with the Stanley Cup-winning Washington Capitals. To top it off, news broke along the way of the arrest of attorney Michael Avenatti , who rose to fame representing a porn actress who alleged she had sex with a married Trump, though Trump denied it.

By any measure it was a good day for Trump. But the president's hot streak was all the more noticeable given just how many tough days he has had. Since taking office, he's been dogged by investigations and staff turnover. He has clashed repeatedly with Congress, governed over a deeply divided country and seen huge pushback against his presidency in the midterm elections.

On Monday, though, everything was coming up Trump.

As is his habit, the president woke early and turned to feeding his Twitter account just after 6 a.m. There was no venting or heckling on this particular morning. Instead, he was eager to celebrate on the day after his attorney general issued a summary of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation that found Trump's campaign did not collude with Russia to swing the 2016 presidential campaign in his favor.

After spending nearly two years shadowed by the investigation and uncertain how it would turn out, an elated Trump gleefully tweeted out quotes and headlines from news reports and watched as aides and allies fanned out across cable news to praise the outcome.

Perhaps of particular delight to Trump was a headline that he tweeted from MSNBC, a network he often rails against. His tweet: "'Breaking News: Mueller Report Finds No Trump-Russia Conspiracy.' @MSNBC"

Trump's big day was just getting started. After aides roundly excoriated Democrats and journalists — two of Trump's favorite targets — on morning news shows, the administration turned to welcoming Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House.

Trump, who has long enjoyed a close bond with Netanyahu, welcomed the Israeli leader on the South Lawn before escorting him to the Diplomatic Room, where the president signed a proclamation recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a reversal of U.S. policy and a political boost for the embattled Netanyahu.

Slathering on the praise, Netanyahu told Trump: "You've always been there, including today, and I thank you."

Netanyahu joked that he'd brought Trump a case "of the finest wine from the Golan." But he added that Trump, who doesn't drink alcohol, is "not a great wine drinker" so he would give it to the president's staff instead.

The day was punctuated by more news that Trump was likely to welcome: As Trump's meetings with Netanyahu were winding down, word surfaced that Avenatti had been arrested. The outspoken attorney, who no longer represents Stormy Daniels, is charged with trying to extort millions of dollars from Nike and embezzle a client's money to pay his own expenses.

While the president did not immediately publicly react to Avenatti's arrest, his eldest son — who had been a frequent target of Avenatti's barbs — happily jumped into the fray. On Twitter, Donald Trump Jr. said: "Don't get overconfident guys. Michael Avenatti has @realDonaldTrump right where he wants him." He added "#MAGA - aka - Michael Avenatti Got Arrested."

Trump capped off his day by welcoming the Capitals to the Oval Office, joking back and forth as he sung their praises and reminisced about watching hockey great Bobby Orr play the New York Rangers.

"They're winners. They know how to win," Trump said of the Caps.

Standing at the back of the room, watching: Trump's outside attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Jay Sekulow, celebrating their own win with backslapping and wide grins.

Associated Press writer Jill Colvin contributed to this report.

This story has been corrected to show that Trump reminisced about watching Orr play the Rangers, not play with the Rangers.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington (all times local):

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (neh-ten-YAH'-hoo) is asking President Donald Trump for permission to share Israeli wine with White House staff.

And the Israeli leader is joking that he hopes "they don't open an investigation" as a result. Back home, Netanyahu is facing a pending indictment on corruption charges.

And Trump has been the subject of numerous investigations, but is claiming vindication following the release of a summary of special counsel Robert Mueller's report.

Netanyahu made the offer after Trump signed a proclamation recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

Netanyahu says he brought Trump a case "of the finest wine from the Golan." But he says Trump, who doesn't drink alcohol, is "not a great wine drinker," and that he wanted to give the wine to Trump's staff instead.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (neh-ten-YAH'-hoo) says Israel is "responding forcefully" to a morning rocket attack in central part of the Jewish state.

Israel's military says it's started striking Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip after a rocket hit a house north Tel Aviv and wounded seven people.

Netanyahu spoke during a meeting at the White House with President Donald Trump, who later signed an official proclamation formally recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

Netanyahu calls the rocket attack "wanton aggression" and says "Israel will not tolerate this. I will not tolerate it."

The prime minister says he plans to return to Israel after the meeting with Trump.

President Donald Trump has signed a proclamation recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

The document reverses more than a half-century of U.S. policy as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (neh-ten-YAH'-hoo) visited the White House.

Trump had previewed the move in a tweet last week that it was time for the U.S. to take the step after 52 years of Israeli control of the strategic highlands on the border with Syria.

Netanyahu has pressed for such recognition for months. Trump's action gives him a political boost just weeks before what's expected to be a close Israeli election.

Israel captured the Golan from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war but its sovereignty over the territory is not recognized by the international community.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (neh-ten-YAH'-hoo) says he's cutting short his visit to Washington after a Gaza rocket attack on Israel.

Netanyahu describes Monday morning's rocket launch that struck a home in central Israel as a "criminal attack" and he's pledging to strike back hard. He says he'll return to Israel to handle the crisis shortly after his meeting with President Donald Trump.

An Israeli rescue service says the rocket from the Gaza Strip wounded seven people.

Netanyahu arrived in Washington on Sunday for what was to have been a three-day visit. He was going to speak at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's policy conference and was to be hosted at a White House dinner.</s>Israeli leaders have been flying to the US to speak to American audiences for a long time.

The first was David Ben-Gurion. Israel’s first prime minister visited here in 1951. Diplomats from the US State Department, American Jewish organizations and the Washington-based Israeli diplomatic corps met Ben-Gurion at the airport. 

 

“Our war of independence fought after 6 million of our people had been exterminated by the Nazis proved once again that the cause of justice faithfully pursued must triumph in the end,” the prime minister said upon arrival.

Politicians from Israel still come to America to tell the story of the Jewish State and seek support, especially from American Jews. And the American Israel Public Affairs Committee gives them a venue like none other. The group has been around for more than 50 years. Its stated goal is to strengthen the alliance between the US and Israel, and it’s widely seen as one of the most successful lobbying groups in the US capital.

AIPAC held its annual conference in Washington this week, with more than 18,000 people attending, according to organizers. Meanwhile, Israelis were getting ready to vote in a hotly contested national election.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might be in the fight of his political life. His main rival is the former army chief, Benny Gantz, who told the AIPAC audience on Monday that Netanyahu was right to cut short his Washington visit — along with his planned speech at AIPAC — and fly back to Israel, given renewed hostility with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

“Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families whose home were attacked by rockets this morning in Israel,” Gantz told the audience.

Gantz holds many of the same hawkish views as Netanyahu, but he tries to distinguish himself from the current prime minister in a couple of ways.

“There will be no racists leading our state institution, and there will be no corruption leading our way. No corruption, whatsoever,” Gantz said.

He was referring to corruption charges facing Netanyahu back home, and to the prime minister’s decision to cut a deal with a fringe, right-wing party that AIPAC itself described as “racist and reprehensible.”

In some ways, Gantz’s speech at AIPAC was a critical part of his election campaign.

Reuven Hazan is a political scientist from Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He flew to Washington to take part in the AIPAC conference.

“[Gantz] was an unknown quantity here," Hazan said. "Everybody knew his name because they’d read about him, but they’d never seen him perform. And I think he came here, and he met everyone’s expectations."

Most importantly for Gantz’s campaign, Hazan says the speech will also play well with Israeli voters back home.

“The fact that he was accepted well here calms a lot of center-left voters that if we vote for this guy, he’s not a rookie on the international stage,” Hazan said. “We have to admit that even if you dislike Netanyahu and dislike his policies, when it comes to handling Israeli politics on the world stage, there’s nobody like him.”

Many Israelis do, in fact, dislike Netanyahu and his policies. Stav Shaffir is one of them. And that is a big part of her message to the Americans she speaks with at the AIPAC conference.

“In the news, they mostly see what Netanyahu is doing," Shaffir said. "But they don’t see that the majority of Israelis support a two-state solution. The majority of Israelis want social justice, public health care and public education system. The majority of Israelis want a separation of religion and state, and they want gay marriage to be legal. I want to represent their voices and show the beautiful face of Israel.”

That message certainly goes over well with many Jewish voters in this country who still vote for Democrats overwhelmingly. Shaffir is a member of the Labor Party and serves on the Knesset, Israel's legislative body. She says the story of a strong US-Israel connection has been a more difficult sell to the American public these days.

“This connection has been under threat, especially when I look at young people here, and I hear what’s happening at universities and how Israel’s image is being damaged and changed,” Shaffir said. “People no longer perceive Israel as a bipartisan issue, and they no longer perceive Israel as an ally to their values. That should be fixed. And very quickly. Because Israel and America have always been the closest allies and should always be.”

That anxiety about the rocky state of Israel’s relationship with the US, especially with the American Jewish community, is shared by many Israeli voters, says Michael Koplow of the Israel Policy Forum.

“Israelis are definitely worried about the relationship with American Jews," Koplow said. "Depending on whether they are on the right or on the left, they put the blame for that relationship on different parties. But Israelis are certainly worried about it.”

This is where Netanyahu has a very big card to play. His political opponent Gantz has been polling well, and his AIPAC speech will be applauded in Israel. But Koplow says Netanyahu is putting his close relationship with President Donald Trump on full display here in Washington for a very good reason.

“This Trump-Netanyahu connection, which in the United States and particularly among American Jews, and among Democrats, in some ways seems to be a liability for Netanyahu because of this Trump effect," Koplow says. "In Israel, it actually plays the opposite. It is a positive boost for him because of the Trump effect in Israel.”

Netanyahu ended up addressing the AIPAC conference from Israel on Tuesday via satellite video link. But his most crucial appearance came before he left Washington on Monday. It was at the White House with President Donald Trump, who signed a presidential declaration officially recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

Related: Trump's Golan Heights decision is at odds with UN law

“Mr. President, over the years, Israel has been blessed to have many friends who sat in the Oval Office. But Israel has never had a better friend than you.”

On Tuesday morning, Netanyahu tweeted a short video from his White House appearance produced by the White House. He added a voiceover in Hebrew to the video, and his campaign slogan at the end, “Netanyahu. Right wing. Strong.”</s>President Donald Trump’s top allies are publicly celebrating the implosion of the Russia scandal after special counsel Robert Mueller cleared the president of all allegations. Mueller’s report to Attorney General Bill Barr indicates no collusion between Trump’s campaign and the Russians in 2016 and no evidence that Trump obstructed justice.

“I’ve been sitting here watching CNN and MSNBC all day long, and there’s been so much water in the eyes of these anchors that two things could only be going on: they’ve either been crying before they go on air, or they’re all lighting up fat joints before they go on air–but I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many watery eyes on CNN and MSNBC,” Andy Surabian, a former White House official who also ran the 2016 campaign war room, said on Breitbart News Sunday on SiriusXM 125 the Patriot Channel on Sunday evening.

“For the last two years what we’ve witnessed is the biggest conspiracy theory in the history of the United States government propagated by rogue elements of the United States government, a political party in the Democrat Party, and the entire mainstream media from the Washington Post to BuzzFeed to MSNBC and all the rest–they’ve all been in lockstep pushing this conspiracy theory,” Surabian added.

“There’s never been any basis for it. Of course, the [Christopher] Steele memo [dossier] which was supposedly the basis for this whole charade, we know that now to be full of crock. That was nothing more than a crock, and that’s how this whole thing started. And so the media, the Democrat Party, the deep state as some call it–they were the ones colluding. They colluded together to perpetrate this conspiracy on the American people. And now that Mueller and his group of 18 Democrats are finally done, and they couldn’t find anything to pin on this president…They couldn’t find anything to pin on Donald Trump Jr. They couldn’t find anything to pin on the president’s campaign. They couldn’t even find anything close to collusion to pin on anyone close to the campaign–not even any informal advisers that they could find anything on collusion on. After two years of these conspiracy theories falling flat, are any of these people going to apologize? Is Rachel Maddow going to go on TV tomorrow and apologize to her viewers for misleading them?”

Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, was similarly critical of the fake narrative against Trump on this front.

“We knew this all along,” Kirk said on Breitbart News Saturday on SiriusXM 125 the Patriot Channel. “I was very involved in the campaign in my own personal capacity traveling the country with Donald Trump Jr. I knew there was no collusion, and I knew the types of people who were involved during the actual campaign. … This whole narrative is total and complete nonsense. But the one thing that frustrates me most is I want to talk about our friend and my friend Donald Trump Jr. This guy is a total patriot. He’s an amazing person. This guy fights for his country every single day and fights for the movement and for his father, and it is so sick what the media tried to do to him. Seriously. They tried to destroy him. They tried to wreck him based on total and complete lies. They drug him and the whole first family through the mud for the first two years. What’s the recourse now? There is no recourse. And so, some people say, ‘Oh, they should apologize.’ No, no, no. There has to be penalties. I don’t know what those penalties can be; smarter legal minds than me can come up with some pretty creative things, but this is so sick because those of us that were around during the campaign, those of us that have actually processed all the facts through the years, know that this was a total lie and a witch hunt all along. And it’s really too bad to see good patriots like Don Jr. … go through all these calisthenics and these exercises when he had to go testify on Capitol Hill before the Senate Intelligence Committee for 20-plus hours, and yet, Hillary Clinton did not have to testify more than a couple hours based on her emails and Benghazi and the Clinton Foundation. It’s really sick and really sad.”

President Trump’s former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, said the investigation wasted tons of taxpayer dollars to prove what everyone like him already knew: there was no collusion with the Russians.

“I think it’s important that we recognize that the Mueller team has come to the same conclusion that I knew from day one, and it didn’t cost me $25 million, one year, ten months, and six days to figure out that we didn’t collude with the Russians,” Lewandowski said on Breitbart News Sunday. “As you know, this whole narrative–this whole hoax, this whole scandal–was perpetuated because of the fact that Hillary Clinton lost an election that everyone told her she was going to win. She took $5 million of her campaign money and hired an outside legal counsel, and then they went and created this false dossier, which is what launched this investigation. What the Democrats will tell you, what the left will tell you is that this investigation was launched because a campaign volunteer went overseas to London and had a conversation with some ambassador to a different country. If that’s the criteria for launching $25 million of taxpayer money and having the President of the United States under investigation for two years, then every single volunteer on every single Democratic presidential campaign had better use caution.”

Lewandowski added that there is “no question” there must be criminal investigations into the behavior and conduct of the players behind originating this hoax.

“Look, I have to tell you: sometimes, I’m lucky, and sometimes, I’m good, and I’m not sure which one it is, but I did write this great book called Trump’s Enemies, and we outline in this book everything that has been going on. We asked the president–the only book that he sat for an interview with for the first two years of his administration–‘Do you think Barack Obama and Susan Rice, his national security adviser, knew of this plot to stop him from becoming the president?’ And his answer was, ‘You bet they did,'” Lewandowski said.

He continued, “There has to be accountability. There has to be accountability, and I hope that Attorney General Bill Barr launches an investigation into the false FISA applications that were signed. We know they were lied on. We know that [Peter] Strzok and [Lisa] Page and James Baker, who was the general counsel of the FBI, and Jim Comey all should be reviewed for criminal referral. Andy McCabe already has a criminal referral. He’s the former deputy director of the FBI. But that’s not enough. We have to find out who was involved, including Bruce Ohr at the Department of Justice, if Rod Rosenstein was involved. The American people deserve accountability. This is the biggest scandal perpetuated on the American people probably in our modern lifetime. This whole thing was a hoax. It was all designed to stop Donald Trump from taking office, and now it is full vindication not just for the president, but his family and every person who served with me on that campaign.”

Jason Miller, who served as communications director for the Trump 2016 campaign and for the transition team, said on Breitbart News Saturday this weekend that the “liberal tears over the past 24 hours have been nothing short of amazing.”

“It’s almost like the fake news propagandists just found out that Santa Claus isn’t real,” Miller said. … “This witch bunt was a disgraceful, coordinated effort by Democrats and deep state operatives as part of their insurance policy to stop the president. First, they had the popular vote. Then, it was Comey. Then it was this Russia hoax. Tens of millions of dollars spent on this bogus effort, thousands of hours of speculative cable TV snowflakes making things up and attacking President Trump, forty Republican House seats lost in the midterms–all because of nothing. Let’s talk about what this end result is: no collusion, no obstruction of justice, just sad, pathetic Democratic excuses for why Crooked Hillary lost in 2016.”

Miller added that the media’s credibility has now suffered a devastating blow.

“American news media will never be the same,” Miller said. “It’s forever ruined. It’s over. The ultimate hoax has been exposed. Let’s take a look at where this leaves us–and these are things you’re not going to see on TV–we have an amazing economy. It will get even better with this special counsel nonsense out of the way. But the Democrats are still going. They still want to push forward with impeachment and their 81 bogus subpoenas that they’re pushing to try to harass people, anyone involved in Trump world. But here’s an important point: I think this 2020 Democratic field is in such disarray that I wonder if former Vice President Biden even gets in now. Does he really want his lasting legacy to be getting run over by the Trump train?”

Former White House adviser Cliff Sims was equally fired up on Breitbart News Sunday this weekend.

“I think the first reaction everyone should have is it is a great day for America,” Sims said. “Frankly, if you disagree with that, I think it’s worth coming to terms with the fact that you would rather see incalculable damage done to the American republic than you would see your political adversary–aka, your president–turn out to not be a foreign agent. But, unfortunately, that’s the point that we’re at, especially watching a lot of people in the media who have spent the last two years trumpeting this hoax. They are nearly in tears. Rachel Maddow literally had tears in her eyes as she was talking about this as they watched this whole thing crumble right before their eyes, and I think that really–we’re seeing the mask of the media slip just a little bit over the last 24 hours, and we are realizing that these people are so caught up in this that they hate this president more than they love America.”

When asked to explain why they hate Trump so much, Sims said what he saw “up close and personal” when he was by Trump’s side for years is that he “really is a kind of an existential threat to the status quo that has existed in the media for so long, which is they are so big with the rare exception of Breitbart and a few others, they are in such total control of the narrative that they’ve been able to bully people into submission.”

“There is finally somebody who by sheer force of will and personality and just flat-out refusal to back down who was able to counter that,” Sims added of the president. “And they can’t abide by that. It’s a threat to their very existence. What we have seen play out over the last couple of years, culminating in the report coming out here, is their credibility–whatever little bit of credibility they had left, and, look, the polling numbers already showed that people don’t believe them; their credibility is in the tank already. I mean, this is an absolute disaster. They’re facing a substantial reckoning the likes of which I don’t know if we’ve ever seen before.”

Arthur Schwartz, a GOP strategist who works closely with the first family and with the White House, said on Breitbart News Saturday that he recalls the fake news that CNN printed about former Trump communications director Anthony Scaramucci–a story that alleged he had ties to Russians and was under investigation. It was all fake, and CNN retracted the hit piece, and three of its staffers involved were forced to resign. Schwartz said he hopes there will be similar levels of accountability media-wide, on a much larger scale, of course, now that the entire Russia collusion story has collapsed. Schwartz added that he is confident the evidence that the media either deliberately or willfully misled the American people on this scandal exists and will come to light in the days, weeks, and months ahead.

“That’s when we started keeping track of, archiving, screen capping, everything that the reporters in the mainstream media were saying,” Schwartz said. “There was some collateral benefit to that, for example, when someone on CNN would accuse Don Jr. or his father or someone in the Trump universe of being an antisemite and a homophobe, this, that–whatever ‘ism’ that they threw at our guys, we went back to our database of all their tweets, their blog posts, their radio hits, their TV hits, and we showed no, no, no, you guys are the ones spewing this hateful speech. You are the ones with the antisemitic tweets. You are the ones with the homophobic tweets. You need to apologize. So now, what we’ve got is this huge database of collusion truthers that have been telling us that their sources told them that ‘this is going to happen,’ ‘Don is going to be indicted,’ ‘Jared is going to be indicted,’ ‘Ivanka is going to be indicted,’ ‘the president is going to jail.’ So now, for the next two years, through re-elect and beyond, they’re going to have to answer for all the lies and propaganda that they spilled, that they spilled knowingly or unknowingly, in an effort to create divisiveness in this country and slow the progress of this president’s agenda. That ends today.”</s>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was cutting his trip to the U.S. short after a rocket strike from Gaza hit a home north of Tel Aviv and injured several people, according to Reuters.

“In light of the security events I decided to cut short my visit to the U.S.,” he told Reuters.

Netanyahu, who had arrived Sunday for a four-day visit, will still meet with President Trump today before boarding his return flight to Israel this afternoon.

The rocket from Gaza landed on a home in the small agricultural town of Mishmeret, north of Tel Aviv, in early morning hours.

A military spokesman told The Wall Street Journal that Israel’s Iron Dome rocket interception system had not been deployed in the area and was unable to bring down the rocket.

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It left one house destroyed in addition to the surrounding damage.

Reuters reported one infant, a 3-year-old boy, a 12-year-old girl and 60-year-old woman were among those being treated for injuries.

Gaza had not claimed responsibility for the rocket but was reported to be preparing for retaliation.

“There was a criminal attack on the state of Israel and we will respond forcefully,” Netanyahu said in a video statement sent to The Wall Street Journal.

The border along Israel and Gaza just marked one year of continued border protests.

President Trump recently expressed support for Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and is reportedly planning to make that statement official by signing a decree during today’s meeting, according to Reuters.

Netanyahu is running for an unprecedented fifth term.

The prime minister’s chief political rival, Benny Gantz, immediately issued a statement accusing Netanyahu of having “bankrupted national security” by permitting such attacks.

The election will be held Tuesday, April 9.

A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.</s>Israeli leaders have been flying to the US to speak to American audiences for a long time.

The first was David Ben-Gurion. Israel’s first prime minister visited here in 1951. Diplomats from the US State Department, American Jewish organizations and the Washington-based Israeli diplomatic corps met Ben-Gurion at the airport. 

 

“Our war of independence fought after 6 million of our people had been exterminated by the Nazis proved once again that the cause of justice faithfully pursued must triumph in the end,” the prime minister said upon arrival.

Politicians from Israel still come to America to tell the story of the Jewish State and seek support, especially from American Jews. And the American Israel Public Affairs Committee gives them a venue like none other. The group has been around for more than 50 years. Its stated goal is to strengthen the alliance between the US and Israel, and it’s widely seen as one of the most successful lobbying groups in the US capital.

AIPAC held its annual conference in Washington this week, with more than 18,000 people attending, according to organizers. Meanwhile, Israelis were getting ready to vote in a hotly contested national election.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might be in the fight of his political life. His main rival is the former army chief, Benny Gantz, who told the AIPAC audience on Monday that Netanyahu was right to cut short his Washington visit — along with his planned speech at AIPAC — and fly back to Israel, given renewed hostility with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

“Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families whose home were attacked by rockets this morning in Israel,” Gantz told the audience.

Gantz holds many of the same hawkish views as Netanyahu, but he tries to distinguish himself from the current prime minister in a couple of ways.

“There will be no racists leading our state institution, and there will be no corruption leading our way. No corruption, whatsoever,” Gantz said.

He was referring to corruption charges facing Netanyahu back home, and to the prime minister’s decision to cut a deal with a fringe, right-wing party that AIPAC itself described as “racist and reprehensible.”

In some ways, Gantz’s speech at AIPAC was a critical part of his election campaign.

Reuven Hazan is a political scientist from Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He flew to Washington to take part in the AIPAC conference.

“[Gantz] was an unknown quantity here," Hazan said. "Everybody knew his name because they’d read about him, but they’d never seen him perform. And I think he came here, and he met everyone’s expectations."

Most importantly for Gantz’s campaign, Hazan says the speech will also play well with Israeli voters back home.

“The fact that he was accepted well here calms a lot of center-left voters that if we vote for this guy, he’s not a rookie on the international stage,” Hazan said. “We have to admit that even if you dislike Netanyahu and dislike his policies, when it comes to handling Israeli politics on the world stage, there’s nobody like him.”

Many Israelis do, in fact, dislike Netanyahu and his policies. Stav Shaffir is one of them. And that is a big part of her message to the Americans she speaks with at the AIPAC conference.

“In the news, they mostly see what Netanyahu is doing," Shaffir said. "But they don’t see that the majority of Israelis support a two-state solution. The majority of Israelis want social justice, public health care and public education system. The majority of Israelis want a separation of religion and state, and they want gay marriage to be legal. I want to represent their voices and show the beautiful face of Israel.”

That message certainly goes over well with many Jewish voters in this country who still vote for Democrats overwhelmingly. Shaffir is a member of the Labor Party and serves on the Knesset, Israel's legislative body. She says the story of a strong US-Israel connection has been a more difficult sell to the American public these days.

“This connection has been under threat, especially when I look at young people here, and I hear what’s happening at universities and how Israel’s image is being damaged and changed,” Shaffir said. “People no longer perceive Israel as a bipartisan issue, and they no longer perceive Israel as an ally to their values. That should be fixed. And very quickly. Because Israel and America have always been the closest allies and should always be.”

That anxiety about the rocky state of Israel’s relationship with the US, especially with the American Jewish community, is shared by many Israeli voters, says Michael Koplow of the Israel Policy Forum.

“Israelis are definitely worried about the relationship with American Jews," Koplow said. "Depending on whether they are on the right or on the left, they put the blame for that relationship on different parties. But Israelis are certainly worried about it.”

This is where Netanyahu has a very big card to play. His political opponent Gantz has been polling well, and his AIPAC speech will be applauded in Israel. But Koplow says Netanyahu is putting his close relationship with President Donald Trump on full display here in Washington for a very good reason.

“This Trump-Netanyahu connection, which in the United States and particularly among American Jews, and among Democrats, in some ways seems to be a liability for Netanyahu because of this Trump effect," Koplow says. "In Israel, it actually plays the opposite. It is a positive boost for him because of the Trump effect in Israel.”

Netanyahu ended up addressing the AIPAC conference from Israel on Tuesday via satellite video link. But his most crucial appearance came before he left Washington on Monday. It was at the White House with President Donald Trump, who signed a presidential declaration officially recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

Related: Trump's Golan Heights decision is at odds with UN law

“Mr. President, over the years, Israel has been blessed to have many friends who sat in the Oval Office. But Israel has never had a better friend than you.”

On Tuesday morning, Netanyahu tweeted a short video from his White House appearance produced by the White House. He added a voiceover in Hebrew to the video, and his campaign slogan at the end, “Netanyahu. Right wing. Strong.”
As a result, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cuts his four-day trip to the United States short after meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump.