Ruthie Blum,a former adviser at the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is an award-winning columnist and a senior contributing editor at JNS. Co-host, with Amb. Mark Regev, of the JNS-TV podcast “Israel Undiplomatic,” she writes on Israeli politics and U.S.-Israel relations. Originally from New York, she moved to Israel in 1977. She is a regular guest on national and international media outlets, including FOX, i24News, ILTV, WION and Scripps TV.
(JNS) It was a great relief when the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office issued a denial of the rumor, cited on Thursday morning as a fait accompli, that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to a three-week ceasefire—to go into effect “within the next few hours.”
Not only that. Certain pundits asserted that the P.M. had ordered the Israel Defense Forces to slacken off on striking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. This caused most Israelis to go as ballistic as the missiles that have been fired at them from every direction for the past year.
“The report about a ceasefire is incorrect,” the PMO clarified. “This is an American-French proposal that the prime minister has not even responded to.” READ MORE