The Times of Israel is liveblogging Friday’s events as they unfold.
Maine elections official disqualifies Trump from presidential primary ballot
Maine’s top election official has disqualified Donald Trump from the state ballot in next year’s US presidential primary election, becoming the second state to bar the former president for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, concluded that Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2024, incited an insurrection when he spread false claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election and then urged his supporters to march on the Capitol to stop lawmakers from certifying the vote.
Bellows suspended her decision until the state supreme court ruled on the matter.
The decision came after a group of former Maine lawmakers said that Trump should be disqualified based on a provision of the US Constitution that bars people from holding office if they engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” after previously swearing an oath to the United States.
The ruling, which can be appealed to a state court, applies only to the March primary election, but it could affect Trump’s status for the November general election. It likely will add to pressure on the US Supreme Court to resolve questions about Trump’s eligibility nationwide under the constitutional provision known as Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
Trump has been indicted in both a federal case and in Georgia for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election but he has not been charged with insurrection related to the Jan. 6 attack. He leads opinion polls by a large margin in the race for the Republican nomination in 2024.
Colorado’s top court disqualified Trump from the state primary ballot on Dec. 19, making him the first candidate in US history to be deemed ineligible for the presidency for engaging in insurrection.
Trump has vowed to appeal the Colorado ruling to the Supreme Court and criticized ballot challenges as “undemocratic.” The Colorado Republican Party filed its own Supreme Court appeal on Wednesday.
Similar attempts to disqualify Trump in other states have been rejected. The top court in Michigan, a pivotal battleground state in the general election, declined on Wednesday to hear an appeal on Trump’s eligibility to hold office.
A ruling by the US Supreme Court in the Colorado case may resolve the issue nationwide. The court’s 6-3 conservative majority includes three justices nominated by Trump.
US shoots down drone, missile in Red Sea fired by Houthis; no injuries reported
The United States says it shot down one drone and one anti-ship ballistic missile in the Southern Red Sea that were fired by Houthis in the 22nd attempted attack on international shipping since Oct. 19.
There was no damage or reported injuries, US Central Command also says in its post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Syria says aerial defenses intercept ‘Israeli air aggression’ over Damascus area
Syrian official media says early Friday that air defenses responded to an “Israeli air aggression” from the direction of Lebanese territory.
The attack targeted a number of sites around Damascus and there were some material losses, state media adds.
Earlier, state-media network SANA said air defenses shot down “most” of the missiles launched by Israeli fighter jets from over the Golan Heights, citing a military source, but that there were “material losses.”
The strikes come a day after Damascus International Airport reportedly reopened following repeated Israeli strikes.
In ‘frustrating’ call, Biden tells Netanyahu Palestinian tax funds issue must be resolved — report
In a “frustrating” call over the weekend, US President Joe Biden told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that his government’s decision to withhold Palestinian tax funds following Hamas’s shock onslaught on October 7 must be resolved, Axios reports, citing US and Israeli officials and a “source with knowledge of the issue.”
One of the US officials told Axios the call between the two leaders on Saturday was one of the most difficult and “frustrating” so far since October 7.
“The feeling was that the president is going out on a limb for Bibi every day and when Bibi needs to give something back and take some political risk he is unwilling to do it,” the official said.
Israel collects monthly tax revenues on Ramallah’s behalf on imports and exports, and transfers those funds to the PA, but has increasingly held off on some of the funds over various issues, chiefly Ramallah’s payment of stipends to terror convicts and the families of slain terrorists.
It has recently warned it will not allow the PA to transfer funds earmarked for services and salaries in the Gaza Strip, alleging the money could reach Hamas while Israel is at war with the terror group.
In November, the security cabinet voted to approve a partial transfer of tax funds, minus some $275 million designated by the PA for Gaza, as well as for stipends.
The PA refused to accept this partial transfer, leading to fears that it may collapse financially, potentially creating chaos in the West Bank.
Earlier this month, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich warned he would not allow the transfer of Palestinian tax funds to Gaza or to the families of Palestinian terrorists — not “even one shekel” — intimating that he would resign from the government rather than permit such a transfer.
A reported deal brokered a few weeks ago by US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan would enable the Palestinian Authority to send funds to its employees in Gaza by allowing Israel to check the recipients of the funds.
According to the Axios report, “Biden asked Netanyahu to accept a proposal that the Israeli prime minister raised himself several weeks ago: to transfer the withheld tax revenues to Norway for safekeeping until an arrangement can be found that will assuage Israel’s concerns that the funds could reach Hamas.”
The PA has accepted this arrangement, the report says, but Netanyahu reportedly tried to walk it back and told Biden he no longer thought it was a good idea.
“He told Biden he doesn’t trust the Norwegians and said the Palestinian Authority should just accept the partial transfer of the funds,” Axios reports citing a US official and the source with knowledge of the issue.
Biden finally told Netanyahu that the issue must be resolved, and ended with “this conversation is over.”
The second US official had another read of the exchange, and said Netanyahu didn’t reject the Norway idea and that the two leaders were “still working through things on their end.”
“We have made good progress and think this issue of tax revenue transfers is on its way to being resolved,” the official added.
A White House spokesperson told Axios the conversation “good and productive.”