Netanyahu’s Son Wants to Move to the US

Yair Netanyahu
Yair Netanyahu
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Netanyahu’s Son Wants to Move to the US

Yair Netanyahu
Yair Netanyahu

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son, Yair, is looking to obtain a visa that allows him to work and live in the United States, according to political sources in Tel Aviv.

Six months ago, Yair fled to Miami over his father's disapproval of his son's social media posts.

Later, reports said Yair indicated he has established his life in Florida and is currently looking for means to receive a Green Card. However, he expressed concern that his visa application would be denied because the administration of President Joe Biden is hostile to him and his family, one of his close associates told the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

He, therefore, contacted an American immigration lawyer to obtain a visa that would permit him to work and live in the United States.

Attorney Michael Wildes, a co-founder of the Wildes & Weinberg immigration policies law firm, announced via social media that Yair, an “internationally renowned political speaker and journalist in Israel and abroad,” according to the firm's website, is now counted among his clients.

The reports about Yair’s efforts to obtain a visa to the US were also confirmed by a political source who had a discussion with Netanyahu’s son and his wife, Sara, at the London wedding of the son of Zak and Candida Gertler, who are close to the Netanyahu family.

“I heard him say he was interested in working in the US long-term but expressed concern that his visa application would be denied due to strained Israel-US relations,” the source said.

Yair denied he had spoken about the strained relations between Israel and the US and refused to comment about his intention to obtain a work visa.

Yair is known to be a controversial figure and his far-right political positions and his hostility to his father’s opponents. His rude comments often negatively affected the Israeli PM. He had published provocative statements against the Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy and accused the army of attempting a coup against his father.

He also accused the US administration, led by Biden, of conspiring to overthrow his father's government.

Former Israeli deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon said Yair is not only a disobedient boy, “but in Washington, they consider him a toxic substance in the relations between his father and the White House.”

In March, Yair fled to Miami. Reports said he has established his life in Florida and currently has no plans to return to Israel.



Taiwan President Will Visit Allies in South Pacific as Rival China Seeks Inroads

FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)
FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)
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Taiwan President Will Visit Allies in South Pacific as Rival China Seeks Inroads

FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)
FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te will visit the self-governing island’s allies in the South Pacific, where rival China has been seeking diplomatic inroads.
The Foreign Ministry announced Friday that Lai would travel from Nov. 30 to Dec. 6 to the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Palau.
The trip comes against the background of Chinese loans, grants and security cooperation treaties with Pacific island nations that have aroused major concern in the US, New Zealand, Australia and others over Beijing's moves to assert military, political and economic control over the region.
Taiwan’s government has yet to confirm whether Lai will make a stop in Hawaii, although such visits are routine and unconfirmed Taiwanese media reports say he will stay for more than one day.
Under pressure from China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory and threatens to annex it by force if needed, Taiwan has just 12 formal diplomatic allies. However, it retains strong contacts with dozens of other nations, including the US, its main source of diplomatic and military support.
China has sought to whittle away traditional alliances in the South Pacific, signing a security agreement with the Solomon Islands shortly after it broke ties with Taiwan and winning over Nauru just weeks after Lai's election in January. Since then, China has been pouring money into infrastructure projects in its South Pacific allies, as it has around the world, in exchange for political support.
China objects strongly to such US stopovers by Taiwan's leaders, as well as visits to the island by leading American politicians, terming them as violations of US commitments not to afford diplomatic status to Taiwan after Washington switched formal recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.
With the number of its diplomatic partners declining under Chinese pressure, Taiwan has redoubled efforts to take part in international forums, even from the sidelines. It has also fought to retain what diplomatic status it holds, including refusing a demand from South Africa last month that it move its representative office in its former diplomatic ally out of the capital.