00:00The Israeli Prime Minister has departed for Washington, D.C., where he's set to meet with President Donald Trump on Wednesday.
00:06Benjamin Netanyahu said the top priority in the talks would be the ongoing negotiations with Iran
00:12as he presses for a tougher U.S. approach to Tehran's ballistic missile program.
00:17So far, Iran has rejected expanding the scope of its negotiations with Washington beyond the issue of its nuclear program.
00:25Well, earlier I spoke to Jerusalem correspondent Noga Tanopolsky.
00:29I asked her what this trip is about exactly and why is Netanyahu going so often to Washington?
00:37Prime Minister Netanyahu, as we see on the screen now, made a big deal this morning, this noon,
00:42that he was leaving on his seventh trip to the White House since Donald Trump returned to office just a year ago.
00:48In fact, it's his sixth visit.
00:51It's almost a lightning visit for Netanyahu this time, just two days in D.C.
00:55And he has only the one meeting scheduled with President Trump.
01:01Netanyahu has gone to great lengths to impress upon the Israeli public that he is going to Washington
01:08to basically present a list of demands to the White House.
01:12What Israel wants in terms of the negotiations with Iran on its nuclear force and on its ballistic missiles,
01:20and also what it demands in terms of kind of new and developed conditions in order to proceed in Gaza.
01:27But the fact is that it seems unlikely.
01:31The White House is moving ahead with talks with Iran without paying much attention to Netanyahu.
01:36Again, as we just discussed, the White House's Gaza plan seemed to be proceeding without any much interest at all in Israel's position.
01:45We can, for example, remind our audience that just two days ago we found out that those Gazans who have been allowed to enter back into the Gaza Strip
01:54are being stamped with State of Palestine stamps on their passport,
01:59despite Netanyahu's almost daily assurances that this would never happen.
02:03So the White House seems more or less to be benignly ignoring Netanyahu's demands.
02:09And in Israel, some people are wondering, including, for example, the Seventh Eye, an important media watchdog here,
02:16if the fact of the matter isn't that Netanyahu has a lot to escape from here in Israel,
02:21among other things, his own corruption trial that he won't be attending this week while he's in Washington,
02:27and over which, let's remember, he has multiple times asked Donald Trump to help him facilitate a pardon from Israel's president.
02:36So all of these things are pending, and we'll have to wait to see substantially what happens at the meeting tomorrow.
02:42And meanwhile, Noga, a wave of protests has swept across Israel.
02:46Demonstrators are demanding urgent government action to address surging crime against Arab communities.
02:52Tell us more.
02:54That's right.
02:55Prime Minister Seneo really does have quite a bit to flee from in Israel.
02:59Among other things, as we're seeing on the screen, a really nationwide protest today that shut down universities, hospitals,
03:09that blocked both the highway entrance to Tel Aviv and the highway to Jerusalem.
03:14A massive protest that started already several weeks ago as a protest by Arab community leaders.
03:21Their communities have simply been abandoned by Israel police.
03:26Let's remember that the police is overseen by the Minister for National Security,
03:30a former anti-Arab terrorist who made his claim to fame by shouting death to the Arabs in the streets of Israel for many years.
03:40They have been abandoned.
03:41Crime is surging, but not only in Arab communities.
03:45Crimes, domestic crime in Israel surging.
03:48Crimes against women and children are surging.
03:51And so what we're seeing right now today are unusual scenes of Arabs and Jews having come together outside of the Israeli parliament,
04:00outside the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, in Jerusalem, in the north of the country,
04:05demanding, demanding what they're calling the basic civil right of security.
04:10And the community is really in Jerusalem.
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