As US embassy staff meets with group trying to influence Israeli elections, Obama speaks about avoiding partisanship
Yes, Obama really said that. Unfortunately, the actions of the US Embassy in Tel Aviv (not Jerusalem - another sore point)
don't reflect it.
Top officials at the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv met in late January
with one of the main progressive groups working to tip the upcoming
Israeli elections against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and helped
facilitate the organization’s visit to the United States this week to
learn political organizing techniques.
The State Department helped the nonprofit group Givat Haviva secure
last-minute visas for a delegation of Arab-Israeli mayors, which is in
the United States this week meeting with civic leaders and attending
discussions on voter outreach and community organizing. The delegation
arrived on Feb. 4 and is in Washington, D.C., through Wednesday.
Givat Haviva is part of a coalition of U.S.-funded progressive groups working to influence the Israeli elections, the Washington Free Beacon
reported last week. The organization, which has chapters in both the
United States and Israel, is leading an effort to increase voter turnout
among Arab Israelis, who traditionally oppose right-leaning parties
such as Netanyahu’s Likud.
Top American diplomats met with Givat Haviva and the Arab-Israeli
mayors at the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv on Jan. 29, where they discussed
the plans for this week’s visit. U.S. officials at the meeting included
the deputy mission chief, the CIA station chief, and the cultural
attaché, according to an attendee.
The Givat Haviva Institute’s co-executive director Mohammad Darawshe, the main organizer of the delegation, told the Free Beacon that the meeting was just a “farewell greeting from the embassy staff after they helped with getting the visas.”
The State Department said it would provide a summary of the meeting to the Free Beacon last Wednesday, but as of Monday afternoon had not provided one.
I guess in Obama's book, the only partisanship that exists is partisanship that opposes the interests of Barack Hussein Obama. Sorry Mr. President. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
There's much more.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Israeli elections, Knesset elections 2015, partisanship, V-2015
Obama vetted Lapid as future Prime Minister of Israel
Is the Obama administration trying to unseat Prime Minister Netanyahu? Almost definitely, yes. Is it trying to
replace him with Yair Lapid? Well, maybe. Here's Aaron Klein.
Let’s look at the clues. Netanyahu’s decision last week to disband
his coalition came when he dismissed his finance minister, Yair Lapid,
and his justice minister, Tzipi Livni, both of whom have not disguised
their ambitions for the country’s highest office. Tellingly, both took
advantage of the steady stream of US criticism toward Netanyahu by
leading an escalating public campaign in which they repeatedly accused
Netanyahu of causing this dangerous rift in relations with Israel’s most
important ally.
Case in point. In October, Israel’s Ynet news website reported
that a request by Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon to meet with US Vice
President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry and National Security
Adviser Susan Rice during his visit to Washington had been denied by
the White House. This reported move is highly unusual, and was a nearly
unprecedented snub of Netanyahu’s government. It helped to set off a
firestorm against Netanyahu in Israel, particularly among the center and
the left, with Livni and Lapid leading the charge.
Also in October, in what can only be viewed as an orchestrated
campaign, the US espoused uncharacteristically harsh language to oppose a
plan for Israel to build 2,610 new homes on empty lots in Givat
Hamatos, a Jerusalem neighborhood in the eastern section of the city
where Palestinians want to build a future state.
Immediately following a meeting between Netanyahu and President
Obama in October, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki and White House
spokesman Josh Earnest took the Israeli leader’s delegation by surprise
when they released nearly identical statements slamming the Jerusalem
construction. They warned the housing plans could distance Israel from
its “closest allies,” a clear euphemism for the US, and questioned
whether Netanyahu was interested in peace. Netanyahu for his part said
at the time that he was “baffled” by the US criticism, stating the
American position “doesn’t really reflect American values.”
As if on queue, Lapid and Livni raced to endorse the US
condemnation and accuse Netanyahu once again of damaging US-Israeli
relations. That month, Lapid took further issue with Netanyahu’s plan
to build roughly 400 homes in Har Homa and about 600 in Ramat Shlomo.
“This plan will lead to a serious crisis in Israel-US relations and will
harm Israel’s standing in the world,” Lapid said.
In another seemingly orchestrated development, The Atlantic’s
Jeffrey Goldberg in October described relations between the US and
Israel as a “full-blown crisis” and reported that senior Obama
administration officials had called Netanyahu “chickenshit” on matters
related to the so-called peace process. Goldberg gratuitously added
that Bibi is a “coward” on the issue of Iran’s nuclear threat.
...
Adding more fuel to the anti-Bibi firestorm, Ha'aretz
reported last week the Obama administration had held a classified
discussion a few weeks earlier about possibly taking more proactive
measures against the “settlements,” including mulling sanctions or
punishing Israel at the United Nations. While the State Department
dismissed the claims as "unfounded and completely without merit," the Ha'aretz article is already providing more fodder to target Bibi.
Here’s the kicker. In March, an informed diplomatic source in
Jerusalem told me that representatives of the Obama administration held
meetings with Lapid to check him out politically and to discuss the kind
of prime minister he would make if he won elections in the future. The
diplomatic source said the Obama administration identified Lapid as a
moderate who would support Israeli-Palestinian talks. While the alleged
meeting might have been as innocent as getting to know the powerful
finance minister, the claim does fuel the perception of Obama
administration tentacles working surreptitiously to change the political
order in the Jewish state.
Read the whole thing. Shabbat Shalom.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Israeli elections, Knesset elections 2015, Yair Lapid
'Anyone but Bibi'?
For the
second time this week, former peace processor Aaron David Miller has gone on record urging President Obama
not to try to influence the upcoming Israeli elections. This was written by Miller himself.
In Washington, whether it’s an R or D administration, in fact, we
want Israeli leaders like Rabin, Peres, and Barak who see the world more
or less the way we do when it comes to the two-state peace process. We
have a much harder time with those Israeli leaders—Begin, Shamir,
Netanyahu—whose views on what to do about the Palestinians don’t
naturally accord with ours. (Sharon was a special case. He and George W.
Bush got along reasonably well because neither really cared about the
peace process and both were governing in an age of terror.)
But sometimes those initial judgments about who’s naughty or nice end up confounding.
Because U.S. administrations tend to divide the Israeli political
spectrum into two parts—the good Israelis who share our views and the
not so good ones who don’t—they’re not entirely sure what to do with the
fact that Israeli prime ministers of all political stripes have
continued Israeli settlement building on the West Bank and construction
in parts of east Jerusalem that we’d like to see become the capital of a
Palestinian state.
It’s an inconvenient but important reality to acknowledge that of the
three U.S.-orchestrated breakthroughs in the Middle East peace process,
two of them—the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty and the Madrid peace
conference—came from hardline Likud prime ministers. The third—the three
disengagement agreements following the 1973 war —came courtesy of a
very tough Labor prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin.
But secretly rooting for the good Israelis and wishing them success
is one thing. What about actually doing things that help the good ones
succeed or alternatively weakening the Israelis we don’t want to see in
power?
I can recall at least three occasions when Republican and
Democratic administrations willfully picked Israeli favorites and tried
to shape election outcomes.
...
Now, as the clock ticks down on Israeli elections scheduled for March
2015, will the Obama administration play internal Israeli politics to
try to tip the election against Netanyahu?
Obama’s relationship with Bibi is perhaps the most dysfunctional of
any president-prime minister pair in the history of the U.S.-Israeli
relationship. Doubtless John Kerry, too, would like to see another
Israeli leader with whom he could dance a real peace process.
Yet constraints against U.S. meddling abound. First, there’s the
Republican-controlled Congress, which will be watching hawk-like for any
such funny business. Second, there’s the absence of a clear and
credible alternative to Bibi with whom the administration is close; and
then there’s the matter of the lack of a big issue for such lobbying.
The peace process is in a coma; and ISIS, Hamas, Assad, Hezbollah, and
the Iranian mullahs make Israel look like the good guys. Finally,
there’s Obama himself. He’s not Clinton. Does he really care? Do most
Israelis trust him? Could he get away with a campaign that makes clear
Bibi isn’t the right guy and candidate, but X is? I am betting on “no”
to all three questions. Don’t even think about it, Mr. President.
The last constraint is the most important one. Many Israelis saw Bush I as neutral at best and hostile at worst. But that didn't compare with what Israelis think of Obama. While we may differ on why, most Israelis agree that Obama is viscerally hostile to Israel. There is little that can be done to convince us otherwise (and with good reason).
If Obama tries to interfere (and with his arrogance I would say that there's a fair chance of that happening). it would likely backfire. That's what Miller is trying to prevent.
Keep writing Aaron. But don't expect Obama to listen.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Aaron David Miller, Barack Hussein Obama, Bill Clinton, Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, George H. W. Bush, Israeli elections, John Kerry, Knesset elections 2015, Shimon Peres, Yitzchak Rabin, Yitzchak Shamir
Aaron David Miller: 'We always tried to influence the Israeli elections, but we never succeeded; Obama shouldn't even try'
Aaron David Miller, who was Dennis Ross' top assistant, has told YNet that the United States
'always' tried to interfere in Israeli elections, but never succeeded (Hat Tip:
Red Tulips) (link in Hebrew).
According to Miller, the US gathered a lot of information about Prime Minister Netanyahu - including his activities while a student in the United States - but no one would listen.
Miller admits that the George HW Bush administration influenced the outcome of the 1992 election to bring Yitzchak Rabin to power over Yitzchak Shamir, but he claims that's because the US set up the environment for that election through the Bush-Baker controversies with Shamir. He admits that the Clinton administration also tried - unsuccessfully - to ensure Shimon Peres' election as Prime Minister in 1996. But Peres lost to Netanyahu.
Miller says that the Clinton administration gathered information on Netanyahu and leaked it to the Israeli media. The information included Netanyahu's activities as a student in Boston and Philadelphia, his name change to Nitai, his forfeiting of his American passport, and the failure of Netanyahu's first marriage. Miller claims that it caused a scandal but had no influence.
Miller advises President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry not to even try to influence March's elections. Clinton was a President who was beloved in Israel, says Miller, while Obama is extremely unpopular (you don't say...) and any attempt to influence the March elections would backfire.
Obama and Kerry are declining to comment on the upcoming elections, although Kerry has said that he hopes that a new government will be able to conduct a 'peace process.'
Funny how he doesn't mention the Americans' greatest success - the 1999 replacement of Netanyahu with Ehud Barak courtesy of Clinton.
Labels: Aaron David Miller, Barack Hussein Obama, Bill Clinton, Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, George H. W. Bush, Israeli elections, John Kerry, Knesset elections 2015, Shimon Peres, Yitzchak Rabin, Yitzchak Shamir
Chicken***t
Guess who
doesn't want elections.
Lapid in his faction meeting, pleaded with Netanyahu not to initiate an
election, which he said would harm the economy and halt important
socio-economic steps the government is taking.
I wonder whether
this has something to do with it.
Can you say 'flash in the pan'?
Labels: Israeli election polls, Israeli elections, Yair Lapid
Knesset to disperse as soon as Wednesday
If this bill passes, it will be the fastest I can ever recall a government falling (from the time that the rumblings of elections were heard).
Labels: Israeli elections
'Fool me once, shame on you...'
Rav Aryeh Leib Shteinman, Shlita (May he live good and long days), the acknowledged leader of the Lithuanian Haredim in Israel, has ordered the Degel HaTorah (Lithuanian) component of the United Torah Judaism party not to agree to any deals with Prime Minister Netanyahu, effectively
killing for now any rapprochement between Netanyahu and the Haredi parties. But Netanyahu actually has to be pretty happy about this.... Note the bold language below.
Netanyahu hoped that UTJ and Shas would promise to recommend to
President Reuven Rivlin that he form a coalition after the election.
The prime minister was rejected Saturday night by Shas leader Arye Deri and MK Ya’acov Litzman of UTJ’s Agudat Israel party.
Shteinman,
100, put the final nail in the coffin of Netanyahu’s plan in a meeting
with Degel Hatorah MKs Moshe Gafni, Uri Maklev and Ya’acov Asher
Sunday.
“We will not sign any document with Netanyahu now,” Gafni
told Army Radio. “We will meet with Netanyahu after the election,
hopefully when we have more strength and [Yesh Atid leader Yair] Lapid
has been weakened.”
Litzman said in an interview with Ynet that
“If they want us in the coalition, they will have to turn the clock
back on anti-haredi [ultra-Orthodox] legislation.”
Degel
Hatorah, Agudat Israel and Shas have been coordinating their strategy
regarding political maneuvers. They all decided against joining any
alternative governments that could be formed by Labor leader Isaac
Herzog or Lapid without an election.
“We will not form a
government with Yair Lapid or form a coalition with him,” Gafni said.
“We will support the prime minister if he initiates elections. We won’t
let anyone else form a different coalition.”
Looks like we're going to have another election soon....
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Haredim, Israeli elections, Rabbi Aaron Leib Steinman, Yaakov Litzman
Are we going to new elections?
Channel 2 reports that Prime Minister Netanyahu may ask to
dissolve the Knesset this week and go to new elections - just a year and a half after the last elections.
According to the report, Netanyahu is considering three options, but
it is believed that his preferred route would be to dissolve the
Knesset.
The first option is for Netanyahu to wait until March 31 without the
state budget for 2015 passing its second and third reading in the
Knesset, which by law requires an election at the end of June.
The second option is to approach President Reuven Rivlin and ask him
to dissolve the Knesset. In such a case, 21 days will given for an
alternative government to be formed before elections are called,
possibly paving the way for Finance Minister Yair Lapid or Opposition
leader Yitzhak Herzog forming an alternate government with the hareidim.
The third option is a bill to dissolve the Knesset. According to Channel 2,
Netanyahu's associates are attempting to find out whether the other
parties in the Knesset would support the dissolution of the Knesset if
it is brought to a vote next week. Either way, Netanyahu is expected to
decide on the issue within days, the report said.
Netanyahu and the parties in his coalition have been at odds over
several issues, the latest being the controversial Jewish State Law,
which passed a Cabinet vote this week but which Lapid and Justice
Minister Tzipi Livni are opposed to and have threatened to vote against
when it comes to a vote in the Knesset.
I don't see Lapid forming an alternative government with the Haredim, and although Herzog could, his party's Knesset delegation is too small to pull it off. Arutz Sheva goes on to report that Netanyahu offered the Haredi parties a deal on Wednesday, but that the Haredi parties are denying it.
But the Haredi website Kikar Shabbat reported this morning that in fact Netanyahu has offered a deal to the Haredim and is awaiting a response from
R. Aaron Yehuda Leib Steinman (link in Hebrew). The deal on offer would have the Haredim agree to recommend that Netanyahu form the next government after the elections in exchange for being assured that they will be part of that government.
In Maariv's Friday edition, columnist Ben Caspit reported that Rav Steinman may veto the idea - recalling that Netanyahu made promises to the Haredim that he did not keep after the last election, and not wanting Haredi 'demands' to become the key issue in the election.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Haredim, Israeli elections, Rabbi Aaron Leib Steinman, Tzipi Livni, Yair Lapid
A very different Presidency?
With the announcement that Prime Minister Netanyahu has now
endorsed Likud MK Ruby Rivlin for President (yes, that's yours truly with Rivlin when he was Knesset speaker in 2004 - thanks
David C), Israel may have
a very different President than Shimon Peres come June 10.
On the day that President Shimon Peres hosted Pope Francis, the
frontrunner to succeed Peres made clear he does not share their vision
of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But in an interview with The Times of Israel,
the Likud’s Reuven Rivlin also promised that, if elected president, he
would not seek to intervene in the decisions of Israel’s elected
politicians on peacemaking or anything else.
Israelis and Palestinians are “destined to
live together,” Rivlin told The Times of Israel Monday. But “I’m a
utopianist,” he said. “I have a vision that suddenly all the Jewish
people [from around the world] will come to live here… And if there were
10 million Jews here, we wouldn’t have to give up on anything.”
Rivlin was speaking to The Times of Israel in a
short telephone interview timed to coincide with Wednesday’s Jerusalem
Day, which he lamented was no longer a “consensus” day of festivities
but, rather, had come to be celebrated “only by kipa-wearing [Orthodox]
Israelis.”
He was reluctant to discuss the June 10
Knesset vote in which he hopes his 119 colleagues will elect him as
Israel’s 10th president. “I think I have the support of most of them,”
he said, and he stressed that, if elected to succeed Peres, his fellow
MKs know that “I won’t intervene in Knesset decisions. [The MKs] will
decide Israel’s borders, and its [policies on] peace. The president is a
bridge to enable debate, to reduce tensions, to alleviate frictions.”
The presidency is a largely ceremonial
position, but some presidents — certainly including Peres — have made no
secret of their political and diplomatic preferences while in office.
“It’s not for the president to determine the arrangements between Israel
and the Palestinians, and the Arab world,” Rivlin elaborated, “but to
be the bridge between opinions, and to facilitate dialogue and
understanding.”
What a refreshing change that would be.
Labels: Israeli elections, Middle East peace process, Ruby Rivlin, Shimon Peres
Jewish Home to quit government?
Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett is
threatening to quit the government (and take his party with him) in the event that it approves the release of hundreds of terrorists - including 'Israeli Arabs' - and a 'settlement freeze' in exchange for continuing 'talks' and the release of Jonathan Pollard.
"Israel has been facing a new situation in recent days with the
Palestinian appeal to the UN which flagrantly violated all the
agreements with them since the Oslo Accords until today,” said Bennett.
“The emerging deal, if it includes the release of murderers with
Israeli citizenship, harms Israeli sovereignty, and not only that - it
is done being when the Palestinians have not cancelled their requests to
join international organizations,” he added.
"Therefore, if a proposal for release of Israeli murderers comes
before the Cabinet, the Jewish Home will oppose it,” Bennett declared.
“If the proposal will pass - the Jewish Home will resign from the
government, which frees murderers with Israeli citizenship. Enough is
enough.
“On this evening of Passover, it is important to remember that we
went from slavery to freedom so we that we can have an Israeli legal
system which will protect the citizens of Israel - not a system that is
being blackmailed by a gang of terrorists and which releases murderers,”
said Bennett. “This is an act of extortion and surrender to terrorism
which we cannot accept.
“I wish the citizens of Israel a Happy Passover, and I hope that our
brother Jonathan Pollard will be released soon, but not in the immoral
way that is this currently being suggested,” he concluded.
The Jerusalem Post reported last week that
Bennett had issued similar threats to Netanyahu then but had purposely confined them to private conversations with the prime minister. When
talks became more serious on Thursday, Bennett upgraded his threat to a public warning.
Anonymous 'Likud officials' are telling Bennett to
go right ahead and leave.
"We are not keeping anybody in the government by force," the officials declared.
"This is a well-known method used by Bennett: to make threats when it
is clear to him that they are false threats that will not come to
fruition," they added.
But other Likud officials, who were speaking on the record, had
a very different take.
Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin warned Netanyahu on Thursday not
to return to a diplomatic deal that would involve the mass release of
terrorist murderers and restraining construction in Judea and Samaria,
if the Palestinians did not withdraw their petitions to join UN bodies.
Signing
such a deal under the current conditions could cause political shock
waves and lead to elections, the deputy minister said.
Elkin thus
became the first high-ranking Likud politician to warn of early
elections, four days after Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman
spoke at Sunday’s Jerusalem Post Conference in New York about the possibility of Israel going to the polls.
“Returning
to the deal would project weakness and give the Palestinians a reward
for their stubbornness,” Elkin said. “It would result in them attacking
Israel internationally even more. We cannot turn the other cheek when
they spit at us in the face. Surrendering to Palestinian hostility has
only brought upon us disasters.”
Deputy Defense Minister Danny
Danon (Likud) said he intends to resign from his post if a diplomatic
arrangement to extend the talks with the Palestinians is reached. But
other politicians are not expected to follow suit, because the deal
would be softened by the inclusion of Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard.
According to a new poll, the Likud would gain in new elections... but so would
Jewish Home.
The Dialogue Institute survey, published in Friday morning's Haaretz,
shows that Jewish Home would tie with Labor as the second-biggest party
in the Israeli government, in the event that elections were held
today.
Likud-Beytenu would receive 37 seats - compared to 32 in a previous
poll, the survey reveals. Meanwhile Jewish Home would receive 15, as
opposed to 12 in the last poll. Likewise Labor would receive 15 seats,
down from 16 in the last poll.
Yesh Atid would remain stable from the last poll at 14 seats, and
both Shas and Meretz would drop a seat from the previous poll, from 10
to 9. United Torah Judaism would gain an extra seat, for a total of 7,
Hatnua would lose two seats and have only 3, instead of 5 in the last
poll, and Kadima would not pass the threshold.
All of the Arab parties would retain their previous projected number of seats: Raam-Taal - 5, Hadash - 4, and Balad - 3.
Yes, but if these were the results, Likud, Labor and Yesh Atid could make a coalition without anyone else (assuming that Likud's MK's were willing to stay on board)....
As for American hostage Jonathan Pollard, yes, he could be released over the weekend.
Well-placed sources involved in efforts to bring about Pollard’s
release said they were cautiously optimistic about the diplomatic
developments and were hoping to welcome him home to Jerusalem. His
medical condition required him to leave prison and seek urgent medical
care in Israel, they said.
Should Pollard be allowed to fly to
Israel in time for the Passover Seder, the last El Al flight that would
arrive in time departs from New York at 7 p.m. local time on Sunday.
Using a private plane or the government of Israel sending an airplane
are also possibilities.
Hmmm....
I sure hope Bennett doesn't leave the government before the seder. He'd ruin a lot of really good Torah for the seder if he did.... והמבין יבין.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Israeli elections, Jewish Home party, Jonathan Pollard, Likud party, Middle East peace process, Naftali Bennett, Palestinian terrorists, settlement freeze, Yesh Atid party
Government passes new election law 67-0, law effectively does away with no-confidence votes
In a vote on the first of three bills that are to be passed between now and Thursday, the Knesset
voted 67-0 to enact electoral reform.
I'll come back to the substance of the vote in a minute, but the JPost has accused the Knesset of
stifling dissent because the manner in which the bills are being passed
. It's important to look at why it's being done this way.
But it seems there is another reason for the government’s haste in
pushing through the three bills before the end of the Knesset winter
session on March 23. The parties making up the coalition are split on
support for the three bills.
Members of the more zealously religious Tekuma faction in Bayit Yehudi
and some other MKs in the party are sympathetic to the haredim and
therefore oppose the use of criminal sanctions against yeshiva students
who refuse to serve in the IDF. Tekuma, which is considering running
on a separate list in the next elections, also opposes the bill to
raise the threshold for getting into the Knesset.
Meanwhile, members of Yesh Atid and Hatnua oppose the referendum bill,
designed to put another obstacle in the way of a government asked to
vote on a territorial compromise with the Palestinians in a peace deal.
And Yisrael Beitenu MKs are disgruntled that the draft law does not
obligate Arab Israelis to perform national service.
To overcome these points of dissent, the heads of all the parties
making up the coalition have been asked to sign a document committing
their MKs to vote in favor of all three bills as a single package deal.
Coalition heads fear that if the votes are delayed until after the
Knesset break is over, the shaky arrangement that was cobbled together
might fall apart and one or more of the bills will not pass.
There is nothing unlawful about this sort of parliamentary wheeling and
dealing. The coalition is permitted to speed up the legislation
process, particularly ahead of a looming deadline like the one facing
the Knesset, in order to pass a bill. Coalition parties regularly
strike quid pro quo deals, where one party agrees to support the
legislation of another party on condition that this support is
reciprocated.
But the conflation of both of these tactics is a bit much, particularly
when the bills up for discussion are so controversial and when their
passage is far from time sensitive.
For the first bill, at least, the coalition held. But then, you wouldn't think it would be so controversial to raise the threshold for getting into the Knesset from 2% of the vote to 3.25% (minimum three MK's to minimum four MK's), would you? I thought this bill ought to be a slam dunk. Aside from the threshold, it limits the number of cabinet ministers to 18 and the number of deputy ministers to four, and gets rid of the title "Minister without Portfolio." That's all good because ministers cost millions of Shekels. So what's bad in this bill?
This:
The new law also requires the opposition to form an alternative
government and appoint an alternate prime minister as a precondition for
submitting no-confidence measures.
The current opposition consists of the left-wing Labor party, the further left-wing Meretz party, the Haredi parties and the Arab parties (who may have a hard time making the threshold unless they unite). What are the odds on those disparate groups reaching an agreement on an 'alternative government'? Given that no Arab party has ever been in the government and that the Haredim and the Left have agreed on very little over the last 35 years, I would say that the odds are quite poor. So essentially, there are no more no-confidence votes.
Given that we vote for parties rather than individuals, the coalition parties will be strengthened by this measure and 'Israeli democracy' will become even more distant from its constituency than it is already.
None of that bothers Avigdor Lieberman. He thinks that the opposition has to humor him by showing up for the vote rather than going on vacation for three days of futility.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman on Tuesday denounced the opposition as
a group of "whiners, post-Zionists, and terrorist representatives" in
response to its decision to boycott the Knesset vote on a bill which
limits the number of government ministers and raises the minimum vote
threshold for parties to win representation in parliament.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, Israeli democracy, Israeli elections, Israeli Knesset
