Existential Crisis Most Likely to Bring New Elections

 

Prime Minister Netanyahu and Prime Minister in his own mind Yair Lapid had their fateful meeting where the real Prime Minister basically laid out what would be required from Yair Lapid and his party members in order to continue the current coalition. One of the problems which have struck the coalition has been the idea by the other party leaders that they should be the Prime Minister and run the government. Yair Lapid was rumored to even have attempted to patch together his own coalition and exercise a coup of sorts and take over the government through a deal with opposition parties thus forcing a new government without having new elections. Then we have the twisted dreams of Tzipi Livni who believes that she is fated to be Prime Minister because she honestly feels she has been robbed of her opportunity to lead the nation and will likely continue to pursue this phantom reality for the rest of her political life. There is the expected leader and head of the opposition parties Yitzhak Herzog, the leader of the Labor Party, has already claimed his rightful position as Prime Minister in waiting convinced that new elections will serve as the cleansing of the government of Prime Minister Netanyahu and instead bring a liberal wave sweeping Herzog into the Prime Minister slot. He was quoted speaking of the inevitable results of new elections stating, “The Labor party will lead the bloc that will win the election and give hope and a new reality for the citizens of Israel.” Apparently these Prime Ministerial candidates holding these delusional beliefs have either not read any of the polling done or they believe, as Yitzhak Herzog stated just the other day, that the polls are meaningless as they have sampled those they know and all of the people in their circle agree that new elections will place them at the head of the next government. If I were to ask those closest to me if I would win the coming elections and get to form the next coalition government I am sure that at least one or two would play along and assure me that I was not delusional, but they would also realize I was joking. Unfortunately for Israel, these Prime Minister wannabes are not joking and believe their own propaganda that they are the next chosen one.

 

This crisis was brought to a head when the proposed Jewish State Law which was intended to restate and reaffirm that Israel is the home of the Jewish People as well as a democracy where every citizen is guaranteed their respective rights as citizens. To any casual observer this law would be a no brainer but instead it became the initial protest vote where both Yair Lapid and Tzipi Livni threatened their voting against the Jewish State Law should it be brought to the Knesset for a vote. This led to rewording the bill in attempts to make it palatable to the few who insisted on remaining unappeasable. The reality is that both party leaders were actually more upset that the governing coalition refused to tow their line and follow their agendas and instead were following the agenda put forth by the Prime Minister and originally voted for as part and parcel of joining the coalition upon its formation. So, it now appears that Israel is about to go into another election with all the usual posturing and backstabbing starting with each party holding their disparate meetings or votes or some combination thereof in order to present their list of proposed Knesset Ministers for well past their polled expectations to receive once the election results are finalized. The expectations from current polling, something that is almost meaningless as elections have historically brought surprises and twists beyond belief, has Likud remaining the largest block of Ministerial positions and thus most likely to be chosen to form the next coalition. There are indications that the next largest party might be Jewish Home which will be a surprise to the leftist parties who are expecting the Israeli voters to cast off both Likud and Jewish Home in favor of Labor, Meretz and Yesh Atid. The polling has also indicated that Lapid’s Yesh Atid Party will only manage to win half the number of seats in the Knesset than they did in their initial and surprising success in their inaugural presentation before the voting public in the last election. These polls also depicted Tzipi Livni’s HaTnuah Party as barely making a minimal entry number of seats if even breaking the threshold required to be represented in the Knesset, let alone receive the nod to form the next government. The one hope all of those vying to be the next Prime Minister can invest their aspirations upon is that the least likely thing which was unexpected by all the pollsters, party leaders, experts and prognosticators and initially dismissed as insignificant can still resonate with the Israeli public while remaining below the radar and surging forth on election day to produce the unexpected results in the next elections completely throwing all the news outlets an unseen curve which they will be at a loss to explain. The elections may prove once again that there is no such thing as a sure bet when the voting public gets to make the decisions.

 

Of course new elections are not yet guaranteed as it will take a vote in the Knesset to dissolve the parliament and hold elections and there is the possibility that Yair Lapid will return to the fold and swallow his pride for the good of the coalition and by such an action garner some new supporters which always is a desired result for any politician. Lapid was given five acts he must agree to if he desires to avoid new elections. These were to stop attacking the coalition and especially to end his criticisms of the building plans in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and the Israeli relations with the United States. Next he was to transfer the six billion shekels to the defense budget as promised for their development of Iron Dome systems and armored personnel carriers. Third was to release the funding for the IDF relocation to the new Negev as was agreed upon by coalition agreements, something Lapid was blocking going so far as to have frozen this funding taking what he referred to as a principled stand. Fourth was for him to support the final version of the Jewish State Law. Finally he would be required to surrender and shelve the zero percent VAT relief bill he had been pushing for very determinedly. This final demand is expected to be the last straw and the one Lapid will refuse to meet thus likely forcing new elections.

 

One reading the polls would expect that Lapid would find it easier to remain in the current coalition where his Yesh Atid Party enjoys nineteen seats in the Knesset, a far cry better than the nine seats which many polls have indicated he would receive from new elections. The guessing here believes that Yesh Atid would probably suffer an even bigger embarrassment and only manage six or maybe seven seats and be on its way to extinction unless Yair Lapid could find a path back to the promises and apparent ideals he initially presented as the guiding essentials set forth in the last election. Those who suspected that much of the Zionist and nationalist line that Minister Lapid had professed was more ruse than ideological foundation as it was presented. These suspicions proved to be valid as once in the government Yair Lapid appeared to inexorably veer to the left and discard much of his nationalist agenda and instead attempt to inject his liberal slant into policy even at the expense of manipulating the budget which he had promised certain arrangements and allocations which he in the end did not deliver on. And this may only be the tip of the iceberg of potential changes which might be produced by holding new elections. The largest changes are always the ways in which the factions and parties arrange their own coalitions’ makeup. The most evident breakup has already taken place in which the one-time marriage of Likud with Yisrael Beiteinu which will also mean that Avigdor Lieberman will be leading his own party rather than being second on the combined ticket with Bibi Netanyahu taking the top slot. Netanyahu is probably expected by most to continue to take the top slot on any Likud ticket but that may not be as guaranteed as one might believe. There will be a credible challenge to Netanyahu in the voting for the Likud ticket as Danny Danon is expected to give Netanyahu a challenge from the right and even more nationalistic Zionist side of the party. We could potentially see a Likud ticket with a new face at the helm which may signal a changing of the guard within Likud even should Danny Danon fall short in his challenge. Danon is definitely one of the future leaders in Likud and the time is rapidly approaching for these new leaders to step forth. Other than the breakup of Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu, there may be other alterations to more parties and combinations than could be readily covered in this article and are best left for after the parties have all filed and made public their intents. Then there will be the leadership challenges in parties other than Likud. We have to wait and see if the somewhat controversial leader of Jewish Home, Naftali Bennett, remains the top man on their ticket and whether they will continue with their current makeup or if some factions might go it on their own. Then there may be a contest for the leadership position of the Haredi parties, largely concerning in Shas and whether the more liberal and left leaning Arye Deri remains in the number one slot or if Eli Yishai or Ariel Atias will make a successful challenge from the more nationalist and right leaning side of the party. With the passing of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef there can now be a true contest for the leadership of the Shas Party. Labor just recently had a change in leadership with Yitzhak Herzog taking the top spot replacing Shelly Yachimovitch. After all is said and done the next government may very well have a similar outward appearance to the current coalition but within there will be some changes, just how many and how far this difference proves to be remains to be seen. If Likud has a new person topping their ticket, such a change could excite the electorate or perhaps the shock of Bibi Netanyahu being replaced will be too much for the Israeli public. Then there are some polls which have shown Jewish Home Party actually replacing Likud as the leader in the Knesset and thus very likely making their first name on their Knesset list the next Prime Minister. It still remains to be seen if that name will continue to be Naftali Bennett. And then again, there is still hope for yours truly as, after all, those I have talked to still hold out hope for me to be picked to form the next government, and why not? Talk about strange happenings, that would take the cake.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

What the Post Ferguson Riot’s Commentaries Taught Me

 

After having the unpleasant experience of reading a small number of articles through which the reactions from numerous American Jewish rights groups officially released statements, amongst these groups included two statespersons from the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) plus spokespersons from JCPA (Jewish Council for Public Affairs) and AJWS (American Jewish World Service); the commentary from these and other rights groups were virtually interchangeable. The only addition to the Jewish rights groups’ commentary was the addition of mentioning how Jews should be more sensitive to racial injustice due to the historic injustices the Jewish people have faced over the dozens of centuries, an addition which probably was more destructive than it was informative. It is not that the Jews have not suffered from injustices since the times of slavery in Egypt to the current problems facing Jews across many European cities, on campuses throughout the world including within the United States, across the Arab and Muslim worlds, and even within the borders of Israel from terrorist groups and oft even from fellow Jews who have joined those for whom the simple existence of Jews in Israel is sufficient offense in their hearts and minds; it is that such prefacing is unnecessary and even more-so if it is being implemented in order to spur an emotional response from other Jews, as these were general statements which would be published throughout the United States and potentially beyond and as they appeared to separate the Jews from the rest of society and place within them a special ability to be the adjudicators of social justice, an ability based on offenses which the majority of Jews have never experienced, especially in the United States. But what was also a basis for most of these commentaries was the implication that there had been a miscarriage of justice by the grand jury not deciding to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting of Michael Brown on that fateful day in Ferguson, Missouri.

 

What struck me about these virtually identical reactions to the grand jury’s verdict was not so much their refusal to even consider any of the evidence from the investigation but their ability to automatically side with the rioters cause and complaints even as they claimed that the rioting was not an appropriate answer. Then came their broadening their convictions of American society for not having actually made any real progress over the past half a century since the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 and the presumption that racism was still rampant across American society. They then went on in many cases to point to particular evidences that such racism was still prevalent which included such items as that black students are suspended or expelled from our public schools at a much higher rate than white students, a higher rate of arrests and convictions and longer jails sentences for black Americans over white Americans, and, as was stated in one commentary, “there are many other examples that show the continuing racial divide.” These cited perceptions give away the progressive liberal perspective which shapes the lens with which these rights groups view the world and how they simply accept every canard which paints American society with a broad brush of having made no progress over the last fifty years despite the glaring evidence that shows a world of change has taken place transforming American society into a virtually post-racial America. The reason these groups refuse to credit the average American and the society they collectively produce with having made any progress is because if progress has been achieved then they have less of a cause celeb with which to bludgeon the social fabric and demand continued funding in huge proportions in order to continue to collect their over bloated salaries and pontificate ponderously at great length about the ills of society which their social engineering will eventually lead the way to an enlightened society. These are the same people and the same perspective which looks across the United States and continues to believe that there has been no progress in combating pollution and feel that the air quality, water quality and the general levels of pollution are identical to what is was fifty years ago. They continue to believe that Los Angeles is smog bound, Denver sits in a brown dome of polluted air, Lake Erie is still choked with nitrates and no fish live within and the Cuyahoga River still catches fire every summer. I guess the correct concept here would be for these people to wake up and smell the roses, even on the banks of the Cuyahoga River which if it is flashing anything it is the bright sunlight through the crisp clean air sparking off the scales of the tiny fish living in that once polluted river.

 

The main realization that came over me was how these same Jewish organizations could continuously protest that they knew best how to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict if only those Israelis in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s ruling coalition would listen to their sagely wisdoms. These were the same American Jews who agreed with one single idea from the entire eight years during President George W. Bush’s administration; and that was the idea for Israel to pull up every last single Jewish resident, every last IDF and other security forces, every single Jewish business, farm and factory from within the entirety of the Gaza Strip and turn it all over to Arab rule trusting that Mahmoud Abbas would then transform the areas freed of any Jewish influences into the Arab version of Hong Kong or Shanghai. Well, as we all know, that worked out just exactly as predicted, just not how they had predicted and instead became the Hamas run rocket launching and tunnel headquarters financed and armed by Qatar and Iran and dedicated to wiping out Israel and then murdering every Jew on the planet. Now many of these same geniuses are the ones in the fore calling for Israel to repeat this disengagement this time with Judea and Samaria so that the rest of Israel can enjoy the same horrors as Sderot and the Gaza Strip kibbutzim and towns with twenty-four/seven rockets raining down on their lives except this time the rockets will be falling on the most densely populated and industrial heartlands of Israel as well as onto Ben Gurion International Airport really giving President Obama reasons to ban all commercial flights into Israel as well as most of the world joining in on that boycott. Simply put, such an idea would be the fastest way to guarantee either the death of Israel or the final war between Israel and any Arab presence between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Such a move would lead within a few short months to an us or them situation leading inexorably to a final war.

 

One might think that there would be a name for people who no matter the evidence they refuse to alter a single iota of their perfect little plan to right all the wrongs in the world. Those who constantly will point out the obvious truth which makes their presentation of these tried and failed ideas worth another go around, that being that they were not the ones entrusted with the reins of power and if they would be trusted, then this time it will work as it should in a perfect world. Never mind that their promise sounds remarkably like the promise made by those who have tried these exact same ideas before when they were the ones promising they could make it work. I think I have figured out what the appeal of making such ridiculous and absurd claims has to be; they have noted that those who made this claim before and failed just as miserably as every other attempt at righting the ills of human societies, those leaders lived extravagantly with every opulence and overindulgence imagined by man and never suffered for want of any sort and were completely removed from the squalor and degradations that they were causing. Perhaps that is their hope for getting it right, that it will be right from their viewpoint and not so much the rest of us. Whatever Pollyannish thinking they try to pass off as eternal wisdom they are selling as the solution, be it for the rioting resulting from the correct verdict reached by the Ferguson grand jury or their solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, be assured that any prudent and wise person should steer well clear of their suggestions and take a more reasoned route which has proven prudential and workable in the past rather than trust those who claim that if only we let them take charge this time all will be well. Somehow calling these people progressive is almost as absurd as when we referred to them as liberals as they are about as close to libertarian as they are to progress, true and real progress.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Potentially Deadly Effect of the Renewed Peace Process

Do not expect for the media almost anywhere to be honest and relate the one truth well known to most Israelis and planned by the leadership in the Palestinian communities. Even much of the media in Israel refuses to talk about the obvious fact directly and will shy from any questions that might cause them to mention this unmentionable and inconvenient fact. The truth, if it should get out and reach numbers of people worldwide, would draw back a brutal truth that would make continuing the façade of the peace process impossible. Should people of good conscience be troubled by the truth then President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry would have to forgo the planned blitz for after Christmas and New Years in which they plan to berate and bludgeon Prime Minister Netanyahu, the Israeli leadership, and even the Palestinians if they cannot be simply bribed and the Israelis refuse to surrender on all issues that the United States has guaranteed Palestinian Chairman Abbas and others they will force the Israelis to toe the Palestinian line and agree to their demands. The United States government has already reserved fifty suites in a five star Jerusalem hotel as well as two entire floors for offices, meeting rooms, and map rooms and other presentations with which to prove to the Israelis that they should trust that everything will be fine and Obama and Kerry promise this and they must be trusted. All this pales against the other inconvenient fact that nobody dares speak.

 

The little truth is that terrorism has increased many fold since the start of the renewed peace talks. This is nothing new as it has always increased when there are peace talks as there are those groups who believe that by committing sufficient terror strike the talks will collapse while others realize that Israel will be forced to simply sit on their hands and take any attack without responding. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, among others, ratchet up their terror mechanisms as much as possible in order to force the end of the peace talks if they can manage to make Israel bleed beyond any reasonable limit causing Israel to ignore the warnings from the United States that as long as the peace process is in progress Israel must not take any retaliatory efforts against terrorism. On the other side, Fatah’s al-Aqsa’s Martyrs Brigades takes the ongoing peace talks as license to loose the hounds and strike freely at Israeli civilians knowing that there will be no IDF response because the Americans have too much invested in making the Peace Process work this time no matter what. There was a comment out of Gaza that they were inspired by the bus bombing this past weekend just south of Tel Aviv as it might mean the resumption of suicide bombings and mass casualties of Israelis.

 

The terrorists make no differentiations between Israeli civilians and IDF claiming that every Israeli is active in stealing Islamic lands as they claim that all of Israel must be removed and every Jew vanquished completely before they will cease their struggle. To be truthful, Mahmoud Abbas, the American denoted darling of peace, has also stated this position and done so even in English but the entirety of media and governments simply pretend they never heard him and when queried on these Abbas admissions they simply claim he does not mean this, he has to say these things for his public. This is the same Abbas who oversaw the financing of the Munich Olympics terror attack that murdered the entire Israeli Olympic team. This is the same Abbas who was beside Yasser Arafat at the founding of Fatah as a terrorist group in 1964 with the goal of driving the Jews from all of Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. This was 1964, three full years before the Six Day War and before there were any contested territories and Jordan was preventing the formation of any Palestinian state on the lands they called the West Bank. This is, was, and will continue to be the goal, cleansing all of the lands including all of Israel of all non-Muslim populations, Jewish, Christian, Baha’i or any others. The periods when there are peace talks progressing, even though nothing short of the complete eradication of Israel as the Jewish State will be accepted by Abbas and the Palestinians, are a perfect free terror period where Israelis can be attacked and murdered without fearing any overt reprisals for as long as the talks continue. This last half of the nine months is going to be a difficult time. Thus far the IDF has miraculously prevented the vast majority of attempts. The horror is that they only need get one attack through that can claim an insufferable price in lives stolen and lives destroyed. The bus bomb attack this past weekend resulted in one police bomb squad officer injured as an observant youth identified the parcel, a responsible passenger inspected the contents and when he told the driver of the very heavy bag with wires and a package inside, the driver evacuated the bus and called authorities. The bomb was detonated from a remote location or timer, the trigger is being investigated and information not released as they seek the bomber, a mere few minutes after the driver had completed evacuating the bus. A full third of the bus was destroyed by the blast and countless lives saved by the combination of an observant child, a responsible adult and a well-trained bus driver knowing what to do. Miracle? Most would say no but this is the land of miracles as recounted in an old and venerated book.

 

Beyond the Cusp