Coalition Choices Will Reveal if Sacrifice to Vote Likud Was Righteous

 

If as all are assuming and Benyamin Netanyahu is chosen by President Rivlin to attempt to form a ruling coalition, the choices which Netanyahu makes, and the sacrifices he decides are either favoring his intentions or necessary for assuming power, will be scrutinized by the Religious Zionists who have already made a huge sacrifice taking away votes, mandates and eventually influence from their normative parties such as Jewish Home (: הַבַּיִת הַיְהוּדִי), Yachad (יַחַד) and any other nationalist, Zionist, religious or politically conservative party and entrusted Netanyahu and the additional Knesset Ministers to carry out their desired goals. There have been signs that Netanyahu recognizes these sacrifices but it will remain for all to witness for how long he keeps these trusts in mind and for how long, if at all, the additional Ministers remain faithful to the traditional and core principles found within the Likud foundational documents and beliefs. Some of the important trusts which Netanyahu could perform immediately after the Knesset votes affirming his coalition range from the easy, shattering the silent building freeze and allow extensive enlargement of the communities in Judea and Samaria including allowance for the seeding of new communities and industrial and other economic centers across the width and breadth of Area C and, further down the road, adding new ventures in Area B.

 

Netanyahu can alter the conversation of forming an independent Arab state by stating that Israel is willing to allow a semi-autonomous Arab entity which rules its denoted area independent of Israel as far as governing themselves much as they currently live but remaining as an autonomous entity within Israel and reliant on the IDF for any defensive requirements and restricted from acting on the international level such as making treaties with other nations or acting in ways detrimental to the needs, requirements, political policies or relations beyond those already existent within Israeli foreign policies and relations. As Prime Minister of Israel he should bring the Levy Report to the forefront of Israeli actions towards the lands of Judea and Samaria and stress the commitments that Israel expects the world to recognize as explained and set out in the report’s conclusion.

 

As Prime Minister, Netanyahu must also begin and reinforce stressing constantly Article 80 of the United Nations Charter and bring to the fore the San Remo Conference documents and surround these two legally binding principles recognized and presumably enforceable under International Law making an airtight irrevocable claim of ownership over all of Judea and Samaria as well as the rest of the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. These ideas and their implications should end any further claims that International Law forbids Israel from annexing all of Judea and Samaria as long as the Arabs residing within the annexed areas retain full religious rights, full human rights, full legal rights, and virtually any form of rights imaginable with one very important exception, they may be denied political rights. This is the situation which must be stressed due to its importance and revealing the full rights pertaining to the Israeli rights to all the lands making them not only no longer contested but that their occupation by the Arabs is illegal and that any autonomy granted to the Arabs by Israel cannot and will not be construed as allowing for an independent Arab State or any other state as the lands were preserved for the Jewish State under International Law without even a sliver of doubt or contention by any other entity.

 

During the forming of the Twentieth Knesset, Prime Minister Netanyahu must make every effort not to include Yesh Atid and thus place Yair Lapid in the opposition thus any disturbance which emanates from him will not be a direct threat to the coalition or cause the governing coalition to be dissolved. The formation of a ruling coalition which is stable and supportive of the principles which Netanyahu was elected to pursue, protect and empower should be the foremost thought and a requirement of which each party must agree to value just as stridently and with vigor equal to that used backing their primary issues without exception. Here is the list of the Parties according to ideology and probability to be included in the coalition to those expected to be relegated to the opposition: Likud – 29, Jewish Home – 8, Yisrael Beiteinu – 6, Shas – 7, United Torah Judaism – 7, Kulanu – 10, Yesh Atid – 11, Arab List – 14, Meretz – 4, Labor/Hatnua – 24. Likud could ally with their 29 mandates and add Jewish Home, Yisrael Beiteinu, Shas, United Torah Judaism, and Kulanu reaching a total of 67 total seats while avoiding including Yair Lapid and his Yesh Atid. Of course should the Labor/Hatnua take the remaining mandates and swing Kulanu and they also would have over 61 mandates which makes Kulanu, or technically Yair Lapid the deciders of the results of the election and whether or not Likud is able to put together their required mandates and form a government. Hopefully Netanyahu will use the wiles and strong turnout and support for his party to form his coalition. This process will be noted and hopefully will not cause concern but what will really matter are those few items the such as honestly putting the building freeze out of our misery and permit building and allow such building in all areas of commerce, industry and residential allowing for strong and attractive communities. Then there will be the initial pressures to restart the peace process in which Netanyahu will need to bring the argument and propaganda to rest and replace it with the facts, treaties and accords which define which lands belong to whom and under, that ever so mentioned and used to bludgeon Israel, International Law which should stand firmly beside Israel and all her claims to retain all of her lands, period!

 

After establishing these two initiatives Bibi can then address the social issues with solid economic steps which are reasoned and fully debated moving ahead with measured steps and firm reliance and faith in the practices established by previous similar situations which produced the desired results. In numerous instances what may be required is for the government to get out of the way and relegate some functions to religious institutions that are better suited for some functions such as free kitchens which feed those in need of such assistance. There will also be those functions which government is best suited to solve and should act. This should come naturally to Netanyahu as he proved in a previous government when he was assigned the Economy Minister. Such problems are usually traceable to a few requirements which make achieving a goal which would protect the poor and provide relief with minimal red tape. The same is true of many items burdening the Middle Class. As stated, Netanyahu will be facing the closest scrutiny from more than the usual entities as he received a strong mandate from people outside his party and beyond his base and these people have known grievances and demands and they will watch sitting on nervous expectations that had best be addressed with a sense of urgency. So, as said all too often after elections, we will wait and see with open minds and soaring hearts all kept within reason by good Jewish kidneys. (Oh yes, we had a whole article using the Biblical reference by King David to kidneys and their blessings and importance in so many ways, honest.)

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Long Night Births Hard Questions on Israeli Election Results

 

With virtually all the votes counted we have the preliminary picture but the lines are fuzzy and the results produce more questions than answers. Likud is leading the pact with 29 seats with the “Zionist Camp” of Labor and Hatnua following with 24 and the Joint Arab List has 14 seats, followed by Yesh Atid with 11, Kulanu with 10, Jewish Home has 8, the Haredi parties Shas and United Torah Judaism tied at 7, Yisrael Beytenu has 6 and Meretz closes out the list with 4 seats and unfortunately Yachad party will be left out. The raw numbers would indicate a huge win for Netanyahu and loss for the “Zionist Camp” falling well behind due to Likud exceeding its lower polling and Labor-Hatnua equaling expectations. A closer look reveals where the Likud came by its higher numbers and it appears that Likud gains came at the expense of largely Jewish Home and potentially prevented Yachad from making threshold. The other obvious change has been that instead of preventing the fragmentation and reducing the number of minor parties the raising of the threshold only served to drive the smaller leftist, anti-Zionist Communist and Post=Modernist parties into a single block under the name of Arab Block and given them two to three additional mandates making Zoabi and Tibi appear all the stronger. These raw results are meaningless until the different parties, unions and blocks make their desires and support clear to President Rivlin producing a clearer picture who should be given first shot at forming a coalition.

 

The raw data would make Likud out to be the victor and to the victor go the spoils, but what spoils? The name of the game is coalition making and hopefully doing so with in kind minds and supporters of your positions. This means that any seats gained by Likud at the expense of Jewish Home makes the resultant total possessed by the two presumed to be allied parties no different and all the Likud gains from Jewish Home losses as simply rearranging the chairs on either a cruise ship or the Titanic. The truth is that Netanyahu does not really want the religious, Zionist, nationalist allied parties to be the base of his support when forming his coalition. Netanyahu wants to have as much political leeway allowing him to go in whatever direction provides him with the easiest path in the new government. By Netanyahu weakening the standing of Jewish Home, when forming any coalition now would make Yesh Atid’s Yair Lapid and Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu parties more important and carrying a greater influence than Jewish Home and making Naftali Bennett’s voice virtually powerless and squelched while Yair Lapid and Moshe Kahlon will be the roaring lions in the government and also place them ahead of Jewish Home in choosing the Ministerial position of power in the cabinet. This will give Netanyahu the leftward freedom to ignore the demands of the Religious Zionists as he desired. Netanyahu’s ploy of assailing Jewish Home voters laying any loss he might face to Hertzog and Livni at their feet just as he had done previously except this time he did so with no apparent loss in voter totals that he faced in 2013.

 

So now we wait and see who will be chosen to form a coalition first and then suffer through six weeks of excruciatingly boring power plays which we already see Jewish Home and the Zionist and nationalists being mostly sidelined while the personal aggrandizing Yesh Atid and Kulanu parties empowering Yair Lapid and Moshe Kahlon loudly impressing their demands and thus control over the most critical areas in the next government. Lapid may demand Treasury Minister for himself and two other high position Ministerial position for his main people with Kahlon likely to demand Foreign Minister or Defense Minister and two other major Ministerial positions for his list leaving Jewish Home with second pickings of the scraps for the supporting members and a middle level leftover for Naftali Bennett. The one certainty is that the governing coalition will not be the nationalist, Zionist government that Netanyahu once again ran on but will once again claim he is prevented from pursuing due to the lack of support from, you guessed it, a weakened and ineffectual Jewish Home. As long as the religious Zionists fall for the Netanyahu cry after running a weak campaign making the certainty of his returning to the Prime Ministership a definitive possibility from the polls and then turning to the supporters of Jewish Home and the other ardent Zionist parties to vote Likud to stave off the leftist challenge then Jewish Home will be forever the bridesmaid and never the bride. Eventually the leader, be it Bennett or be it his successor or beyond down the road, assuming there is a down the road, decides to challenge and present Jewish Home as the new leadership for Israel, Netanyahu will continue to utilize this ploy of siphoning off the votes of those more Zionist than Netanyahu desires to govern with and neutering those Zionist parties from where Netanyahu glides to victory with the stolen support, then the real Zionist political power will remain neutered and voiceless in the future Likud Party led governments. For now we must wait and see what develops but be warned that the expectations of the ardent Zionists have once again been sacrificed to the Bibi and thus lower expectations are their feed in the coming government. The other reality is that it appears that Netanyahu will require Yair Lapid and his treasonous backstabbing to permit a coalition to be cobbled together, so expect new elections again in two or so years when Lapid again sees a wounded Netanyahu for his actions such as the silent building freeze or whatever other sacrifices made presumably in response to a powerful United States President Obama in order to salvage continued friendship from the White House. Anybody else notice that it is only Israel who needs to obey and bow to the will of Obama? Can bowing to golden calves or worse be far behind?

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Israeli Zionist Election Question

The Israeli election is fast approaching and the Israeli nationalists, often referred to as the Zionists, come in two types, religious and secularist. Usually these two groups tend to vote for political parties which are tailored and tooled to fit their exacting preferences. This election is apparently going to be somewhat different and, if the polls are accurate, there may be a fairly significant number of crossover votes and these two groups are ending up vying for many of the same voters. Part of this phenomenon is due to the persona of the new head of the Jewish Home (Bayit Yehudi) Naftali Bennett on one side and some dissatisfaction and mistrust of Likud leader, the current Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu. Then there are the usual new parties which are usually driven by one of two items, personality or hot button issue. There are three such new parties with two driven by their founders’ belief that they are the answer for all of Israel’s problems. One was started by former leader of Kadima, Tzipi Livni, who left Kadima after she lost the election to Saul Mofaz in the party’s primary. Another was started by ex-newscaster Yair Lapid who appears to be following in the same tracks that his father traveled from journalist become politician whose party achieved initial success making it into the Knesset for one election and failed thereafter. Time will tell if the younger Lapid will exactly mirror his father’s feats. The final one is Otzma Leyisrael which is headed by current MKs Michael Ben-Ari and Aryeh Eldad who split from their party after their faction lost the leadership positions.

There will be the usual contest between the two main sides as in every previous election pitting the liberal left socialists against those who have been attempting to remove the government from its heavy investment in the economy. The main subject that is separating these groups in this election is not actually economics but nationalism and those purporting the end of the Oslo Accords versus those who still hold out that peace is just the right offer away and that Mahmoud Abbas is an honest broker and the Oslo Accords are still relevant. It is this debate that has driven much of the election campaigning with secondary subjects being the place of women in the religious sector of society, whether to replace the deferment for religious males who are devoting their lives to the study of Torah and related writings, choosing a Prime Minister who would be capable of developing a more friendly and agreeable relations with United States President Obama avoiding the antagonism apparent between Netanyahu and Obama, and all the rest of the subjects that have been the center of recent Israeli elections. But my real curiosity tends towards the interesting and sometimes troubling history of current Prime Minister Netanyahu and the surprise of the election, Naftali Bennett and the Jewish Home Party, who has watched over the rise of the party which seemingly simply grew stronger the more criticisms they received from the rest of the other parties in the election.

The question that will be on the mind of what appears to be a relatively significant sector of the Zionist nationalist will be choosing between the known package of Likud and the reelection of Prime Minister Netanyahu or taking a chance on an unknown with Jewish Home Party leader, Naftali Bennett. Other than the diehard, leftist, post-Zionist, mostly secular voters who could never vote for anyone other than the Labor Party, the Arabists and pro-Palestinians who will support the Arabist parties, the Haredi who are religiously locked to vote for Shas, and the really hardcore leftist who will support Meretz, the majority will be deciding the election between Netanyahu and Bennett. What makes this even more interesting is that Netanyahu could have easily avoided the entire drama by simply making an offer to Naftali Bennett to publically state that their respective parties would form the core of a coalition of pre-Zionist nationalist government. Instead, Likud, most likely under the directions of Netanyahu, attacked Bennett directly as well as the Jewish Home Party. This has likely been one of the main motivating factors in driving some voters from supporting Likud to support Jewish Home. But what has been even more interesting is that there also appears to have been voters leaving Tzipi Livni’s party and Yair Lapid’s party as well as the most surprising, defections from the Labor Party who have also gone over to Jewish Home. Another oddity which has sent some looking for an alternative to Likud and Netanyahu in Bennett has been announcements even by members of the Likud Party that Bibi Netanyahu will seek to form a coalition, any coalition, as long as it does not include Naftali Bennett and the Jewish Home Party. Along with these statements have been others, some even by Netanyahu, which have declared that he is seeking to form a balanced coalition, or even a unity coalition, with as many parties from all views so he will have room to make decisions which would be seen as unfavorable to the nationalists in order to reach the goals he feels are achievable. This has made a number of nationalists nervous about whether or not Netanyahu can be trusted or are the suspicions that he might be ready to execute another disengagement similar to what happened when Prime Minister Sharon left Likud and formed Kadima in order to disengage from Gaza, this time in Judea and Samaria, possible valid. If this is what Prime Minister Netanyahu does after winning the election, it may be a very long time before anybody trusts Likud again and they will simply become another post-Zionist party. The fears that this is the Likud plan could push a change in votes that will be far more drastic than the polls have shown and could lead to Jewish Home and Bennett forming the next government. Such an eventuality is highly unlikely but still has a remote chance. Everything could turn simply by Prime Minister Netanyahu making one misstep and removing all doubt by stating he is ready to make painful sacrifices in order to reach a peace with Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinians. So, all we can do now is make our choices, vote on Tuesday, and wait to see the results.

Beyond the Cusp