Beyond the Cusp

May 30, 2016

And You Blame Israeli Governance

 

Israel recently made a few adjustments incorporating Yisrael Beitenu into the ruling coalition permitting a more stable government, as the former coalition stood on the whims of as small as a single Minister changing sides. There was the assigning of a pair of Ministerial special assignments one of which granted the Defense Minister position to Avigdor Lieberman replacing Moshe Ya’alon who had been somewhat of a disappointment and had fomented mistrust of the leadership in the governing coalition and there were rumblings in Washington DC. There were the echoes of the whining made by the opposition here in Israel in the halls of the White House. We understand that you wish to destroy the Israeli Prime Minister simply because Bibi Netanyahu had the guts to oppose your gifting nuclear weapons to Iran, a regime which regularly threatens to wipe our nation from the map. Further, there are those in Iran who wish to remove the Jewish presence from the annals of history by murdering every last Jew on the planet, including Bernie Sanders, even with his opposition to anything Israel, that would not save him. These threats from Iran would also include your friends and anti-Zionist allies J-Street and a great number of donors to Democrat Party coffers every election cycle. You slander Minister Lieberman with claims that he is an extreme right wing crazy who only desires war when he has screamed for the opportunity to make peace at any reasonable cost. Then again, you continue to fund Hamas which also calls for the murder of every last Jewish man, woman and child on the planet, not just those in Israel. You back Mahmoud Abbas as our partner for peace despite his refusing your every request for him to take a meaningless step of just saying that Israel is the State for the Jews or give any other signal that there was even a crack of light shining through the door proving that peace was possible. Abbas all but spelled it out for you that the only deal he will accept is for all of Israel to disappear and the Jews dead. But you claim regularly as does the highest people working in the Department of State that Israel is the source of all the problems in the Middle East, Asia and Africa and that they are not sure but also in Europe and the Americas. About the only accusation which has not been leveled against Israel is that we are waging a war or causing one against the Emperors in Antarctica as if these Emperors are all penguins.

 

Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton vs Donald Trump What a Choice This Will be for the American People

Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton vs Donald Trump
What a Choice This Will be for the American People

 

We understand President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry that you hold a great amount of animus towards Israel and even though nobody in our government would be so bold, we can demand that you end your maneuvering against the ruling coalition in Israel. We do not call for your replacement and never, despite your wild accusations and claims, did we even endorse candidates running against you when you ran for President in 2008 or when you ran for reelection in 2012 like so many including those in your Cabinet and advisors in the White House and even alluded to by you yourself. Israel, unlike the United Stated where the Democrat Party has regularly provided entire campaign specialists, companies and organizers to run the campaigns of the opposition to the current government as you did with the entire Presidential campaign specialists V-2015 headed by Jeremy Bird, the man responsible for your reelection campaign’s success. They were to assemble a door to door grassroots campaign mirroring your campaign success here in Israel and denying Netanyahu any hope for victory. Politics in Israel do not fit well with deceitful practices and your meddling may have actually assisted Netanyahu by giving many a reason to vote against outside meddling in Israeli affairs. But we are used to such as Bill Clinton dispatched James Carville and company to run another campaign which got Netanyahu defeated, a similar move to what you were attempting. Despite your campaign pointing that Israel was working to defeat you, Bibi did not even state a preference for you or Mr. Romney in the last election.

 

One last item we can bring up even if those sitting in the ruling coalition are too polite to mention, please just give your anti-Zionism and anti-Israelism a rest as you will be out of office soon and you do not even have the support of Congress when you try to act against Israel. There are likely officers throughout the United States military that if ordered to wage an attack on Israel would simply retire their commission and probably any number of troops who would face prosecution under General Courts Martial or at least an Article 15 for refusal to obey a lawful order rather than fire a single round at an IDF soldier. Do not feel dismayed when these would become verified by the members of your Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Pentagon as we have the same types of soldiers here who would never raise a weapon against the United States. Actually, if you ever wished to make a documentary on Israeli views of the United States you would find that the United States is loved here in Israel. The average Israeli believes the United States is the cream of the crop and Israel’s greatest ally, even after all you have done we still feel that way. When your name is brought up many will claim that anything you did denouncing or working against Israel must have had a great reason but that we were not privileged enough to have all the information. Then there are some who are not wearing blinders and know you, Mr. President and soon to be citizen Obama, for exactly what and who you are and know that you hold a special place for Israel in your heart and that is as long as that heart beats you will back anything which would destroy Israel. We know that there are many in the State Department and Foreign Service who would go to any length to hurt or cripple Israel. We know that when you or Secretary Kerry discusses Israel it is with the intended goal of its demise by any means. This may have, in part, made your granting Iran a path to nuclear weaponry, as long as they wait for six months after you leave office to announce their first test, with the intent on using them to destroy Israel. We understand and will celebrate your leaving office and know that even Hillary Clinton cannot do as much to damage the special relationship between the Israeli and American publics.

 

As far as your Democrat Party and the fact that compared to the Republican Party the Democrats are the enemies of Israel, the majority of Jews are leftists liberals first and Jewish somewhere further down the line and totally unsupportive of Israel in a large part. We remember at the last Presidential Democratic Convention that they voted down a motion to include friendship with Israel and that Jerusalem be her Capital City or the mention of Hashem, though you were going to use a more Christian name, in the Democrat Party Platform and it was only included because the chair declared the motion passed despite the obvious refusal by the floor. The proof is below for anybody to hear and bear witness with the video below makes obvious. We understand the soft spot you hold in your heart for Islam made obvious by your reference that the Muslim evening call to prayer as the prettiest sound you have ever heard and that much of that stems from your childhood in the Far East and your earliest education in a Muslim Madrassa. We understand your solid opposition to almost anything Israel which was also framed well by your relations over a twenty year span with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and your friendship with the Minister Farrakhan and too numerous a list of your personal advisors and friendships. We even understand your otherworldly view of the United States and the evils performed by Western Colonialism and that you view Islamic colonialism as simply the natural order of the world and ignore the almost fifteen centuries of Muslim expansionism and colonialism as they have conquered and held much of the Middle East and across all of North Africa and are now making threats and moves to take over Europe by infiltration and use of their democratic governance to simply populate them out of existence. We understand there are leftists who back this Islamic takeover and that they are fools who believe that they will share power with the Islamic influences. They are as deadly wrong as any in the past who has had similar delusions. We also know that it will be up to the individual European citizen to awaken and save their continent or they will go the way of the Dodo bird.

 

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There may be little that Israel can do as long as we are so opposed and maligned by the President sitting in the White House and many here recognize that should the next election produce a President Hillary that we in Israel will be facing four more years of your foreign policy regarding Israel. We understand that Bernie Sanders’s first appointment to the Platform committee on his way to providing the five people he has been allotted was James Zogby, a recognized, open, adamant and ferocious pro-Palestinian, pro-Islam and Israel hating individual who has called for the destruction of Israel. We understand that the Democrat Party which for so long has supported Israel is drifting away from that point and is soon going to completely go over to the other side. Despite this, there will be legions of leftist American Jews for whom Israel is more an annoyance than an issue for their support and that is their right and choice. What we also realize is that the Republican Party will continue on as the friend of Israel and that a large portion of their Christian supporters are also the best friends Israel could hope to have. Their advocacy has outshone many leftist Jewish organizations in supporting Israel. There are still some here in Israel who treat these Christians with some trepidation as they suspect that they have ideas of converting Jews to Christianity, let that be as it may. We should also know that the average Israeli is strong enough in our faith that such is not a real threat and for those who fear such apparently need to have a little more faith and confidence in their fellow Jews to stay the course as we have for close to three thousand years. After all, there may not be quite as many Jews as we have averaged throughout our history but we are still here as a testament to the love and power of Hashem and know that any apparent difficulty allowed to befall us was likely deserved as the Prophets had foretold of every single calamity and even our eventual return here to our ancestral lands a final time, and we are here to build a future that is the blessing of Hashem and we will tend Hashem’s garden here in Israel as we are meant to do. Our faith and Torah are all we need to survive even the worst possible events in America and hope that our mutual friendship will remain a central theme in both of our societies. That would please the vast majority of Israelis greatly and their desires in this area could prove to be a blessing for both nations and both peoples. We wish America well and will also watch, not meddle but watch the American elections this fall with great amounts of hopes and fears just as so many others around the world. The interesting thing is the Israeli society is split amongst the candidates and much of the discussions here are identical to those being carried in the United States. This can be proven by simply reading the English versions of Israeli media and very quickly such becomes evident which is another reason why the two nations were made to be allies. The last bit of interest is that the Founding Fathers of America admittedly used portions of Torah when crafting the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution including the limiting the power of a President such that they serve the people over other interests. May that become the watchword for the next administration as that too would serve both peoples and nations well.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

November 11, 2012

Radical Differences for Combined Knesset Tickets

A phenomenon almost as rare as the fifty year jubilee has seemingly been set in motion in Israel. The first rumors came from the religious Zionist camps where both the Ichud Leumi (National Union) Party and the Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) Party have been testing the idea of merging their tickets seeking added seats in the upcoming Knesset elections. This was soon followed with the revelation that the current front running party, Likud, announced their intent to run a combined right wing parties combined ticket with Yisrael Beitenu which will offer up the combination of Benyamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister and Avigdor Lieberman claiming one of the major Ministries with rumor suggesting he will seek to be Defense Minister. After these announcements there has been rumors and hints of rumors of a merger of all the “center left parties” offering Ehud Olmert or Tzipi Livni or even one where it was rumored that Tzipi Livni offered to be the number two on a ticket if current Israeli President Peres would step down and agree to head such a combined ticket. President Peres laid this rumor to bed very quickly. Some of the wisps of rumors around this seemingly desperate search for an answer to the Likud- Yisrael Beitenu ticket have mentioned Yair Lapid as a possible head and his Yesh Atid (Future) Party leading such a ticket. Then there have been the truly desperate pleadings from Shaul Mofaz hoping to get Kadima included in the list of parties joining this everyone against Netanyahu and Lieberman ticket as otherwise he and Kadima may very well not even attain sufficient support to be included in the next Knesset. This same predicament also haunts Ehud Barak and his Atzmaut (Independence) Party which he formed when he split off from the Labor Party. What are most interesting are the reasons behind these political maneuverings and the very emotional outbursts that have exploded from some of those seeking one of the merged tickets in particular.

 

The merger of the tickets by the Likud and Yisrael Beitenu had a straight forward and simple reasoning, they announced that they seek to offer a united right of center, pro-Zionist ticket which could, if the elections produce their expected results, offer the Israeli public a stable coalition which could take definitive actions which the current coalition has found to be problematic at best. They hoped to be able to join with a few other parties and because of the strength resultant from their combined list for the Knesset have sufficient strength to offer stability in the government that presents a straight forward set of objectives that would take advantage of the power garnering the increased seats in the Knesset would offer.

 

The combining of their lists by Ichud Leumi and the Habayit Hayehudi Parties, the first to initiate the idea though the second to actually accomplish a merger, stated their reasoning plainly, they would garner anywhere from two to four or possibly more additional seats than if the two parties ran separate tickets. After the merger announced by Netanyahu and Lieberman, these two religious Zionist parties said that they saw advantage for their representation from the merging of Likud with Yisrael Beitenu. They felt that with the inclusion of the mostly secularist Yisrael Beitenu Party joining with Likud which contains a faction which is religious and that this merger could be used to persuade some of these Likud members to vote for the religious Zionist ticket rather than vote for the Likud-Yisrael Beitenu ticket. This will remain to be seen and there is a good likelihood that they would possibly see an extra two, maybe three, seats in the Knesset. The difference if the extra seats did come from the more religious faction of Likud would not make such a great difference as these two tickets are very likely to be joined in the ruling coalition in the Knesset. There are many who would very much like to see a coalition consisting of these two combined tickets and not needing any other parties to clear the sixty-one seat requirement for a ruling coalition, though sixty-five or greater would be preferable.

 

The center left coalition is completely imaginary at this time. Despite all the noise and predictions of great victories that such a combined ticket would produce, no concrete plans or even cotton-candy offers have yet surfaced. There have been several names offered up as being the savior who simply by heading the ticket would produce a lock on controlling the next Knesset and preventing Prime Minister Netanyahu from retaining his position. Logic would predict that Shelly Yacimovich as the leader of the Labor Party, the strongest of the center left parties, would be the choice to head this coalition yet she has been most remarkable by the absence of her mention. Instead we have heard such things as Tzipi Livni returning to lead or be the number two on the ticket behind Ehud Olmert or Shimon Peres at the top of the ticket. The actual and very real problem in forming such a coalition is that the parties which would have to make a combined stand have almost nothing in common beyond their visceral hatred of Netanyahu and Lieberman.

 

Much of the talk around the forming of a center left ticket has been all about preventing the fanatical right-wing, Zionist, pro-settlement, war-mongering, lunatics who simply want to bomb Iran, start a war with the entire Middle East, refuse to even negotiate with the Palestinians, and pick fights with the President of the United States, Barack Obama. In the few days since the reelection of President Obama by the voters in the United States, there has been almost fanatical screaming about how a Biberman Coalition, the name given to the Likud-Yisrael Beitenu combined ticket with an intent to make it sound all the more menacing though I find it almost too cute to do so, would destroy any semblance of normalcy in Israeli-American relations. There have been numerous claims made by Ehud Olmert and many liberal media sources such as Haaretz that Benyamin Netanyahu campaigned and endorsed Mitt Romney to such an extent as to very likely destroy any possibility of the Prime Minister even being able to hold a civil conversation with President Obama. This problem in and of itself is supposed to make the reelection of any coalition that would place Benyamin Netanyahu back as Prime Minister to be suicidal and therefore unthinkable for the Israeli public. These hyperventilated protestations of imminent doom are completely unfounded as Prime Minister Netanyahu did nothing of the sort and even when pushed to state a preference refused to entangle himself in the internal political issues of the United States. If the Prime Minister is guilty of anything, it was of receiving Mitt Romney with the respect one would show a candidate for the Presidency of the United States when Mitt Romney campaigned in Israel. He treated him exactly as he had done for Barack Obama when he visited Israel when he was the candidate in 2008. I am hoping that the center left parties do manage to knit together their dreamed joint ticket for the coming elections in Israel as I really want there to be no exclamations of if only we could have had our coalition the vote would have been different after the results are in. I want all the political views to have their best possible presentation to the people of Israel so that whichever group forms the next ruling coalition has the obvious strong majority support of the electorate. That is going to be necessary as decisions with tsunami-like repercussions and ramifications are going to need to be addressed by the next Israeli government. This is not just true of Israel, but is going to be true for many of the countries in the world as critical times and crucial choices are going to be made in the near future. Israel is one of the countries where their choices going forward are going to have a much larger potential impact than has been the case in the past.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

October 26, 2012

Israeli Political Merger May Benefit More than Netanyahu and Lieberman

Prime Minister Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Lieberman held a press conference this afternoon to announce that the Likud and Yisrael Beitenu will present a joint ticket in the upcoming Israeli elections scheduled for January. There have been numerous reactions, most have been rather predictable. Meretz Party, the Israeli communist style party, Minister of the Knesset Zehava Galon condemned the merger claiming that it was simply a unification of the forces of “fascism” within Israel. She was quoted as saying, “When each element is a separate party, there is a ‘balance of fear’ between them. Together, it gives the message that there is a bloc that will continue its incitement against the left and the Arabs. The fascism of Likud’s back benches is now taking center stage.” She labeled the possible government run by a coalition headed by the new merged parties “a Biberman government.” MK Zehava Galon concluded her statements by making a plea for all of Israel to unite and defeat the new party and permit her to lead a sane and reasoned leadership stating, “Likud has turned into a strategic threat to the democratic character of Israel and whoever wants to preserve this character must commit, right now, that he will not join the Biberman government.”

Not to be outdone, Labor Party leader, unofficial opposition leader, and Minister of the Knesset Shelly Yechimovich also had some opinions, or maybe they should be called prophesies of doom. In her interview on Channel 2 news, she declared, “I call upon all of the centrist forces on the Israeli political map to join the Labor party under my leadership, which is the only centrist party today, in order to prevent the Lieberman-Netanyahu party from ruling. I also call upon the numerous people who lost their political home today; Likud voters, moderate nationalists who see the government’s brutal economic policy; to join Labor.” MK Shelly Yechimovich concluded in her interview that she “cannot imagine” agreeing to be part of a coalition with such an “extreme right, racist” party.

The National Union Party had a far more muted reaction and simply gave a press release stating, “Likud has just delivered a divorce decree to its traditional and religious voters.” With predictions placing the new party likely to collect approximately fifty seats in the next election for the Knesset where sixty-one seats is the minimum required to form a coalition, unless the merged Likud and Yisrael Beitenu Parties manage significantly better results they will require other parties to join a coalition, and that may place them pretty much where the two parties are currently, depending on religious parties and/or special interest parties to make a coalition. Should the prediction that some of the more religiously oriented or more moderate members of Likud decide to run in another ticket, they may actually end up in a more dependent position than they currently enjoy or would have enjoyed had they simply left things as they currently sit and simply made an agreement between Netanyahu and Lieberman. It is far more likely that all of the current Ministers in the Knesset from each party will remain in the merged entity rather than risk receiving a sufficiently high placement on another party’s list. It will be a case of a bird in the hand beats two in the bush. Where the difference and any problems may arise will be in the voting as it is likely that some of the religious wing in Likud may bolt and vote for one of the religious parties. This means that the national religious parties could be the real beneficiaries of this merger. The real question that will be interesting is what does this do to the plans and all the work that has been invested in attempting to merge the national religious parties with the same idea of strengthening their possibilities through unity instead of competing for the same block of voters. Preliminary polling had shown they would garner between three and five additional seats in the Knesset. Should the national religious parties follow through with their combined list and gain the numbers predicted, it would present a possible coalition with only two parties, each one a merged union of allied former adversaries. And you thought the United States Presidential and Congressional Elections were full of intrigue, wild accusations, unpredictability, uncertainty and the possibility of a wild finish that may rival the 2000 drama between Al Gore and George W. Bush. Mind you, if the Israeli elections ended up in the Supreme Court the outcome would not necessarily reflect the voters as the Israeli Supreme Court has been full of surprises and at times has appeared to try to rule the country by overruling the Knesset, Prime Minister, and often even the will of the majority of Israelis.

Beyond the Cusp

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