After Bennett won the leadership of his party, I wrote to him and suggested that: “Lowering the cost of housing should be your central plank. This issue is connected to strengthening the Jewish majority in Jerusalem and also to annexing Area C. Likud is not doing enough. You could upstage them.” He wrote back to thank me. Ted Belman
By DAVID HOROVITZ, TOI, December 20, 2012,
With a month to go before Israel’s elections, Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to merge his Likud party list with Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu is looking wiser by the day — because the Jewish Home party, once a marginal player to the Likud’s right, is getting stronger by the day.
It was always clear that Liberman had much to gain from the merger with Netanyahu: His position as No. 2 on the joint list marked him as heir apparent, smoothing the path to his long-term goal of becoming prime minister. Now that he is about to be indicted, the alliance means Yisrael Beytenu will not be facing the electorate alone with a lame-duck leader who can’t be a minister for a while, but rather is contentedly subsumed in a partnership with its Likud big brother.
But it was not always obvious why Netanyahu had opted for the merged list, since bringing the purportedly pork-eating Russians of Yisrael Beytenu into the fold alienated some of the Likud’s traditional religious voters, and Liberman’s elevation infuriated the numerous senior Likud ministers who like to think of themselves as prime ministers in waiting.
This week’s polls, though, underline why Netanyahu agreed to the deal. The joint Likud-Beytenu list is now seen getting only about 36 seats — down six from the 42 seats the two parties held (Likud 27; Yisrael Beytenu 15) in the outgoing Knesset, and a far cry from the ballyhooed talk of 45-50 seats they once anticipated winning together in January.
And where are all those lost votes going? Not across the political spectrum to the center-left — a shift that would have threatened Netanyahu’s victory chances — but further to the right, to Naftali Bennett’s resurgent Jewish Home.
On Wednesday and Thursday, Channel 2 and Israel Radio published polls showing the Jewish Home heading for 12 and 11 seats respectively — a dramatic rise by Israeli political standards. In the outgoing parliament, the Jewish Home held just three seats. It has since merged with the National Union, which held 4 seats in the last Knesset. But 11 or 12 seats from 7 is still quite a jump, and the momentum seems to be firmly with Bennett for a possible further rise in the weeks before polling day.
Strikingly, the Channel 2 poll claimed that two-thirds of Jewish Home voters are aged 40 or under, and a significant proportion are under 30; this is now the young Israeli hardliners’ party, the refuge for those who mistrust both Palestinian professions of seeking peace and Netanyahu’s commitment to settlement.
Bennett, the 40-year-old Haifa-born child of US immigrants who made a fortune selling his Internet security firm, only won the party leadership six weeks ago, but his impact has been striking. A graduate of the IDF’s most elite commando unit, Sayeret Matkal, Bennett worked for two years as chief of staff to Netanyahu (another former member of the unit), and is thus particularly well placed to identify and exploit the prime minister’s perceived weaknesses. In an interview with a Hebrew website on Wednesday, he charged that the policy of Netanyahu’s government on settlements and the Palestinians is “schizophrenic” — by which he apparently meant that the prime minister talks a lot about major expansion of building beyond the Green Line, while also insisting he wants to move forward with the Palestinians, positions that manage to annoy the international community, the Palestinians, the settlers and just about everybody else in between.
For Bennett, the feisty political challenger who can afford to speak his mind without worrying — as Netanyahu must — about international fallout, there is no room or need for such attempts at finesse. His party is flatly committed to annexing Area C of the West Bank — the 60 percent of the territory where Israel still maintains full control — and never mind the consequent regional furor, international anger, Palestinian outrage, and likely rupture with Israel’s vital US ally.
Bennett had no hesitation in declaring on Wednesday, “We should say out loud: There will be no Palestinian state.” Those are words Netanyahu simply can’t and won’t utter anymore, and they are sweet music to the ears of the right.
Likud party members last month chose a strikingly hard-line Knesset slate. They put Danny Danon, the ultra-populist Miri Regev — derided in Hebrew media this week for a performance before high-school students in which she seemed to lose control not only of her rhetoric but also of her basic Hebrew — and Moshe Feiglin into their top 15. The Likud’s campaign slogan is apparently going to be “A strong prime minister; a strong Israel.” And Netanyahu and his ministers have been veering rhetorically right with gusto in the past few days — with a stream of new approvals for building in Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem and promises to build in the E1 corridor between the capital and Ma’aleh Adumim. Minister Yisrael Katz was on Israel Radio Thursday afternoon calling Tzipi Livni an anti-Semite for ostensibly opposing expansion of the Ramat Shlomo ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in East Jerusalem — a critique to which Livni responded by noting she had refused to so much as discuss Jerusalem when she was foreign minister negotiating with the Palestinians four years ago.
But for many on the Israeli right, the talk simply doesn’t work anymore. Netanyahu has a track record of doing less than promised to expand settlements — he even froze all building, under US pressure, for 10 months in 2009-2010 — and Bennett’s Jewish Home carries no such disappointing baggage.
It’s rather ironic: the international community is bitterly ramping up its criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu the builder of settlements — Security Council condemnations, Europeancastigations, American criticisms, et al. But Benjamin Netanyahu the non-builder of settlements is hemorrhaging support to the party on his right.
In the big picture, the trend isn’t yet destructive for Netanyahu. Votes are shifting around between Labor (17-19 seats in most polls), Livni’s Hatnua (about 9) and Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid (7-11) on the center left, but Netanyahu’s right-wing/ultra-Orthodox coalition bloc is still heading for a healthy 65 or more seats in the 120-member Knesset.
Yet if Netanyahu hadn’t allied with Liberman, the Likud might barely be the biggest party in the polls right now. And Netanyahu would really be feeling the heat.
As it is, he must be increasingly worried by the threat posed by Bennett. And polling day is still a month away.
@ yamit82:
Finished watching the short clip re zvika greengold…and have a huge smile on my face.
I was thinking about him while I was watching the previous two and was saying to myself, if there has ever been a miracle in battle, the incredible story of the ‘Zvika brigade’ is surely one, and now , you just sent me a clip on the very subject.
@ yamit82:
Thank you yamit,
Couldn’t agree with you more.
You should see/hear some of my family&friends gatherings….
I do persevere and am thinking of rabbi Akita @40 y.o. Seeing how drops of water have changed a rock….and figure I SHOULD be able to get through to some of these…..
I admit that when I do run out of patience, I thank God for the joy that my four cats bring me….
How are yours, doing?
🙂
@ the phoenix:
I don’t care about all that stuff; you are a good Jew and that’s good enough for me.
I am of the opinion even strong opinion though that for a good Jew to defend his people they should be at least knowledgeable about the people and the subject they are defending.
@ Shlomo HaCohen:
No it isn’t.
@ Yuri Feldman:
Everything is personal and whether it is or isn’t necessary, I think it was.
Define evil and I will let you know if I agree to being evil or not. That will determine the truth of the matter. C.R. believes we are all dirty Marxists. He is Marxist-phobic. Sees them everywhere under his bed, hiding in his closets, cupboards etc. According to C.R Marxists and the Devil are synonymous. All Jews are evil Marxists, followers of Satan, Lucifer or THE DEVIL. So let’s do have a personal discussion on evil Jews.
@ David Shapiro:
I concede belligerent but often wrong and misguided? Hardly, but if you can show examples I might be convinced. Not nice to make such comments without accompanying them with examples.
Sans those examples you are being belligerent without foundation. Which is it?@
@ yamit82:
dear yamit,
thank you for the links. i watched the first two and will go back for the third later during the day.
i would like to take this oportunity to perhaps clarify a concept i was trying to relay to you awhile back.
i, have grown in a secular house. my late father was relating how once he went to say kadish for his father (as a jew, he knew that was the right thing to do, even though he was not too familiar with the *actual rituals*)
he was practically kicked out of the sepharadi synagogue on whose doors he (as a ‘oleh hadash’) knocked…for he was very obviously not ‘one of them’…(in his naive way he knew he was a jew, point!)
i am only bringing this little annecdote to ilustrate the ‘background’…which we do not chose.
i feel exactly like the description you have provided c.r. :
“There are very few Israeli Jews I would categorize as godless. Almost 90% of Israeli Jews believe in the G-d of Israel. That does not mean they live their lives accordingly or are observant Jews but that’s a far cry from being godless.”
i do believe in god. the god of israel. i love the country, its rich glorious past and the rapidly evolving present. but i am not an observant jew and to try to ‘become’ one now, (pushing 60… ) would be akin to “hayahafoch kushi oroh v’namer havarburotav”…
my very best to you and yours
@ C.R.:
How and where is my view of Jewish history flawed?
I know and you have even said as much. Papa god, Junior god and Casper the friendly ghost. That ain’t no Jewish deity. Our Jewish G-d is not
yours. Your beliefs are not ours and I just want to make that point clear. You may believe what ever you choose but you are not allowed to distort what we believe and to graft your beliefs into ours.
There are very few Israeli Jews I would categorize as godless. Almost 90% of Israeli Jews believe in the G-d of Israel. That does not mean they live their lives accordingly or are observant Jews but that’s a far cry from being godless. As I have said before it’s not your call to determine for us our goodness and how Jewish any of us are. Take care of your own co-coreligionists before you offer your criticism of us.
But I do understand and you are wrong.
@ the phoenix:
I resigned from the Likud and its Central Committee about a year ago as I become aware of the true Netanyahu’s plans. I remain in contact with several trusted CC likudniks.
Their internal polls are ven worse than those published by the media and there are growls against Netanyhu growing by the day.
I expect fabricated polls to start being produced to try to stop the nosedive.
They are at 32 right now. If they hit 30 we may start hearing drumbeats…
@ the phoenix:
True story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZPMAL8bzi0
@ the phoenix:
Miracles happen here every day.
Huge Angels Seen during Israel’s War of Independence
What’s wrong with my perspective? Leaders Natanyahu and Barak are more than holding their own.
Archeologists say they have found King David’s tomb. It’s located at the southern tip of the City of David and not on Mount Zion. Biblical Archaeology magazine recently published an article and photographs about it. Tomb robbers from who knows how long ago cleaned it out. Then the recent issue of Bible Archaeology magazine has an article on the so called centuries old Tomb of the Pharaoh’s Daughter in Silwan with photos of Silwan from the 1850s with only a few buidings including the above mentioned tomb. I googled to find more photos of Silwan and the result has amazed me!
The history of Silwan states that in the 1870s Yemenite Jews arrived in the Holy Land, not as part of any big resettlement but on their own because of their love of Zion. (They were a tall people, check out the photos.) It was these Jews who began building their homes on the craggy rocks of Silwan. In 1938 the British advised them to vacate these homes for safety reasons, and when Jordan ruled Jerusalem for a short period of time, it gave Silwan to the Arabs. Well, well, well, just another example of Arabs taking over Holy land.
When Israel beat back Jordan in 1967 and retook the land, the Arabs were allowed to stay in Silwan. I’m guessing here, that Arab occupation is no more than 60-70 years, true? Why haven’t Arabs been asked to pay reparations to the Yemenite Jews?
Regardless of who lives there now, these people will have to be relocated because Silwan should become part of the Archaeological Park. There are Jewish and Christian tombs located under those homes. Are the Yemenite Jews still a presence in Jerusalem?
I hope we don’t have to hear any Arab bibble-babble about this. The photos come from the U.S. Library of Congress. The Western powers can begin making plans to relocate them because they are atop an ancient Jewish/Christian cemetery.
@ yamit82:
You have unnecessarily personalized this, unless you have realized you are evil and don’t like being told the truth.
@ catarin:
This is the problem, your perspective is wrong.
From my perspective (a nonJew) the Israeli leaders Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Barak have done an admirable job in leading Israel. Both veterans of Israel’s many wars, they above all know what must be done to make Israel secure and keep her secure.
Who says they’re not religious? I know Mr. Netanyahu’s son garnered an award for his knowledge of the Torah. His house does not sound like a G-dless house to me. The most religious men may not be qualified to function on the world stage, especially when others (the EU, UN, U.S.) think they know what’s better for Israel than the Jews. They don’t understand their machinations will not bring peace between Jews and Arabs.
@ C.R.:
This is correct!
Well said, Yamit is a belligerent and often wrong and misguided individual.
@ yamit82:
Being so ignorant and arrogant–you are in no position to lecture me on Jewish history–in addition your view of Jewish history is flawed at best.
Yamit–you do not know who my God is–as my God is the God of the Tanakh and Torah–you are correct Yamit, your god is not my God!
What I wrote is very true–the immoral, incompetent and Godless Israeli leaders come directly from the Jewish people; the Israeli leadership is a direct reflection of the majority of the people from which they come!
Yamit, your inability to understand this reality–does not make me wrong.
@ C.R.:
C.R. Said:
Look you moron, are you calling me Evil?
Is your reference to our G-d or yours? They are not the same.
Appears our G-d is still directing our show and yours has gone missing for the last 2000 years. Before you condemn us look first to yourselves and your own deity, wherever he may have fled to.
catarin Said:
yup! spot on! exactly so.. and obama is the greatest friend israel has ever had…
no QUESTION about it…
I think Netanyahu knows exactly what he’s doing regarding regarding settlement building. An opportunity presents itself, he works it into future plans.
More Jewish home party campaign clips
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inHa61hhhpo&playnext=1&list=PLXp-O4chGJdrM4VJAKaL0QJt9moz0B0UP&feature=results_video
Jewish home party campaign clips
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiWvN-Jr_Js
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=CWeqtKMrSgs&NR=1
@ Shy Guy:
Poll Predicts Bayit Yehudi Will be Third Largest Party If elections were held today,
Naftali Bennett’s party will win 12 seats and be the Knesset’s third largest party, finds Channel 2 poll.
By Elad Benari INN
If elections were held today, the Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) party will be the third largest party in the Knesset, a Channel 2 News poll released Tuesday evening finds.
According to the poll, which was conducted by Dr. Mina Tzemach, the Jewish Home gains strength at the expense of the Likud Beytenu, and the nationalist bloc maintains its strength despite Tzipi Livni having joined the race as the head of a new party.
The poll found that the Likud Beytenu will be the largest party with 35 seats, followed by Labor with 19. The Jewish Home will achieve 12 seats and will be followed by Shas with 11. Tzipi Livni’s party, Hatenua, will achieve 10 seats and Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid (Future) receives nine. Meretz maintains its current number of three seats, while Rabbi Haim Amsallem’s Am Shalem and Otzma LeYisrael, headed by Aryeh Eldad and Michael Ben-Ari, will only achieve two seats. Shaul Mofaz’s Kadima is not on the list at all.
Naftali Bennett, who heads the Jewish Home, has been steadily gaining strength in the polls, at the expense of the Likud Beytenu and Shas, which has decided to launch a campaign directly attacking Bennett and his party.
Netanyahu is reportedly concerned about Bennett’s strength as well. A source in the government hinted last week that Netanyahu’s recent decisions to expand Jewish construction in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem were meant to take away votes from Bennett and were not a response to the Palestinian Authority’s unilateral move at the United Nations.
Tuesday’s poll also found that Bennett has managed to breathe new life into the party and that most of its voters are below the age of 40, with many even below the age of 30.
Unless something happens the party could rise to 15-16 mandates. To stop BB the Likud needs to have less than 30. In my opinion Nennett should go after Shas voters, the less they have the stronger the power of the right. I believe Eldad and BenAri’s party is inder polled they can get up to 4 mandates.
BB is a poll junkie and is wedded to them. My take is that his internal polling gives him and the likud an even bleaker picture than most of the commercial polling represents. After 7 years of BB as PM, I can’t imagine anyone buying his empty populous building announcements. BB is a known quantity and not much good can be said of his 7 years as PM.
BB is the enemy of the settlement movement.
BB is the enemy of the shrinking Israeli middle class.
BB is the enemy of the poor.
BB is the enemy of Judaism.
BB is the enemy of the Zionist ethos.. either the secular one… or the religious one.
BB is the enemy of the Land of Israel including Jerusalem.
BB is the enemy of the Jews.
Support for BB is the equivalent of ‘Mistaking Spit For Rain’.
@ Shmuel HaLevi:
I sure hope so shmuel,
It is so disheartening to see a bullshiter par excellence have people hypnotized by the red marker, as he is KNOWINGLY navigating the ship of Israel full steam ahead straight to the rocks.
I hope and pray, that now, with only a few minutes left before midnight, there will be a coalition of all the nationalists and a major exodus away from the Likud headed by feiglin…
Wishful thinking?
Miracles DID happen in the past as well, didn’t they?
🙂
It is the Jewish people themselves who are their biggest enemy and always have been–the evil and incompetent Israeli government is the same as the people it comes from. Jewish Israeli’s cannot take back the government they never had–until they return to the God they have abandoned. Genocidal mass murder of the unborn and homosexual day parades in the streets of Yerushalayim are proof of what Jewish Israel is in large measure–if this were not so–then they would rise up and get rid of these evils.
I am baffled by all of this especially since I truly don’t understand the workings of the Israeli government.
Having said that, I am beginning to believe the Israelis have not only the crazy arabs and anti-Semites of the world to contend with but their own leadership is becoming their enemy as well.
Time for all Israelis to stand up and take back their government.
Begin by removing the rock throwing knuckleheads from the Temple area.
Return to G-d’s Temple and pray, thanking G-d for returning you to the land He so provide for you to dwell.
Form a government that will be on the same page and start reclaiming the Holy Land rightfully yours.
Don’t pay attention to those who do not support you.
As Joe Paterno once said, take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves.
(By the way – While a student at Brown University, a Jewish student wanted to join a fraternity and was black balled by someone. Paterno put a plan in action. Knowing the person who put the black ball in the box would never admit to it he declared it was he and he had changed his mind and the Jewish student was accepted and became the first Jew to be admitted to the frat)
And if you really want to know why Joe was falsely accused in the Sandusky crime see http://www.notpsu.blogspot.com
PS, Please no Moderation Review
True. Then again Netanyahu is part of the left wing unJewish crowd, but he or his handlers carefully crafted a thin veneer cover to disguise that. It is time to peel the false cover off.
Netanyahu is losing at least one seat a week and his “unified” list with Lieberman may not hold if Lieberman sees his lot harmed by Netanyahu’s sinking. They had 42 mandates, 27 likud, 15 Israel Beitenu before the “union”, now they are dowm to 35 and the slope is negative.
I bet that Weinstein is “re investicating” Lieberman to prevent him from bolting the “union”.
That would send Netanyahu into a tail spin from which he may not come out.
@ Shy Guy:
Shmuel HaLevi Said:
Or they could lead Netanyahu to form a coalition with even bigger and better leftwing parties.
This is not to blame Bennet. Netanyahu is fully responsible for the never-ending damage he is doing to Israel.
Mr. Bennett is hitting hard, yesterday with his precisely timed position that he would not accept orders to expel Jews. That nut cracker stun hit caused a stupid, hysterical, self defeating reaction of the Netanyahu marionettes descrying “refusing orders” to attack Jews as a crime. Netanyahu is losing steam at great pace and has fully exposed his aggregate for what they are and plan. MEGA DISENGAGEMENT. NO CONSTRUCTON but destruction.
Kol Hakavod to Mr. Bennett.
Mr. Bennet and other Jewish parties could well finally puncture the false front of the red marker expert charlatan.
Bennett’s proposal to create a buffer zone between Egypt and Gaza only makes sense. Anyone who considers the constant warfare coming from Gaza must realize that all measures must be taken to prevent the influx of arms, both over (and under) the border with Egypt and by sea. After forming the buffer zone and strengthening the blockade, the zone must be occupied and rigidly enforced to keep out the armaments and infiltration of more enemies to Israel’s security.
@ Bernard Ross:
BB and Livni are both enemies of Israel and of the Jewish people–as they have repeatedly and are siding with the murdering Arab enemy.
There needs to be unrestricted Jewish settlement of Israel–everywhere in Israel–this is the way it should have been from the beginning and if it had been there would be far fewer problems today!
yamit82 Said:
If it keeps Moshe Feiglin and Natftali Bennett out of the government, why not? Netanyahu’s support for the two state solution screws his enemies over. His current announcements on Jerusalem construction are a charm offensive to limit his loss of votes on the right. No one expects building in Jerusalem and Messaveret Adumim to begin for years, if ever. His interest is not in the Land Of Israel but in staying in power. And no one sees him as another Shamir. He will do what is best for him. He may shift course if the political winds blow against him.
@ Ted Belman:
National unity government are formed around national emergencies or in Israels experience political expediency and desire to remain in power over all else. Assuming BB and the Likud exit the elections as the largest minority party, BB would need the recommendation of the right in order to form a coalition. This time he might not get it unless there are iron clad guarantees given and accepted.
The makeup of the Likud puts the question: if those with serious nationalistic views will accept forming a government with the left at their own expense, when supportive right wing parties are kept out.
Members of the likud would be shut out of key ministerial appointments for what? So BB could more easily govern from the center and move to a 2 state solution?
Not so sure this time around the stars will be aligned in BB’s favor
Netanyahu wants to govern as a centrist. If he has it his way, he’d take in Labor, Yesh Atid and Hatnuah into his coalition over Shas and Yehudi Habayit.
And none of those parties have ruled out a coalition with the Likud. I’d bet on Netanyahu forming another center-left “national unity” government after the elections next month.
@ Bernard Ross:
You are correct.
I could be wrong, but it appears to me that BB is closer on the land issue to Livni than to Bennet. That he might form closer to the center than with the right. It appears to me that BB, lieberman and Livni do not desire much of area C.