Two Israeli politicians, Ayelet Shaked and Naftali Bennett, announced yesterday that they will leave the party they have led for the past six years and form a new party, called Hayamin Hehadash (The New Right).
Recent polls say Shaked, who is Justice Minister in the present Likud-led coalition, is by far the most popular minister (Hebrew link) in the government, while Bennett, the Education Minister, comes in second.
Shaked and Bennett were formerly members of PM Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, but joined with what was then called the National Religious Party to create the Beit Hayehudi (Jewish Home). The idea was to build a party that would appeal to both secular and religious Israelis on the right side of the spectrum: those who favor Jewish settlement in the territories, oppose a Palestinian state, and are hawkish on security issues.
They didn’t succeed. Although in 2013 Jewish Home got a respectable 12 seats in the Knesset, it dropped to only 8 in 2015. Bennett and Shaked did not succeed in broadening their base in the secular community, and it became clear that they would never have a chance to lead a government as representatives of a purely “religious” party. And as a small minority in Netanyahu’s government, they felt that they had little or no influence on its decisions.
Israeli coalition politics are more complicated than they may look, because a party has to get 3.25% of the vote in order to get into the Knesset at all (if they receive less, the votes may be distributed according to preexisting agreements, or they may simply be lost). There are always parties on the extreme right and left, as well as special-interest parties, which do not pass the threshold.
Ayelet Shaked has distinguished herself as Justice Minister, by working to reduce the extreme left-wing bias of the legal establishment, especially the Supreme Court. Israel does not have a constitution. It does have a series of Basic Laws, one of which deals with the judiciary system. However, the Basic Laws are broad, and interpreted according to legal precedent, often established by the Supreme Court; and I and many others believe the Court has taken for itself far more power than is healthy in a democracy. Naftali Bennett has been very critical of PM Netanyahu on security matters, calling for stronger measures against the rocket and arson attacks from Gaza. He also criticized the government’s failure to deal with the threat from Hamas’ cross-border tunnels prior to the 2014 war.
They will certainly draw votes from those who previously voted for Jewish Home, but their main source of support will have to be from Likud voters. There are some who simply dislike Netanyahu for various reasons but see no reasonable alternative. Some lean right, and would vote for a party to the right of the Likud, but have not wanted to vote for an explicitly religious party. Personally I like the idea of a party that is firmly right-wing on security matters and which can walk the sometimes fine line between respect for Jewish tradition and religious coercion.
Until now Netanyahu’s poll numbers have been solid, but he faces a concerted media and legal campaign against him. He is accused of corruption on four separate matters (which, in my opinion, are either picayune or politics as usual). The police and state prosecutor have recommended that he be indicted on three of them, and the decision is in the hands of Israel’s Attorney General, Avichai Mandelblit. Every time Netanyahu or his wife is interrogated by the police, the subject matter of the interrogation is leaked to the media, which gleefully reports it. There are demonstrations in front of the home of the Attorney General, calling on him to indict Netanyahu, and a demonstrator even followed Mandelblit to a synagogue where he was saying Kaddish for his mother.
The PM says that even if he is indicted, he will not resign, and that the law does not require him to. On the other hand, there is no doubt that if it happens, his opponents will challenge his right to keep his job in court. It is impossible to predict exactly what will happen, but the idea that somehow Netanyahu could be knocked out, leaving an opening for the Left to come in, is frightening for the majority of Israelis – who believe that the Left is not only incompetent but positively dangerous.
Some who are critical of the decision of Bennett and Shaked to start a new party raise the specter of 1992. In 1992, a very close election ended up with a coalition of the Left in power, after several small right-wing parties did not make the cut to enter the Knesset (at that time, the cutoff was 1.5% of the vote). Both the technical issue of the cutoff and the political problems caused by dissention on the Right led to Rabin’s left-wing coalition and the Oslo accords – a disaster from which the nation has yet to recover.
Netanyahu effectively used the fear of another 1992 to convince voters in the last election (2015) to vote for the Likud rather than Jewish Home, despite the fact that Bennett promised to support Netanyahu in coalition negotiations, and despite surplus vote sharing arrangements that keep votes for marginal parties from being lost. Regardless, a unified Right is more likely to succeed than a fragmented one, and I know several people who voted for Netanyahu while preferring Bennett in their hearts.
Where Bennett and Shaked’s new party could change the equation is if it can draw voters from the center – from parties like Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu, or the new centrist parties started by Orly Levy-Abekasis or former chiefs of staff Benny Gantz and Moshe Ya’alon.
The constellation of parties is still fluid, and I’m sure the pollsters are feverishly trying out all of the combinations. My dream is a strong coalition, firmly on the right on matters of security, but without the Haredi (“ultra-Orthodox”) parties. Although it is true that around 12% of Israelis identify as Haredim and certainly deserve a voice in governance, in my opinion the Haredi parties have proven to be excessively narrowly focused on immediate benefits for their constituents, and too ready to sacrifice the good of the nation for those interests. The recent struggle over national service for Haredim is an example.
But at this point nothing is certain, except that on April 9, I and my fellow citizens will go to the polling place (it’s an official holiday), show our national ID card, and place a pre-printed paper ballot in a box. Humans will count the ballots. There won’t be any chads, hanging or otherwise. And in 2015, about 76.1% of voting-age Israelis votedin national elections.
It could be better, but compared to the US, where turnout was only 55.7% in the hard-fought 2016 contest, that’s not bad at all.
@ Edgar G.:
As we when spoke last time on this subject I respect you to have your own view and act accordingly. I no longer wish to dwell on this!
@ Bear Klein:
Bear I really must butt in here. (you can tell me to “butt out”) I am a Jew; as much a Jew as you are, and FAR FAR more aggressive, (if you knew the REAL me) Never in this world have people said “the American” or “the Englishman”. It’s always “the American Jew” or the English Jew. The one I like best is “the Jewish Billionaire”…
Michael and I have had many violent disputes here, and several times I said the very same as you….. that I would never connect to him again…. but somehow I always found myself back in contact. And….the disputes were not about MY religion BUT HIS….. I trashed him and it every way possible. He took it. He never attacked or dsparaged Jews or Judaism, but otherwise gave a good account of himself.
I believe he respects and admires the Jews far more than any others except his own countrymen. And respects the Torah, probably because as well as it’s ethical content it’s the basis of his own belief. .
PC is like osmosis…creeps in and distorts one’s natural feelings and attitudes.
Just my opinion..
@ Michael S:
Yes, you have said several things that I found offensive to Jews. When I pointed them out (three or four times) and this is going back months now you did not reflect but decided to lash out. I do not want nor feel I need to get into the specifics.
Jews including myself have experienced cracks, slights, or offensive remarks about Jews our whole lives coming from Christians. Including those professing to like, love Jews and Israel.
Once I hear these comments about “Jews” or that “Jew” once or certainly more than once I find these are not people I can trust or want to deal with. Even if they tell me they have experienced negativity towards them in being signaled out for their political views or for being Christian.
Even if they have the great insight to say us Jews you ought to get over the Holocaust and just get on with it, I have my own past problems. Having your own problems of discriminatory attitudes towards your own group, does not absolve one of making cracks about Jews.
I do not think you are some big anti-Semite like a Farrakhan and never said so! You make what I call soft bigotry comments in particular when someone Jewish says something that irks you. That however, does not justify the comments just because you got mad. The attitudes are ingrained in many people who grow up in societies were negative comments about Jews are common.
I am sure it was not easy or pleasant for you to address me here in an open forum. That being said, I however really do not have any interest in interacting on this forum.
I wish you no ill will but it is better I believe just to ignore each other.
@ Bear Klein:
Bear,
I see you just signed on. I’ve had an exchange with Ted, and I realize I might have said something that upset you on another thread. If I did, I’m sorry. I have great respect for Israel, and for the posters here — including you. I hope we both have a healthy and productive 2019.
Shalom shalom
By the way Caroline Glick is entering politics and will be on the list with the Hayamin Hehadash (New Right).
Bear Klein Said:
With the prospect of Mudar coming to power very soon, I am working with others to produce a paper which goes into detail about specific cities that could be built in Jordan and Egypt and the cost of doing so.. This is in the neighborhood of $30,000 per apartment.. 500,000 apartments would cost $15 Billion.
We are also working on a plan to empty out Gaza and to annex the land.. We are proposing that if either Egypt or Jordan take them in, they we will share the profits with them of developing Gaza. All the gas from the future wells offshore from Gaza could be thrown into the deal. Of course, Gazans would be hired as laborers.
I repeated this comment in Trump’s deal of the Century. Lets return there with all comments about the Jordan Option.
@ adamdalgliesh:
And not to forget what I always would think as “the piece de resistance” the huge tzimmus made from the accusation that Sara Netanyahu was (secretly/illegally) getting refunds on the empties and pocketing them. This must have paid for building their home in Caesarea..
(a non-connected side-note….many years ago in the early 1980s, I almost bought a home in Caesarea. I’d been waiting a couple of years for them to be built and available. They were $10,000 each. We went there several times, and again and again … but the rows upon rows of low “A-framed” shacks (like shark teeth) deterred us. A huge disappointment for me personally, who had read much about its historical past, very involved with the Herodian period. The powers-that-be said that nothing else would ever be allowed to be built there, as it would deface the seafront scenery… Foolish me… )
@ adamdalgliesh:
I’m glad Adam that you read my post, and it seems unlikely that you didn’t absorb it. But……BUT……..I recapped the various “Plans” and added my opinions, amongst which, I SAID… it would be nearly impossible to remove the Israel Arabs, and Israel would become like Rhodesia…(I DIDN’T SAY ZIMBABWE) obviously MEANING the Ian Smith period…. shunned and blacklisted by former friends and supporters. who would try to shut the whole country down.
I am the very last to need explanation of what I myself have virtually just written. This blog attracts members of rather more copious intelligence than normal, so…. I didn’t think it was THAT ambiguous.
@ adamdalgliesh:
Mueller investigation? Really where do you live?
Bill Clinton and the blue dress investigation stemming from White Water?
Yes I also think the stuff they are harassing Bibi for is chickenshit stuff. I would like a New Prime Minister already but not this way!
By the Yaalon will NEVER EVER be Prime Minister not a one percent chance. If he runs on his own ticket he will not even pass the threshold.
@ Bear Klein: Mandelblit and Company are extremely toxic for Israel. No other country would let a sitting Prime Minister be persecuted this way by governemnt lawyers. Israel’s self-appointed lawyerocracy is a unique form of government, and a uniquely toxic one.
@ yamit82: I hope Saar will succeed Bibi. He has a constructive program. My guess, however, is that Yaalon or Gantz will be the next Prime Minister and/or Defense Minister. Israeli seem to like military brass in high office, although they tend to be pro-Arab, leftist doves. As soon as they take off their military-operational hats and put on their political hats, poof! they are transformed into pacifists.
Bear Klein Said:
Enter Stage right… Gidon Tzar??
@ Edgar G.: As I’ve explained many times, it is a fantasy that Israel can expel the Arab population for Eretz Israel. The great powers would never permit it. The United States would never permit it. As you point out, Israel is a small country, not a great power, and is a client state. It cannot do what its arms suppliers and principal trading partners won’t let it do. The great powers won’t let the Israelis evict the Arab population, because the 57 Arab and Muslim nations don’t want this, and the great powers consider their relationship with these 57 states as more important and valuable to them than with little Israel. In addition, there are people with anti-Jewish prejudices in the governments of all the major powers.
@ Bear Klein:
Absolutely… After all, Jordan is only next door, a few miles away and easily transferred to.
@ Edgar G.:
If Jordan did become Palestine building a city or two in Jordan to spur the economy and providing apartments in Jordan, plus a bus ticket would be more economical.
@ Bear Klein:
There’s a glaring flaw.. They would ALL have to go -in this scenario. The flaw occurs of they don’t all go. Israel will be sovereign over the whole Land, and Israeli Law will be instituted everywhere. In years to come, I’m sure that whatever Arabs left behind and those who illegally infiltrate in, will proliferate again in this cyclical demographic circle. So we’ll have the same thing over again however with a much larger Jewish population and building land at sky-high prices…also much Israel Jewish EMIGRATION..
So what’s to do……. DO NOT give Arabs citizenship and the Franchise. Residence Permits only..for ALL Arabs, -including those already in Israel. A nearly impossible proposition. Israel would become the new Rhodesia.
This subject was very thoroughly covered several months ago on this site in the context of the “Jordan is Palestine” Plan. It revealed that a home n Jordan cost around $40,000, which, with a ready-made job, would be a very attractive offer. A similar family apartment in Egypt cost $22,000..job prospects were not mentioned.
Previously, Martin Sherman unfolded…not for the first time HIS Plan..which included a $200,000 cash (presumably) offer to every family leaving. The total cost was estimated to be around 200 billion dollars. NO FLEA BITE… especially by comparison with the above two. The attraction was that there would be much free cash, and the Arabs would not be limited to moving only to Jordan or/and Egypt.
I didn’t like it.
We should first tackle those who are very keen to emigrate even without a huge cash offer..and see what the effects of their enthusiastic letters home is….
Let’s face it, Israel is far too small ever to become a STRONG nation, and will always have to ally itself to the world’s strongest….and that will depend on the policies of whichever US President is elected. So Israel is fated always to be a client state…perhaps it suits our mentality and psychological profile, which, in ancient times Israel always was, except for a couple of brief periods when the goyim were temporarily too disorganised with their fratricidal wars to bother with Israel.i
So maybe that’s the way it will be..forever.
@ yamit82:
Some Arabs who fled from the Galil came back in a very short time frame. How many numbers I do not know.
Even Abbas admits that Arabs fled because they were told to by fellow Arab leaders. He tells that is how his family fled Safed.
Yes for the Jewish State it was good that the Arabs fled.
After the 1967 a General had made plans to evacuate the Gazans to a City he was going to build for them in the Sinai but he could not get it approved. There were a couple of hundred thousand then, which have turned into two million in Gaza and a problem!
Israeli politics is in White Water Mode Now
1. Zionist Union Broke UP- Gabby kicked out Livni so at the moment Labor is on their own but many Labor MKs fleeing the sinking ship. Gabby does not appeal to the left he needs. He wants to hook up with Ganz but doubt he would take the #2 Seat which is the only hope they have of a sizeable vote.
2. AG announced that he will announce BEFORE the ELection if he is charging Bibi. My guess is some but not all charges police recommend will take place. This will NOT help Likud. Will the “New Right Party” of Bennett/Shaked get these votes? I hope so! If not trouble on the horizon.
3. If Livni goes to another party that party is doomed to failure as she is poison or cursed or both! My guess is no One party will want her. If she runs with her HaTuna party they will NOT cross the threshold is my guess.
4. No way to know what will happen on April 9. Bibi has said he will NOT step aside if indicted. This whole thing is NOT good for Israel.
Miracle of 1948.
What would have occurred if the Arabs (2/3) had not fled and stayed?
The 1947 partition of Palestine left the Jewish state with a 40 percent Arab population. Miraculously, the Arabs took off. Their flight started almost a year before the conscious Jewish policy of expelling the fifth column. Unlike in the previous periods of civil unrest, Arabs fled the country rather than temporarily moving into the hills. They fled without a hope of return, for they took their animals and belongings, and wouldn’t have realistically expected their villages to remain intact. Israeli leaders draw attention to the isolated calls by Arab leaders for the villagers to flee, ostensibly to clear the area for Arab military operations. No Arab villager would buy such nonsense. All of them understood that the Syrians and Jordanians wanted their emptied land.
God performs miracles without violating the laws of nature (that’s why there are atheists), and so the Arab flight was prompted by decades of unrest, a crumbling patriarchal society, a closed economy, spiraling clashes with Jews, loss of traditional leadership, and fear. Most Palestinian leaders argued against fleeing the country, but the peasants were of a different opinion. Jews, for their part, slowly switched to Plan D, attacking first the Arab villages, most of which—willingly or not—housed militias, and eventually cleansing the land of Arabs to gain a contiguous Jewish state. Out of hopelessness and fear of retaliation, the majority of Arabs fled Israel in two waves: amid the clashes before the proclamation of Israeli independence, and after the Jews had won the war. Much smaller numbers of Arabs fled during the war itself.
The near-absence of Arab flight from Galilee demonstrates that Jews did not plan to evict them; Arabs fled only the zones of intense conflict, rather than the entire Jewish state. Arabs that remained in Galilee developed into a demographical time bomb, and created an Arab majority in many parts of the Jewish state. Despite the huge influx of Jews since 1948, the Arab population of Israel continued to rise, from 10-19 percent to 34 percent among the Israeli young today. In order to create a Jewish state, Jews had no choice but to make the Arabs go.
@ yamit82: Actually, some main stream Zionist leaders, most notably Chaim Weizmann, did support a transfer of Arabs from Palestine to one or another Arab states, provided that it was voluntary, with the consent of the individual Arabs who would move, and the Arab state or states to which they would move. Weismann even conducted negotiations for several years with intermediary representing Saudi Arabia’s King Abdul-Aziz, to arrange for such a transfer to that country. King Abdul-Azziz at the time worried that his country was underpopulated and inhabited only by illiterate Bedouin,, and thought it might benefit from an influx of better educated, more skilled Arabs from Palestine. HoweverAbdul-Azziz ultimately broke off the negotiations and covered himself against a possible leak of his contacts with Weizmann in the Arab world by issuing virulently ant-Zionist and antisemitic statements.
David Ben-Gurion showed some interest in proposals by other intermediaries to persuade Iraq to accept a transfer of Palestinian Arab migrants to thinly settled areas of the country. He sent messages through these intermediaries that the Jewish Agency was prpared to help finance such a voluntary transfer. He even appropriated a modest $25,000 from the Jewish Agency budget to help the principal intermediary, an American Jewish businessman named Norman, to carry on these contacts with British and Iraqi officials. In the 1940s, Iraq, too, was underpopulated . However, these indirect negotiations also came to nothing.
Population transfers were highly successful in putting an end to centuries of irresolvable animosities between ethnic groups.
During the 20th century, the Benes decrees 0f 1946 – 1947 evicted 3 million ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia, realizing after two world wars and one genocide, that enough is enough. In similar fashion the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923 while not producing any friendship, it restored a chilly measure of stability between these countries.
These transfers reached their objective of ending the conflict. However, this was achieved at a cost of forced banishment, deportation and expropriation, brutally executed with rape, murder and cruel abuse. To contemplate this ‘solution’ is evil.
Paying Arabs to leave as has been suggested here will not do the job. Many would elect to remain and in any case, to be meaningful it would simply be too expensive. Yet offering Arabs full citizenship as a path to peace has proven unworkable. They don’t appreciate this, and even if they did, their societies are unable co-exist in peace even among themselves.
That leaves us the option of incentives.
At the introduction of Ted Belman’s upcoming Israeli-Arab Peace Plan, all Israeli Arabs lose their citizenship immediately. They receive permanent residency status and in parallel, they are offered Jordanian citizenship.
Arab residents of areas A, B, and C also obtain permanent residency and offers of Jordanian citizenship.
A resident is not entitled to bring in a foreign spouse for marriage, unless they prove sufficient funds of USD 2 million. That said, bigamy in any event is strictly prohibited.
Permanent residents lose their residency when absent for longer than 6 months. This may be prolonged for 18 months, on show of proof of studies abroad. A former permanent resident has no right of return.
Services in what was formerly called areas A and B will be restricted to the very bare minimum. That includes transport, water, electricity etc. all of which are kept at pre-1967 standards at most, if at all. No universities, institutions of higher learning, or hospitals will be funded.
On the other hand, Israel will provide some modest funding options for studies abroad, via grants to universities earmarked at residents wishing to leave. This will keep the financial burden on Israel affordable. At the same time, permanent residents have no right to study in Israel.
Other measures will be considered. For example, Israel may impose an inheritance tax. Exemption granted only to citizens who have served in the Military. Or better permanent residents leaving the country (forever), will receive a refund of their last 5 years property taxes, payable in 5 annual arears.
You get the general idea of what is necessary and also easily doable to depopulate.
Recent reports from December 2018 indicate that with Brussels being home of numerous supportive NGOs catering to the EU, Belgium is rapidly becoming the preferred destination of choice for migrants from Gaza. This must be expanded to include Arabs of all colors, and to many more destinations.
UN and EU plans elaborately worked out and well documented for decades call for increasing the EU migrant population by 3,8 billion over the next 50 years, predominately from North
Africa and the Levant. Many millions have already arrived in Europe already.
A couple of million from Eretz Israel will have no impact on European demographics. For Israel though, the exodus will be a blessing. Let us pray!
@ Sebastien Zorn:
The Transfer idea in itself is not new to Zionism. Israel Zangwill suggested it in 1920, the British put it forward in the Peel Report of 1937 as did Avraham Sharon and Avraham Stern in the ’40s. Official Zionists opposed the plan due to moral hesitations (not a Jewish morality but one influenced by liberal emancipation and in continuation of their naive belief that the Arabs will agree to coexistence if we succeed in convincing them that Zionism is beneficial for them
Bear Klein Said:
Kahane included and especially the Arabs who are today citizens and permanent residents of the State of Israel along with the Arabs in the territories.
Sherman as I understand it has no policy, suggestions or program dealing with our homegrown 5th Column…. IMO the greatest danger to the State is the Arab population within the borders of the State and to not include them or ignore the problem makes any resolution WRT Arabs in the territories not only incomplete but dooms any result WRT transfer only Arabs in the Territories to failure in the primary objectives. IN Kahane’s book and later essays, and in the KACH Party platform he outlines his objectives. CROSSFIRE – “Rabbi Meir Kahane”. 1985
Rabbi Meir Kahane Tells the Truth
@ Sebastien Zorn:
I believe you are correct about Kahane. Martin Sherman has for years now also talked about the assisting Arabs to emigrate with financial incentives.
Some how it is okay to talk about moving Jews from their homes (first Gaza) and in Judea/Samaria but it is not acceptable to many to talk about helping the voluntary emigration of Arabs outside the Land of Israel to help solve the conflict!
@ leonkushner:
Kahane was the first to advocate compensated emigration in his book, “They Must Go” published when Feiglin was about ten years old in the early 70s. In it, Kahane presented the most detailed and practical plan I’ve seen, yet. Didn’t Feiglin advocate land swaps at one point?
I sincerely hope that Bennett finally becomes Israel’s next PM. Unlike Bibi, he doesn’t constantly look back over his shoulder to see how the world sees him. One can’t lead effectively that way. I think he can work well with the Haredim who are a powerful voice and should continue to be one.
@ roamnrab5:Feiglin was the first person I know of to articulate the idea of paying arabs to leave Israel and the territories. In his books, he wrote in detail how the math works out. When I first read it I thought this had merit. Many years later I realized that it might be the only real solution. According to many surveys, most want to leave.
WHY isn’t ANYONE including Moshe Fieglin’s Zehut Party???
They ARE THE ONLY PARTY with A SPINE & A PLAN!
@ Bear Klein:
I never heard of Joint Liszt. Any relation to Franz?
First Week Poll Averages By Jeremy Saltan
AVG Current Party
27.6 30 Likud
13.4 0 Israel Resilience
12.8 11 Yesh Atid
12.4 13 Joint List
10.4 3 Yamin Hadash
8.8 24 Zionist Union
7 6 UTJ
5.6 10 Kulanu
5.6 5 Meretz
4.8 7 Shas
4.6 1 Gesher
3.8 5 Yisrael Beitenu
3.2 5 Bayit Yehudi
62.4 66 Right-Religious
57.6 54 Center-Left-Arab
https://knessetjeremy.com/2018/12/30/knesset-jeremy-poll-of-polls-weekly-average-1-likud-27-6-israel-resilience-13-4-yesh-atid-12-8-joint-list-12-4-yamin-hadash-10-4/?fbclid=IwAR0mkbNKHP-SfoMs-hDjydqywAX2mBRyRbK0ELuYZP3X3RGajJSO3othNV4