NETANYAHU TO PURSUE UNITY WITH BLUE AND WHITE

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1. Channel 13 is claiming the Likud is trying to get Naftali Bennet + one other New Right Member to switch to the Likud so the Likud will be the largest party.

   Below is Caroline Glicks take on the election, I am not sure I agree with all of her points but they are interesting. I think both sides lost because neither can form a government without the other.

   I need to point out a basic fact about the election results which the US media, in particular, is missing.

   Benjamin Netanyahu – did not lose the election. Benny Gantz didn’t win. Gantz cannot form a government under any circumstances. He cannot build a majority coalition.

   By forming a unified political bloc of 55 Knesset members with the Likud’s satellite parties, Netanyahu has created a situation where he is the only possible prime minister. Either the Blue and White Party — or one of its factions — joins him, or Amir Peretz and Orly Levy bring the Labor party in, or Israel goes to new elections. Those are the only options.

   In other words, it’s either going to be Netanyahu or elections. It’s up to Gantz, and Peretz.

   I’ll say more. The balance of power is still very much on the Right. The Right has 55 seats. The Left has 44. Liberman is nothing but a Bibi hater. And the Arab parties are so extreme that they cannot be considered for any governing coalition.

   A word about the exclusion of the Arab party from the coalition math.

   Lest anyone be tempted to believe the Washington Post’s attempt to claim Israel is racist because Israelis don’t want to share power with the Arab parties, the fact is that there is not one Arab party that accepts Israel’s right to exist. There were Arab politicians elected yesterday that have written odes to terrorist murderers on the Facebook pages. Arab lawmakers were elected that have met with terror kingpins. Arab lawmakers routinely support the Palestinian war against Israel and express support for Hamas.

   It is not racist for Israelis not to want Hamas supporters and champions of terrorist murderers in the Israeli government or receiving security briefings from the military and intelligence services. It is rational.

   The deadlock in Israel is electoral, not ideological. Liberman’s defection from the Right has denied it a governing majority. But it is still very much the majority in Israel. And the vast majority of Jewish lawmakers in the Knesset support applying Israeli law over the Jordan Valley as Netanyahu suggested. A large majority (55-44) of Jewish lawmakers also support applying Israeli law to other parts of Judea and Samaria.

   Netanyahu is the only person capable of forming a government. It remains to be seen if that will happen, but Gantz cannot form a government. And he is slowly coming to terms with this unalterable reality.

2. Bibi is willing to join Gantz. (In what capacity we do not know)
   Shas is willing to join Gantz
   UTJ is asking their Rabbis for permission to join with Gantz

   So, if Gantz wants a unity government he can have one. He is just going to have to do some compromising.

3. Majority of public want unity govt with no ultra-Orthodox parties
   Fifty-one percent of Likud voters and 90 percent of Blue and White voters don’t want ultra-Orthodox parties in government.

   With political machinations and intrigues in full swing following Tuesday’s general election, both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White leader MK Benny Gantz have said they want a national unity government.

   Netanyahu said however that he wants such a government to include his ultra-Orthodox and religious-Zionist allies, which Gantz and his Blue and White party oppose.

   And support for a national unity government without the ultra-Orthodox parties is actually widespread, with some two thirds of the Jewish Israeli public backing such a coalition, including half of all Likud voters.

   According to a poll done conducted by the Smith Polling Institute in August, fully 64 percent of Israeli Jews back excluding the ultra-Orthodox parties from the next government, with 36% opposed to such a notion.

   The poll was conducted between Aug. 6 and 11 on a sample of 753 adult Jewish Israelis, with a margin of error of 3.6%.

   he question posed to those polled stated “In most coalitions in last decades, haredi parties were part of coalition and enjoyed great influence in the realm of religion and state, including the current government.”

   Respondents were asked “Do you support or oppose that the next coalition not include the haredi parties.”

   Some 51% of Likud voters backed excluding the ultra-Orthodox, as did 90% of Blue and White voters, 71% of Labor-Gesher voters, 94% of Yisrael Beytenu voters, 93% of Democratic Union voters, and 75% of undecideds.

   Unsurprisingly, 92% of ultra-Orthodox voters opposed the idea, as did 67% of Yamina voters.

   The poll also asked whether voters would be more or less likely to vote for a party which “committed to the principles of religious freedom and equality” regarding civil marriage and divorce, public transport on Shabbat, ultra-Orthodox enlistment to the IDF, and similar issues.

   Of those polled who described themselves as secular, 74% said it would make them more likely to vote for such a party, along with 70% of so-called “traditional” Israelis.

   The same poll, and others, have also demonstrated strong support for liberalization of the interaction of religion and state in Israel.

   Hiddush’s August poll found that 68% of the adult Jewish public in Israel supports the introduction of civil marriage, which would also provide state recognition of Reform and Conservative marriage.

   Some 60% of Likud voters supported civil marriage in the poll, as well as massive majorities of voters for other secular parties.

   In Hiddush’s 2018 religion and state index, 72% of those polled said they backed some or full public transport on Shabbat.

   And 68% of those polled said local municipalities should have the authority to permit limited commerce on Shabbat.

   The mini-markets law passed at the behest of the ultra-Orthodox parties in the last Knesset gives the interior minister the right to veto a municipal bylaw passed by a local municipal authority allowing greater commercial activity in its jurisdiction on Shabbat.

   Leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party Arye Deri was the interior minister in the last government and he rejected several bylaws passed to allow more stores to open on Shabbat in various cities.

   Hiddush director Rabbi Uri Regev rejected claims that it was discriminatory or “antisemitic” to exclude the ultra-Orthodox parties from government, and said that comparisons made by ultra-Orthodox politicians to excluding Ethiopians or Druze were not valid.

   “It is incredible chutzpa to declare that no one would dare exclude Ethiopians or Druze from the government, as if there is any kind of analogy here,” said Regev.

   “I don’t know of any Ethiopians or Druze who have tried to coerce the public into their religious outlook.

   “There is a deep seated opposition to the notion that the tail is wagging the dog and in a manner which is painful for the dog,” asserted Regev.

4. Seems like there were at least two failures in the elections:

   1. The right wing lead by Bibi did NOT get at least 61 seats without Liberman

   2. Gantz & the Left Did NOT get 61 Seats or enough to oust Bibi from the Scene. That is what they ran on.

   3. So will they for the good of the country just make a unity government which requires compromise and recognizing their political failure.

   One Gantz has to try and stop ousting Bibi. Two, the majority of the country does not want coerced religion. So will Bibi or his Haredi/Religious partners need to agree to some sort minimalist draft (as proposed by Liberman) and not impose religious rules on secular neighborhoods.

   4. If the above two things can be accomplished there will be a unity government.
   If not election number 3 is coming next March or April 2020 maybe.

5. Okay so Unity Government is clearly on the table as the only game in town.

   Jason Greenblatt who has not left his job yet is coming to town to talk to Bibi and then Gantz about it. Too bad he has to do it in separate rooms or buildings.

   My guess is that Rivlin will give Gantz first try at forming a coalition, Bibi will insist on bringing his block of 55 (Yamina says not done deal) into the coalition. Right now Gantz says only Likud sans Bibi. So unless Gantz changes his mind at the end of 28 days Bibi will get a chance to form a coalition.

   Will Gantz then agree to rotating PM office like Peres and Shamir had. Bibi alluded that he would agree to this. Will Labor or Liberman agree to work with Bibi then?

   If the answer to the above questions is no then Israel is heading for a third election. If that happens will the Likud have a new primary and find a new leader?

   I have lots of questions but in the land of Jewish political egos not too many answers.

   At this point I hope for a very broad government of the whole right wing and Blue and White sans Liberman and the Democratic Union.

6. @ Felix Quigley:
   It appears I misread the article. It was not Gantz who said Israel was going to head in a new direction without Netanyhau. It was Olmertspeaking in a prominent Israeli news TV channel.

   This actually emphasises the points I made.

   Olmert was the leader who more than anybody led Israel into abandoning the Jewish villages in Gaza. And to Hamas bombing of Israel.

   Yes the time of Netanyahu has run its course.

   But it must not be allowed to be ended on the programme of an Olmert, that is in the direction of more and more abandonment of Jews ad the Jewish Homland, and the adoption of Arab Antisemitism, which clearly looking back is what Olmert stood for in the withdrawal from Gaza.

   So it is good that Olmert said that.It serves to emphasise just how sharply enunciated these divisions are today. There is a huge amount at stake.

   Yes Netanyahu needs to be removed. But he must not be removed by theactions of antisemites. he must be removed in the context of new leadership, which will aim in every way to create a Jewish Homeland where Jews can live alone and unmolested by Antisemitism from any quarter, from at home or from abroad.

   And part of this cleansing will surely be the arrest of those judges and lawyers of Israel who persecute Netanyahu on the basis of receiving a gift of a box of cigars. They are the sickness.

   Leadership i key and will not happen spontaneously.

7. This is a time of great stress for Israel and for all Jews in the world who support Israel as the Homeland of the Jews.

   Thefirst problem that is faced is that Netanyahu is not a decisive leader prepared to really fight for the Jewish Homeland. This is well known and accepted.

   Trump is I think unique among all President, including Reagan.Trump has a friendliness towards Jews.This probably comesfrom deep inside his own historical background, his ancestors are from everywhere. And he like the Jews is underdog.

   I knew and said this when Trump on in 2016.

   I wrote then on Israpundit that the election of Trump would be a big challengefor Israeli leadership.

   I thought that this would be a test because what was on the order of the day was a wholesale attack on Arab antisemitism nd decisive measures based on the truth of what Arabs are, hateful towards Jews and spreaders of the poison that Zionism is something that is a racist concept, which it absolutely definitely is not, but a nationalist concept, and as nationalists people who have been far too kindly in their interpretation of whatthe Arabs in their midst are all about.

   The whole concept of the Israel to be was that Jews did not have a Homeland. They were expelled by the Romans. They were then oppressed by the Roman Catholic Church post 400 after Christ, to the most intense elvel, to such an extent that the Nazis of 1933 did not have to make up a programme but simply ADOPTED the programme of the Roman Catholic Church. That history was brought into the prsent through the UN, EU and many other organizations.The Stalinists of Moscow especially post 67 were not so much independent but playing on and into this garbage. They were garbage as I said and emphasise and they too came tumbling down in 1989.

   It is unlikely I would say that Gantz will separate from Lapid. So this election adds great difficulty for true Jews who are clear thinkers. netanyahu is right to say that the only alternative to an aliance is rule by antisemites who play into the Palestinian Arab lie machine.

   What a choice is left for Jews! This is obviously very serious.

   An alliance with Gantz and Lapid ordirect rule by antisemites with the Arab hates right in power or anyway with their hands on power.

   So no choice. This policy of Netanyahu must be defended.

   Yet at the same time an understanding that Netanyahu by his centrism and lack of action, not using the opportunity provided by the election of Trump to ACT, is most responsible for this situation.

   The Arabs want two things mainly. They want to milk the system. They want to milk Jewish brilliance. At the same time they want to continue to spread their filthy antisemitism which they inherit from their history, a history of antisemitism that goes back 2000 years and which the Nazi war criminal Hajj Amin el Husseini was only a partial expression.

   gantz has said we are at a turning point. But his turning point is in the direction of sellout to the Arab enemies of Jews. But he is right about th turning point part. the direction must be in creating a Jewish Homeland in which JEWS ARE ABLE TO DWELL ALONE and unmolested in the slightest degree by Antisemitism.

   So once again leadership is going in the future to be key.