Articles about the collapse of Israel’s government from the WSJ, NYT, JNS and Haaretz are included
[Note by Tom Gross]
Israel’s government collapsed last night, marking the end of the most diverse ruling coalition in Israel’s history, and just a few days after it marked its first anniversary in office.
Naftali Bennett becomes Israel’s shortest-serving prime minister. Personally I think he has done relatively well, as I said in this short TV interview last week. But others would say his government was doomed to fail from the start and fail it did.
New elections will be held, likely on October 25, the country’s fifth election in just over three years.
Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who heads Likud, Israel’s most popular political party, is favorite to win and return to office according to polls, but it’s not a forgone conclusion.
Under the outgoing coalition agreement, Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, a former news anchor turned centrist politician, becomes interim period for the next few months, and will host U.S. President Joe Biden when he visits Israel in three weeks from now before Biden travels on to Saudi Arabia.
Lapid is set to become Israel’s 14th (and perhaps shortest-serving) prime minister, and the third not to come from a party which is neither Labor nor Likud.
In a hastily called press conference yesterday evening Lapid thanked Bennett for “putting the country before his personal interest.”
“You’re a friend and I love you,” Lapid told Bennett.
“THE BIGGEST FAILURE IN ISRAELI HISTORY”
Netanyahu vowed to form a broad national government led by his Likud party. “This is an evening of great news for millions of Israeli citizens,” Netanyahu said, calling the Bennett coalition the “biggest failure in Israeli history”.
Lapid as interim prime minister now has about four months to convince Israeli voters he should stay in the job for longer.
— Tom Gross
Tom Gross (left), senior British cabinet minister Michael Gove (center) and outgoing Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett (right). Bennett, 50, is relatively young. He may take a time-out from politics now, but I believe we may see his return to political life in later years.
ARTICLES
ISRAEL HEADS FOR NEW ELECTIONS AS COALITION MOVES TO DISSOLVE PARLIAMENT
Israel Heads for New Elections as Coalition Moves to Dissolve Parliament
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid is expected to be the transitional prime minister as Naftali Bennett steps aside
By Dov Lieber
The Wall Street Journal
June 20, 2022 5:12 pm ET
TEL AVIV – Israel’s prime minister, Naftali Bennett, said Monday he would move to dissolve Parliament and call for the country’s fifth election in three years, marking the end of the most diverse ruling coalition in Israel’s history.
Mr. Bennett said Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, a former news anchor turned centrist politician, would lead the country in the interim period, which could last several months. The two leaders, from opposite sides of the Israeli political spectrum, joined forces last year to oust then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The prospect of new elections gives Mr. Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving prime minister, a fresh shot at regaining power.
The decision ends an unusual period in Israeli politics, when a coalition from the country’s center, right, left and an independent Arab party came together for the first time to form a government. The coalition is now poised to be among the shortest-lived in Israel’s history, after marking its first anniversary last week.
The deep ideological differences of the coalition’s eight parties created an unwieldy alliance. Members clashed over policies related to West Bank settlements, Palestinians and questions of religion and state. Controlling just 61 of 120 seats in Parliament from its outset, the coalition lost its majority in April after a lawmaker from Mr. Bennett’s party resigned.
The exact date of the next election won’t be known until Parliament dissolves, but it is likely to take place in late October or early November, an adviser to the coalition said. Analysts said it was unlikely Mr. Bennett would backtrack on his election decision despite his Yamina party’s slide in the polls.
For Parliament to dissolve, lawmakers will need to pass the bill several times. No date has been set for the vote, but the coalition leaders said they would bring it to the plenum floor next week.
Polling in recent months consistently shows that Mr. Netanyahu’s party will remain by far the largest in Parliament, and his popularity remains high among right-wing voters. Polls also show that Mr. Netanyahu would likely remain just shy of the majority needed to form a government.
The prospect of another election comes in the midst of increased conflict between Israel and Iran, after a wave of Palestinian attacks in Israel that shook the country’s sense of security, and weeks before President Biden’s visit to Israel in July, when he is expected to advance regional security coordination between Israel and its allies in the region.
The immediate crisis facing the government was its inability to renew regulations needed to apply Israeli civil law to Jewish settlers in the West Bank owing to opposition from Arab lawmakers in the coalition, which angered right-wing lawmakers. The bill was opposed by Mr. Netanyahu, who normally votes to support settlers but marshaled the opposition to vote against it in an attempt to embarrass the government and force it to collapse.
If Israel does go to elections, the deadline to renew the regulations would automatically be postponed.
Speaking alongside Mr. Lapid in televised statements, Mr. Bennett said that he “left no stone unturned” in trying to save his government, but that new elections were the only way of preventing chaos and harm to Israeli security if the regulations would go unrenewed.
Mr. Lapid, who spoke briefly, pledged to continue Israel’s widening campaign against Iran and militant groups opposing Israel, tackle the increasing cost of living and fight for political reform to solve Israel’s political instability.
He thanked Mr. Bennett for “putting the country before his personal interest.”
“You’re a friend and I love you,” Mr. Lapid told Mr. Bennett.
Yohanan Plesner, the president of the Jerusalem-based Israel Democracy Institute, said the call for elections “is a clear indication that Israel’s worst political crisis did not end when this government was sworn into office.”
Mr. Plesner said that the crisis, which has prevented stable management of the country for a few years now, stems from a split down the middle over Mr. Netanyahu’s future, and that Israeli law makes it too easy for Parliament to dissolve itself.
“In governments with a small majority, it turns every backbencher into a kingmaker or into an instability instigator,” he said.
Mr. Plesner added that by including an Arab party in the coalition, the current government paved the way for a minority that makes up more than 20% of the population to participate more in the political process.
Mr. Netanyahu, in a video statement, vowed to form a broad national government led by his Likud party.
“This is an evening of great news for millions of Israeli citizens,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
Some lawmakers once aligned with Mr. Netanyahu have pledged to oppose his return to power, saying the former prime minister had used his position for personal interests. Mr. Netanyahu is on trial over corruption charges, which he has denied.
“The goal in the next elections is clear – preventing the return of Netanyahu to power and enslaving the state for his personal interests,” tweeted Gideon Saar, a lawmaker in the anti-Netanyahu coalition who was once the former prime minister’s ally.
Mr. Netanyahu can still run for office despite his trial, which shows no signs of ending soon.
Avraham Diskin, a professor of political science at Hebrew University, said Mr. Netanyahu’s chances of being re-elected were better than in recent elections because the right-wing religious and ultraorthodox parties that support him have grown in strength despite not reaching a clear majority.
“The chances of Netanyahu becoming prime minister are more than 50%, but it’s still not guaranteed,” he said.
Mr. Netanyahu had kept the opposition disciplined throughout the year, forcing the government to lose key votes and appear unstable. At the same time, he led a simultaneous pressure and wooing campaign against right-wing lawmakers in the coalition to turn sides.
If Mr. Netanyahu fails to get a clear majority, he might face a rebellion in his own party, Mr. Diskin said, because right-wing lawmakers opposed to Mr. Netanyahu have said they would form a government with the Likud party if someone else was leading the party.
“The rebellion against Netanyahu within the Likud can definitely occur. And once you have a rebellion everything is open,” he said.
Israel’s Government Collapses, Setting Up 5th Election in 3 Years
The governing coalition decided to dissolve Parliament, plunging the country back into paralysis and throwing a political lifeline to Benjamin Netanyahu.
By Patrick Kingsley
The New York Times
June 20, 2022 4:06 p.m. ET
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/
JERUSALEM – Israel’s governing coalition will dissolve Parliament before the end of the month, bringing down the government and sending the country to a fifth election in three years, the prime minister said on Monday.
The decision plunged Israel back into paralysis and threw a political lifeline to Benjamin Netanyahu, the right-wing prime minister who left office just one year ago upon the formation of the current government. Mr. Netanyahu is currently standing trial on corruption charges but has refused to leave politics, and his Likud party is leading in the polls.
Once Parliament formally votes to dissolve itself, it will bring down the curtain on one of the most ambitious political projects in Israeli history: an unwieldy eight-party coalition that united political opponents from the right, left and center, and included the first independent Arab party to join an Israeli governing coalition.
But that ideological diversity was also its undoing.
Differences between the coalition’s two ideological wings, compounded by unrelenting pressure from Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing alliance, led two right-wing lawmakers to defect – removing the coalition’s majority in Parliament. When several left-wing and Arab lawmakers also rebelled on key votes, the coalition found it impossible to govern.
The final straw was the government’s inability last week to muster enough votes to extend a two-tier legal system in the West Bank, which has differentiated between Israeli settlers and Palestinians since Israel occupied the territory in 1967.
Several Arab members of the coalition declined to vote for the system, which must be extended every five years. That prevented the bill’s passage and prompted Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, a former settler leader, to collapse the government and thereby delay a final vote until after another election.
“We did everything we possibly could to preserve this government, whose survival we see as a national interest,” Mr. Bennett, 50, said in a televised speech. “To my regret, our efforts did not succeed,” he added.
Expected to be held in the fall, the snap election will be Israel’s fifth since April 2019. It comes at an already delicate time for the country, after a rise in Palestinian attacks on Israelis and an escalation in a clandestine war between Israel and Iran. It also complicates diplomacy with Israel’s most important ally, the United States, as the new political crisis arose less than a month before President Joseph R. Biden’s first visit to the Middle East as a head of state.
Mr. Biden will be welcomed by a caretaker prime minister, Yair Lapid, the current foreign minister. The terms of the coalition agreement dictated that if the government collapsed because of right-wing defections, Mr. Lapid, a centrist former broadcaster, would take over as interim leader from Mr. Bennett.
Mr. Lapid will lead the government for at least several months, through the election campaign and the protracted coalition negotiations likely to follow.
In a show of unity on Monday night, Mr. Bennett and Mr. Lapid gave consecutive speeches from the same stage, both hailing the successes of an unlikely government that many analysts did not expect to last even for a year.
The fractious alliance was formed last June after four inconclusive elections in two years had left Israel without a state budget or a functional government.
The coalition’s members agreed to team up to end this paralysis, and because of their shared desire to oust Mr. Netanyahu. Mr. Netanyahu’s refusal to resign despite standing trial on corruption charges had alienated many of his natural allies on the right, leading some of them to ally with their ideological opponents to remove him from office.
The coalition was cohesive enough to pass a new budget, Israel’s first in more than three years, and to make key administrative appointments. It steadied Israel’s relationship with the Biden administration and deepened its emerging ties with key Arab states.
Its leaders and supporters also hailed it for showing that compromise and civility were still possible in a society deeply divided along political, religious and ethnic lines.
“We formed a government which many believed was an impossible one – we formed it in order to stop the terrible tailspin Israel was in the midst of,” Mr. Bennett said in his speech.
“Together we were able to pull Israel out from the hole,” he added.
Nevertheless, the government was ultimately unable to overcome its contradictions.
Its members clashed regularly over the rights of Israel’s Arab minority, the relationship between religion and state, and settlement policy in the occupied West Bank – clashes that ultimately led two key members to defect, and others to vote against government bills.
The new election offers Mr. Netanyahu another chance to win enough votes to form his own majority coalition. But his path back to power is far from clear.
Polls suggest that his party, Likud, will easily be the largest in the next Parliament, but its allies may not have enough seats to let Mr. Netanyahu assemble a parliamentary majority. Some parties may also only agree to work with Likud if Mr. Netanyahu steps down as party leader.
This dynamic may lead to months of protracted coalition negotiations, returning Israel to the stasis it fell into before Mr. Netanyahu’s departure, when his government lacked the cohesion to enact a national budget or fill important positions in the civil service, and the country held four elections in two years.
Through it all, Mr. Netanyahu is expected to remain on trial, a yearslong process that is unaffected by a new election, and which will likely only end if he either accepts a plea deal, is found guilty or innocent, or if prosecutors withdraw their charges. Despite the promises of some coalition members, the outgoing government failed to pass legislation to bar a candidate charged with criminal offenses from becoming prime minister.
Critics fear Mr. Netanyahu will use a return to office to pass laws that might obstruct the prosecution, an accusation that he has denied.
In a video released on social media on Monday, Mr. Netanyahu celebrated the government’s decision and criticized its record.
“This evening is wonderful news for the citizens of Israel,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
“This government has ended its path,” he added. “A government that depended on terror supporters, which abandoned the personal security of the citizens of Israel, that raised the cost of living to unheard-of heights, that imposed unnecessary taxes, that endangered our Jewish entity. This government is going home.”
Palestinian Israeli lawmakers celebrated the government’s collapse for opposing reasons – because they said it had done little to change the lives of Palestinians.
Aida Touma-Suleiman, an opposition lawmaker and a member of Israel’s Palestinian minority, said in a statement: “This government implemented a radical far-right policy of expanding settlements, destroying houses, and carrying out ethnic cleansing in the occupied territories. It threw crumbs to the Arabs in exchange for conceding fundamental political principles.”
Mr. Lapid, 58, heads Yesh Atid, the second-largest party after Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud. After Mr. Netanyahu failed to cobble together a majority in the previous election in March 2021, Mr. Lapid was given the opportunity to form a government.
To persuade Mr. Bennett to join his alliance, Mr. Lapid allowed Mr. Bennett to take the first turn as prime minister even though he led a much smaller party, because Mr. Bennett was seen as more acceptable to the right-wing flank of the coalition.
A former journalist and popular television host, Mr. Lapid first entered Parliament and government in 2013 as the surprise of that year’s election, becoming finance minister in a Netanyahu-led government.
Many Israelis long considered Mr. Lapid – a former amateur boxer – a political lightweight, particularly with regard to handling complex security issues, including countering Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But he has since served as a minister of finance, foreign affairs, strategic affairs and as the alternate prime minister, and has served as leader of the opposition.
The son of Yosef Lapid, a former minister and Holocaust survivor, and Shulamit Lapid, a novelist, he has expressed support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But to secure the backing of Mr. Bennett, who opposes a Palestinian state, he agreed not to negotiate with the Palestinians over statehood for the duration of their alliance.
UNDERSTAND THE COLLAPSE OF ISRAEL’S GOVERNMENT
(By The New York Times)
A fragile coalition. Israel appears to be headed for its fifth election in three years after officials said the governing coalition will vote to dissolve Parliament. Here’s a look at some of the factors that led to the government’s collapse:
Political defections. The move to dissolve Parliament followed weeks of paralysis caused when two right-wing lawmakers left the coalition, one of whom said the government did not adequately represent Zionist and Jewish values. Their defections deprived the coalition of its parliamentary majority, making it hard to govern.
A spike in violence. A recent wave of Palestinian attacks in Israel, the deadliest in several years, also presented a stark challenge to the coalition. The violence spawned criticism of the government from both sides, but the coalition’s ideological diversity constrained its options.
FROM THE OUTSET, IT WAS CLEAR THAT THE COALITION WAS DESTINED TO FAIL
Netanyahu hails end of ‘worst gov’t in Israeli history,’ as new elections are on the horizon
From the outset, it was clear that the coalition was destined to fail. Ultimately, the desire to keep Benjamin Netanyahu out of office was not enough to keep a group that agreed on little else together.
By Alex Traiman, JNS
June 20, 2022
(JNS) Israel appears set to head back to the polls after a “change coalition” has failed to hold its razor-thin majority, barely a year after its formation.
Elections are likely to be held on Oct. 25, just after the conclusion of the Jewish High Holidays. The elections would be the fifth in just three-and-a-half years.
Meanwhile, according to the coalition’s complicated rotation agreement, Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid will tentatively become a caretaker “transitional” prime minister with limited powers until a new government can be formed after elections. In this role, Lapid would meet with U.S. President Joe Biden should he visit the region as scheduled in July.
Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who controls the parliament’s largest ideologically aligned bloc and has increased his popular support, sits in pole position to form a new government should a new election be held.
A predominantly right-wing government, led by Netanyahu, would represent the will of the clear majority of Israeli voters. Right-wing parties received 72 seats in the last election. Left-wing parties secured 38 seats. Arab parties received 10 seats.
HOW WAS THIS GOVERNMENT FORMED?
Netanyahu’s Likud Party received 30 seats in the last election – 13 seats more than the next largest party, Yesh Atid, led by Lapid. Despite the apparent landslide, parties that agreed to serve in a Netanyahu-led government, which at the time included Yamina, secured 59 votes – just two short of a majority. Zionist parties opposed to Netanyahu totaled 51 seats.
Once Netanyahu proved unable to form a government, Lapid cajoled Bennett to desert the right-wing bloc and offered him the seat of prime minister as part of a rotation arrangement. Unable to resist Lapid’s offer, Bennett agreed to become prime minister, despite winning only seven mandates in the previous election.
Lapid and Bennett then convinced the Islamist Ra’am Party – a chapter of the southern branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and effectively a sister organization to Hamas – to join the coalition. Ra’am participation represented the first time an Arab party had joined an Israeli coalition.
DOOMED TO FAIL
From the outset, it was clear the coalition was destined to fail. Immediately after the formation of the coalition, Yamina Party member Amichai Chikli announced that he would not vote with the government.
Chikli cited the promises he and Bennett had made to their voters in advance of the elections. Bennett repeatedly told voters on national news programs that it would be undemocratic for a Knesset member to become prime minister with less than 10 mandates. Bennett had seven. In a stunt, Bennett also signed a piece of paper that he brought into an Israeli evening news program stating that he would not join any Lapid-led government “with a rotation or without a rotation” because “I am right-wing and [Lapid] is left-wing.” Many right-wing voters supported Bennett on the basis of those broken promises.
In April, another member of Yamina, Idit Silman – the Knesset’s coalition whip, responsible for ensuring bills would pass in the parliament – caved to right-wing pressure and announced that she was resigning her post, at the time urging the formation of an alternative right-wing government.
Just this past week, Yamina member Nir Orbach also announced he would no longer vote with the government. Fellow Yamina member Abir Kara has also been rumored to support a Netanyahu-led government.
However, it was not only the right-wing who was opposed to sitting together with every member of Israel’s left-wing and Islamist parties. Blue and White’s Michael Biton announced that he would not vote with the government over various transportation reforms that bypassed the Knesset committee he led. Far-left Meretz-party member and Israeli Arab Rinawie Zoabi announced her resignation from the coalition in mid-May, only to be convinced to rejoin a week later. In early June, Ra’am Party member Mazen Ghanaim announced that he would no longer vote with the coalition.
Left without a majority and needing to put out political fires on nearly a daily basis, Bennett and Lapid recognized the inevitable: the ideologically diverse coalition could no longer successfully limp along.
‘ANYBODY BUT BIBI’
The “change coalition” was motivated by a single unifying factor: a desire to replace Netanyahu after 12 years in power. This came despite the fact that most Israelis continue to prefer Netanyahu in the top job. The change movement was motivated in large part by criminal trials against Netanyahu that are proving in court to be both full of holes and inappropriate conduct by state prosecutors.
The nation never chose Lapid, who could not have formed a government without right-wing defectors. And the nation certainly did not choose Bennett, who leaves his post with the backing of only four party members.
Only 96 percent of the public chose somebody else than Bennett to be prime minister – a point that ultimately did not deter Bennett from taking the post.
Bennett and Lapid, who agreed to share the post of prime minister in a rotation arrangement and fellow coalition members, argued that the partnership of strange bedfellows was necessary to get Israel out of its electoral gridlock and provide political stability. But the coalition failed to deliver from the get-go. Ultimately, the desire to keep Netanyahu out of office was not enough to keep a group that agreed on little else together.
FEW ACCOMPLISHMENTS
While Bennett and Lapid continuously stressed how successful the government was, there are few accomplishments. For months, the primary accomplishment repeated over and over was the passing of a state budget, a low bar and bare requirement for any coalition. Failing to pass a budget is an automatic trigger for elections.
In recent weeks, Bennett has repeatedly spoken about how safe the country has been during his year in office with only seven rockets fired from Gaza just a year after 4,500 Hamas and rockets and Israel’s retaliatory “Operation Guardian of the Walls.” Yet Bennett has refused to mention the dozens of terror attacks in Israeli cities in recent weeks – the deadliest terror wave since 2014.
LEFT-WING AGENDA
What the coalition succeeded to do was bring every single member of Israel’s left wing from the backbenches of the opposition into seats of power. Bennett had little discipline over his cabinet.
While he remained silent, Bennett’s partners worked to bring Israel back toward a path of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. This despite the P.A.’s continued funding of terrorists, via their abhorrent “pay for slay” program and terror incitement across all sectors of Palestinian society. Several members of Bennett’s government met P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas on multiple visits in Ramallah, and Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz even hosted Abbas in his home in Rosh HaAyin – the first time Abbas had visited Israel in more than 10 years.
The government circumvented an Israeli law designed to prevent tax and customs transfers to the P.A. on the basis of the terror financing, by instead “loaning” 600 million NIS (nearly $175 million) in funds to the P.A. with the withheld transfers being used as collateral in case the P.A. later failed to pay the loans.
Lapid, for his part, initially agreed to allow the United States to reopen a U.S. Consulate to the Palestinian Authority in Jerusalem that was shuttered when the previous administration fulfilled the Jerusalem Embassy Act in 2018, which codified a unified Jerusalem as the official capital of the Jewish state according to U.S. law. It took a massive pressure campaign on right-wing members of the government, including on Bennett and Gideon Sa’ar to prevent the consulate’s reopening.
As Foreign Minister Lapid also caused significant damage to Israel’s critical relationships with Russia, China and Poland, though he claimed he dramatically improved Israel’s diplomatic standing. Just last week, he partnered with left-wing Culture Minister Chili Tropper to join Israel into the EU’s Cultural Program – a program that refuses participation of Israelis living in Judea, Samaria or the Golan Heights – effectively a form of anti-Israel BDS.
During a pandemic, Israel’s Health Minister found time not only to meet Abbas but to enact progressive reforms making it easier for women to get abortions, for same-sex couples to adopt children via surrogacy and to ease the process for gender-transition surgeries to be performed in Israeli hospitals.
Energy Minister and left-wing Labor Party member Karine Elharrar stopped Israeli exploration licenses for additional finds of off-shore natural gas due to Israel’s new commitment to pursue renewable energy. It was only several weeks ago, after Europe began scrambling to find new sources of natural gas since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that Elharrar announced exploration would resume.
‘WORST GOVERNMENT IN ISRAELI HISTORY’
Celebrating the announcement that the Knesset would be disbanded, Netanyahu said in a statement that “it is clear to everyone that the worst government in Israeli history has come to an end.” He noted that the announcement was preceded by a year of “determined struggle by the opposition in the Knesset and great suffering by the Israeli public.”
In its place, Netanyahu has pledged to form a “wide, national government headed by Likud.”
AVOIDING ELECTIONS?
Despite Bennett and Lapid’s announcement that they intend to disband the parliament and take the nation to the polls for the fifth time in three-and-a-half years, Netanyahu may be able to form an alternative right-wing coalition within the existing parliament. He currently controls a strong bloc of 55 members. If he can convince six members of the current coalition to join, he can form a government and avert new elections.
The possibility of an alternative coalition is strengthened by recent poll numbers showing that the right-wing six-member New Hope Party led by former Likud party stalwart and Netanyahu-challenger Sa’ar would fail to pass the minimum Knesset threshold if new elections were to be held today. Bennett’s own right-wing Yamina Party is performing poorly in the polls, and there is a strong possibility that his party may implode altogether before an election would be held.
Yamina members reportedly were not informed ahead of time of Bennett’s intention to disband the government, and several party members would gladly fulfill the promises they made to their voters and serve in a right-wing government.
By joining a Netanyahu-led government, Bennett, Sa’ar or even Gantz could help the nation avoid yet another election and receive high-ranking ministerial portfolios in the process.
A strong center-right government would fulfill the will of an electorate that’s tired of the polls and wants those elected to do their jobs for once without the politics. If not, Israel will head back to the polling stations to try to end the electoral deadlock themselves.
And while Israelis and onlookers around the world may scoff at Israel’s political dysfunction, at least the mandate is returning where it belongs: to the people – a sign of a robust democracy.
|
Netanyahu vows to form new gov’t, pans Bennett coalition as ‘biggest failure in history’
The Israeli opposition hailed Monday’s decision to vote to dissolve the Knesset and hold a fifth general election in three and a half years, with former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledging to establish “a broad, strong, and stable national government that would bring back national pride.” In a jubilant video released on social media, Netanyahu said “It is clear to everyone that this government, the biggest failure in the history of Israel, is at the end of its road, a government dependent on supporters of terror, that neglected the personal security of citizens of Israel, and that raised the cost of living to new heights,” the ex-PM said. The former prime minister added that he would not form a government with United Arab List chairman Mansour Abbas. “I will not sit [in a government] with Mansour Abbas, and I did not sit with Mansour Abbas,” Netanyahu said. In stark contrast, in the corridors of Israel’s parliament, the predominant feeling among members of the coalition was bewilderment. Many lawmakers were not informed in advance of the decision, made after a meeting between Bennett and Lapid, and were left to hear it from the media. Defense Minister Benny Gantz was the first to respond publicly, stating that he believes “the government has done a very good job” and that “it is a shame that the country must be dragged to elections.” Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar also responded to the announcement: “As I’ve warned – the irresponsibility of certain coalition lawmakers has brought about the inevitable. The goal in the coming election is clear: preventing Netanyahu’s return to power and enslaving the state to his interests.” Mansour Abbas of the United Arab List, who led the historic process of becoming the first Arab party to join an |
“Do you ? take this ? to be your lawfully wedded ? for dibetter or diverse, ’til debt do you part?”
(2 of 2)
Bibi has not been able to find the votes over the past year to even form a govt, nor to remedy the shenanigan show trial against him. In his most powerful of moments, however, which are not in recent days, he was never able to silence the protests of his actions. The only protests emanating from the politicos regarding Bibi’s arrangement with Pfizer came in the form of the catcalls from Bennett and others that Bibi had provided the Israeli public with false promises regarding the availability, and not the safety, of the shots. They claimed he had misled the public in gaining such rapid and complete access to the injections, hence when it was seen that he was in fact able to do so, it made his opponents all the more green with envy of his achievement, with all still supporting the vaccine mission being pursued.
The secrecy surrounding the contracts was not specific to Israel alone. A greater level of scrutiny and caution should have been pursued in the time leading upto the shots being released, but certainly there has been time enough in the intervening 18months for any close inspection to have taken place. If Bibi was at fault for gaining such quick access to the shots, where does the culpability lie for the last 18monts, 13 of which Bibi has been quite out of power, when the greatest lessons of the harms have been demonstrated before the entire world, and still the Knesset’s outcry has remained quite silent.
No one in the Israeli body politic objected to the vaccine rollout based on the harms of the shots, not then and not now. The lack of even something so limited in its function and intent as VAERS was never pursued in Israel, not under Bibi and not under Bennett, not even after the shots were cited as causing myocarditis and lethal blood clots, not even when they were being administered to younger and younger victims, who had no lethal outcomes associated with the shots.
When the vaccines demonstrated to have but a sprinter’s effect and was seen to fail early and often, it was Bennett who renegotiated a second and then a third and then a fourth injection, where Bibi took the role of cat calling from the bleachers, far less so of late to my ears, curiously enough.
Hence, with all of this in mind, when you assert that the entire Knessett is not responsible for this still ongoing vaccine experiment, it is a political perspective alone that could support that obviously flawed and utterly false statement as
.
/2
(1 of 2)
@Reader
You focus upon Bibi and isolate the criticism to him alone, citing his role in the secret contracts, even as you cite the associated harms as evident with athletes dropping like flies around the world, something that is clearly recognized today but was never known in Dec 2020 when those contracts were signed.
Whatever you may believe about Bibi’s culpability regarding the introduction of the vaccines, the entire Knessett has stood as strong champions of their benefits and quite selectively ignorant of their harms, even as the harms have become obvious for all to reflect upon. The relative disconnect here bears a striking similarity to yourself, as you seem to prefer to pretend an ignorance of the entire Knessett’s support for the continuation of this dangerous product even as the harms have become more difficult for anyone to ignore. This support also includes the unflagging support of the opposing camp of Bennett-Lapid-Lieberman-Horowitz-Abbas-etc under whose authority, protesters raising concerns against the injection program were seen to be pummeled with police water cannons, which to my understanding was a severe overstep of necessity.
Within this Knessett, where stands the opposition to the shots? Does the entire political collective not stand of a single mind, a shot in every arm as often as dictated by the medical tyrants. Bibi has certainly stood in the pro-injection camp, but this is the only topic in which Israel’s politicians speak with a single voice, for which we should be reminded that
h/t Ryan Cole
/1
Let’s not dump this on the whole Knesset.
Netanyahu signed this unique and secret contract with Pfizer, and the whole world knew that Israel was offered to Pfizer as a lab rat.
As I recall, it was also a great PR stunt for him.
I don’t think that Israel publishes all the statistics on what actually happened to the vaccinated people there, I know that young, professional athletes around the world are dying like flies, why would the consequences of the shots be any different for anyone else?
The effects of the shots on fertility and the possible genetic effects on the newborns are not yet fully known, and may not become known for decades.
From what I understand, the Israeli Government agreed in contract with Pfizer to trial the injections on the Israeli people.
That the contract is hidden for decades does not look good.
There has been enough time now for any leader that honestly realised they made a mistake to speak up but they haven’t – including Mr Netanyahu.
Right now I know a 21 year old girl in Tel Aviv who after shots has had multiple strokes and clots in her neck. There are so many inured and dead.
The vaccines and the whole Covid response has been a disaster.
Israel has facilitated this and participated in this.
Personally, I cannot vote for anyone who has not spoken out about these vaccines and the Covid response.
Just because it’s not being reported, doesn’t mean it’s not a disaster.
Unfortunately, the shots have mostly hurt young healthy people it seems – physically, mentally, & economically.
@LEANMARC-
Your comment is misleading. Netanyahu and the almost unanimous Knesset believed that they were protecting the Israeli People, in getting the first vaccines almost anyone else.
There is NO reason to assert that they were knowingly working with Pfizer to “Trial” the vaccine. It was a completely new technology and my recollection is that they were assured that it was safe and efficient. They followed the example of the US Fauci who voiced the utmost confidence in it.
Regardless of all this Israeli dead, MOSTLY very elderly who had underlying additional ailments, total as reported yesterday, is just over 10,000. The Israeli population is over 9 millions. Therefore, the fatalities amount to barely over a TENTH of ONE percent.
The US fatality from COVID is just under 3 TENTH of ONE percent. –one million fatalities in a population of approx 340 millions.
So Israel has a comparatively good ratio compared to the US, where all this began. Pfizer has 11 manufacturing sites in 5 countries including the US and Europe. (if you can call ANY deaths “good”).
If my math is in error, don’t hesitate to correct me.
@leanmarc@ii.net
Well, the problem lies in the reality that the entire Knesset is overfilled with those who actually supported and still actively support the injectee experimentations. I do recall a single Knessett member who objected to some aspect of the Covid measures, his name escapes me at the moment – perhaps someone could remind me of who it was that had his solitary objections smothered out as he stood alone against the rest of the Knessett – even as this is the only topic that the Knesset seems to have any sense of agreement, in which they still dispute who should call the shots regarding the shots. Of course there was also the valid input offered by the foot slapping Feglin, whose stoned display of too much weed and too much Jack Daniels seems to have sidelined his relevance for all time.
There is, of course, a definite public outcry against the injections, but the political class do seem quite ignorant of this group, or at least they seem to be quite intent on ignoring them, beyond sending in police cannons to disperse them with extreme discourtesy. Perhaps there may arise a political force within this coming election to raise this topic and challenge all those in power with the reality of the numbers who fill this protest movement, despite the false representations that they represent only a few dozen protesters.
Should they hope to demonstrate their competence and resistance to this continued policy of experimentation by injection, the protest movement do not need to field a potential challenger for PM – something that will be beyond any possible likelihood or prudent expectation, even by the most ardent of the protesters. They only need to win enough seats to help control the situation from the sidelines, offering a public voice and a certain control of the govt’s ability to choose to enforce its policy as it has done these past 18months. I do believe that the voices that support this protest movement are, however, formed from a relatively diverse cross section of the country, and as such, I suspect that they will likely form a general consensus on very few other political topics, and may consequently fail to succeed in carrying their voice to any political advantage opposing the shot policy. Perhaps I am mistaken, but this is the most likely outcome for the protest movement or having any earnest input into the political conversation on the injection experimentation.
Then again, perhaps, I am underestimating the true strength and numbers or political consensus within the protest movement, so I guess we will see how it goes.
Should Israel have any Prime Minister that supported using the Jewish People to trial Pfizer vaccines?
Should we have a PM that encouraged family members to go against each other?
Sorry, No matter their accomplishments these are not good people.