Coalition building

By Ted Belman

I am fascinated by coalition talks this time around.

Lapid doesn’t want Shas and so Netanyahu doesn’t want Lapid. Unfortunately for Netanyahu he is confronted by a pact between Lapid and Bennett in which they are in or out of the government together. They represent 31 mandates against Netanyahu’s 32.

Of course Netanyahu could accede to their request and form a government with a 63 seat majority and leave Shas and everyone else out. He obviously doesn’t want to do this. Such a coalition would work well together. Bennett is against the two state solution but will likely accept Netanyahu’s Bar Ilan formulation simply because nothing will come of it. So far in talks Bennet does not appear to make annexation of Area C a demand. Lapid on the other hand also accepts the formulation, an undivided Jerusalem and building in settlement blocs providing negotiations commence in six months. He is unlikely to leave government if they don’t.

Not much divides them on budget, education and housing. As for shared service, Netanyahu is trying to get them to reach an agreement with Shas which would solve most of his problems.

He has tried to woo Bennett away from the pact offering him 4 portfolios. Bennett rejected the offer saying we we want to talk policy before we talk portfolios.

Apparently Bibi is also wooing Shelly Yacimovitch (Labour 15 seats). He has offered her the Finance Ministry believing that she could live comfortably with Shas and UTJ in the government because they all have similar view on a social agenda. Furthermore such an agenda for her would be more important then fighting for equal sharing of the burden. The hope is that she and Shas and UTJ could be an alternative to Lapid/Bennett. Talk of such an arrangement would be enough to soften up the Lapid demands.

Now Netanyahu keeps repeating that he wants the widest possible coalition. How does that help him? Why does he want this. Essentially, the wider the coalition the less power to execute his own agenda. Does he have an agenda other than to stay in power? Or is bringing the opposition into government intended to silence the opposition.

February 17, 2013 | 15 Comments »

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15 Comments / 15 Comments

  1. yamit82 Said:

    I love it!!! At least so far.

    Yes and no. We have a lot of problems to deal with in many sphere and we are going to suffer due to the incompetence and chicanery of our pols. We do not have the [same] luxury that many “normal” countries have in watching politics go yo-yo.

  2. Seems BB’s duplicity and lies are coming home to roost:

    “The Jewish Home party’s coalition talks are being led by MK Uri Ariel. Ariel’s party in the last Knesset, Ichud Leumi, was reportedly mistreated by Netanyahu during coalition talks. Netanyahu allegedly implored party head MK Yaakov “Ketzaleh” Katz to recommend him as Prime Minister, and said Ichud Leumi had a guaranteed spot in his coalition, only to shut the party out of the coalition after he was chosen to lead the government.

    Netanyahu did include the Labor party, at that time led by Ehud Barak, who had recommended his rival, Tzipi Livni, to be the Prime Minister.”

    In the end BB is likely to stay in character and fold otherwise new elections could be the alternative which IMO is not a bad option as it would mess of any nefarious plans BB and Obama are coordinating and set the time line back 4-6 months which can be a long time here in the ME where anything can happen including the Likud dumping BB or the Likud with BB polling less than they have today. BB won’t chance it so he will give in to Bennett and Lapid if they hold firm together.

    Lieberman is out seemingly for the duration (The trial will take a long time)and if BB screws him the Lieberman contingent might even split from BB and leave the coalition.

    I love it!!! At least so far. 😉

  3. yamit82 Said:

    Problem is a lot of his stuff has proved over the years to be correct or correct

    What percentage of his ramblings over the last 20 years has been correct? If he’s lucky, it was 10 percent.

    You don’t know Feiglin. Again, you are motzee shem rah.

    He did not have a “real movement under tow.” Your timeline memory is slipping. Oslo was rammed through in spite of all the protests. The Israeli government tyranny against loyal Jewish Israelis continues today because we let the goons take over the government. That was the bitter lesson driven home after Netanyahu first became PM in 1996.

  4. @ Bernard Ross:

    In all fairness anything from Barry Chamish should be taken with some grains of salt as he is a known conspiracy monger. Problem is a lot of his stuff has proved over the years to be correct or correct enough to shed light on a lot of shadows if not darkness.

    I think Shy Guys angst relates more to ‘Feiglin’ than that attributed to BB and Olmert. Since I just read Chamish’s articles his pov re: Feiglin mirrors many of my own past comments re: Feiglin and they sound at least plausible to me and I am not really into unsubstantiated conspiracy narratives, yet I do question and have yet to receive credible alternative explanations re: Feiglin’s big turnaround when he had a real movement under tow.

  5. BB can’t even pay for his own ice cream, he is a known cheapskate who does not pay personal bills if he can avoid them or get someone else to pay for them. The ice cream scandal is only the latest in a long list of other BB cheapskate incidents made public over the years.

    We tax payers have to pay for his ice cream?

    Jerusalem ice-cream parlor becomes hot property after being frozen out by Netanyahu
    On Thursday Netanyahu canceled a state-financed contract worth up to NIS 10,000 for annual ice cream purchases from Glida Metudela for his official residence.

  6. the phoenix Said:

    I find impossible for this to be a coincidence…People like Allen west and Herman Cain. They come in with the promise of one thing…and then they fold…Sharon, of course being the epitome of 180 degree change of course…

    I am less worried about the cains and Wests who get nowhere but more about the Obamas, sharons, Olmerts, romneys, clintons, bushes, etc. who reach positions of power. It is not just the reaching but the odor of corruption. Not just even the corruption but their easy targeting for manipulation. Sharon was not only facing his own scandals but their was also his family. I even question the coma which has an air similar to Hilary’s recent illness. I dont think it is that Israel is more corrupt but that the size of Israel in relation to the external interest in it makes its leaders more likely targets for corruption, grooming, manipulation. What happens in Israel is important to what happens in the world, especially as a red herring and a catalyst for global dramas. Large entities like the US are probably as corrupt or moreso but are able to bury it in control of media and a gullible population.

  7. @ Bernard Ross:

    Maybe shacalnur’s conspiracies were right.

    I MISS nur’kaleh …. 🙂
    But seriously, mr Ross, I find impossible for this to be a coincidence…
    People like Allen west and Herman Cain. They come in with the promise of one thing…and then they fold…
    Sharon, of course being the epitome of 180 degree change of course…
    Were that to be true, …the future does not look too rosy I am afraid

  8. yamit82 Said:

    Netanyahu and Olmert’s Deep Secrets

    Read your links. I have long stated tha I suspected that top Israeli leaders were targets of blackmail and extortion as most appeared to be surrounded by scandal. It was my suspicion that the same applied to Sharon and was the reason for disengagement. The timing of the scandals, the disengagement, the coma all seemed too coincidental. Politicians are groomed and then later blackmailed and extorted by foreign intelligence services. their families and futures are threatened and it becomes a choice between exposure, jail, family accidents and money,fame,applause? The amount of scandal ridden Israeli leaders in high office on a continuing basis and the absurd actions of these politicians when they take over leadership is food for thought.
    How is it possible for a supreme court judge to receive 20 million from a foreign hostile agency without being charged with something. Another thing I notice is how often Israeli politicians are indicted or threatened with indictment. Perhaps this is the message from the puppet masters to tow the line or else.
    Perhaps the coalitions BB seeks, like choosing Barak, are a way to promulgate policies in conflict with his electoral campaigns and a red herring to the real agenda. Reminds me of the choices of hagel and Brennan; after all what possible reason could exist to appoint an idiot like hagel the head of defense other than as a red herring and a sabotaging of the pentagon. Same with Brennan. Neither have any qualifications for the position. Fall guys, front men, useful idiots?
    Maybe shacalnur’s conspiracies were right.

  13. Netanyahu and Olmert’s Deep Secrets Barry Chamish

    Romney and Netanyahu were brought together by a new endeavor, The Boston Consulting Group. Each had been approached to act as a corporate advisor for the firm. Romney was a recent honors graduate from Harvard with dual degrees in law and business administration; Netanyahu, with an architecture diploma in hand, had just enrolled in the Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to pursue a master’s degree.

    Imagine that… Netanyahu in the late ’70s worked with Romney, at Boston Consulting Group, both holding corporate advisor positions at the new firm run by one Ira Magaziner.

    Ira Magaziner was a member of the CFR…and both Romney and Netanyahu would follow in his footsteps.

    Who better than Ron Paul to expose Mitt Romney’s CFR membership? And look at all the CFR grooming and control.

    Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu was spotted at MIT in 1973 and the grooming began there when he was in his early twenties. After graduating, he received a high paying job at The Boston Consulting Group. His boss was Ira Magaziner (CFR), later President Bill Clinton’s (CFR) health advisor. (Clinton later shoved the Oslo “peace” accord down Israel’s throat.) But he quit the job in 1979, returned to Israel, staring selling furniture at the Rim Company, then organized an anti-terror convention. Inexplicably, the CFR sent a team of their biggest guns including George Bush Sr., Richard Perle and George Shultz to this unknown 27-year-old’s get-together. Once the convention was over, Netanyahu returned to work selling home furniture for three years until 1982, when Washington Ambassador Moshe Arens invited him to be his deputy. He claimed the choice was indirectly made by those who came to his convention and “were impressed with his performance.” That means Bush and Shultz pressed Arens to bring Bibi to Washington. From there, they pushed his career higher. In 1985, Shultz chaired another anti-terror convention in Washington supposedly organized by Netanyahu. By the time Bibi was UN Ambassador Schultz visited him every time he was in New York, and that was often.

    Now please kind readers, ask yourselves: What are the odds that of the two advisors of Ira Magaziner’s new company, one would become the Prime Minister of Israel, while, at the same time, the other would be running for the American presidency? Come on now, one in a million, a billion?

    Israelis know or suspect that Netanyahu is controlled by America. They just don’t know who in America. Those Americans dumb or desperate enough to vote Romney, might be rewarded with a CFR-groomed lackey. Into this awful equation, we have ridiculously direct and suspicious ties between Olmert’s corruption and 9-11. Read full articles here

  14. Et Tu, Elad? or Israelis Think Netanyahu Is On Their Side

    First, the cabinet approved a bill permitting the vetting of justice selection for the Supreme Court by the Knesset. Believe it or not, right now the justices appoint their friends and no one can do a thing about it. And the situation won’t change because Prime Minister Netanyahu tabled the proposed law, meaning, he made it go away for good. And believe it or not, that’s legal in Israel. Elad was thrilled the cabinet approved the bill anyway and was just as optimistic because of the next bill, severely restricting foreign contributions to Israeli political movements, a law that exists in every nation on earth…but, of course, Israel. The Ford Foundation, for example, was forced by its benefactors to stop all contributions to Israel because it was well proven that all the money went to undermining the nation through extreme left wing movements with no support within Israel. The Ford Foundation answered yes, we’ll stop contributions to Israel in a year. But just before, the foundation board found a spare $20m and in a private ceremony, handed the check over to chief of the Israeli Supreme Court, Dorit Beinish.

    Honest, that is how low, immoral, unethical and criminal the Supreme Court is. And the cabinet approved a new law that demands restrictions on and registration of foreign money going to anti-Israel Israelis. But then, Netanyahu tabled the new law, never to be seen again.

    Still, Elad was moved by the cabinet, at least, trying to do responsible governance. Somehow, Netanyahu opposing his cabinet and shelving the bills was not part of the mental equation. Not even when he rigged two important votes. He began with a straw telephone poll of his cabinet to see who would be in favor of stripping, literally, all cities and towns in Judea and Samaria of their preferential zoning rights, like subsidized mortgages.

    In short, Netanyahu was polling his cabinet to squash the entire settlement community in one foul blow. And the final result? 15 for, 10 against, the rest abstained. Only one problem, the news site, Arutz Sheva called the cabinet and members who would have opposed the bill were never contacted. AND others who were contacted and voted NO, were listed as abstainers. Netanyahu had rigged the cabinet vote.

    Netanyahu rigs every vote he doesn’t like. In this month’s party primaries, his opponent, Moshe Feiglin drew too many votes, so he fixed some better results by, for example, having 400 more voters than were eligible in Bet Shemesh, to vote for him. And Elad was in ecstasy that his candidate won some towns in Judea and Samaria. Again, according to his thinking, there was hope after all of electoral victory. It was then that I let him know about his boy, Moshe Feiglin. It began when I pointed out that Feiglin took 20th place in the previous Likud primary and was therefore elected to the Knesset. Within a few days, Netanyahu shelved Feiglin and announced he was now in 46th position, like it or not, and would not sit in the Knesset.

    What Netanyahu did was illegal but, I asked Elad, why didn’t Feiglin challenge him in a courtroom? Then Elad spewed the same old story about the Supreme Court being so corrupt and he wouldn’t waste his money even trying there. But, But, But, I intervened, he could have sued in civil court. He was cheated and, in a fair trial, would have won.

    No response from Elad…so I go right to the heart of his political belief system:

    “Elad, Feiglin is playing the game by rules he outlined with the Likud. You don’t remember how powerful Feiglin was in ’96 when he headed Zo Artzeinu (this is our land). Israel was in chaos, roads were blocked, traffic was delayed for hours on end, the country was grinding to a halt, all in a movement to stop the Oslo Accord. With the movement growing by the day, while the government responded with increasing violence, Feiglin one morning announced he was disbanding Zo Artzeinu and joining the Likud. He had a massive change of heart and decided the only way to succeed was from within the system. In one stroke the Likud got rid of the protest movement and got a political opposition they could control.” I completed my analysis with a fact I had never publicized before. “Back then, I was not the only one to smell a Feiglin rat. One informer told me how the Likud blackmailed Feiglin. I couldn’t confirm a word but it was half-way ugly and I never publicized it, even as known gossip. The game is serious. Feiglin’s son was almost killed in a most suspicious car accident. Elad, for Israel’s finest investigative journalist, you don’t know half the game you’re watching.”

    Elad made his last mistake. He said the settlers were endangered because of the Defense Minister Ehud Barak. That got me going:

    “Netanyahu is the prime minister. He tells Barak what to do. You are falling for the basic good cop, bad cop routine. Netanyahu is staying in power because he shelves bills, rigs elections and removes settlers from their homes. And you know who he works for. Elad did.

    Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu was spotted at MIT in 1973 and the grooming began there when he was in his early twenties. After graduating, he received a high paying job at Boston Consulting. His boss was Ira Magaziner (CFR). But he quit the job in 1979, returned to Israel, staring selling furniture at the Rim company, then organized an anti-terror convention. Inexplicably, the CFR sent a team of their biggest guns including George Bush Sr., Richard Perle and George Shultz to this unknown 27 year old’s get-together. Once the convention was over, Netanyahu returned to work selling home furniture for three years until 1982, when Washington Ambassador Moshe Arens invited him to be his deputy. He claimed the choice was indirectly made by those who came to his convention and “were impressed with his performance.” That means Bush and Shultz pressed Arens to bring Bibi to Washington. From there, they pushed his career higher. In 1985, Shultz chaired another anti-terror convention in Washington supposedly organized by Netanyahu. By the time Bibi was UN Ambassador, Schultz visited him every time he was in New York, and that was often.

    Elad’s refusal to see the whole picture, and to believe that Israel could be saved electorally, saddens me deeply. The IDF’s Chief of Military Intelligence, Aviv Kochavi, in a rare public pronouncement, announced that Israel now had over 200,000 enemy rockets and missiles aimed at every corner of the land. He added 75,000 missiles over my information and made me understand that there is an Israeli threat at work. If not, well, Israel is ripe for the picking. Launching just half the missiles would put an end to the country in one day. Whatever threat is being used by Israel, it must be a beaut. To zoom in on the threat, Elad has to focus on the whole picture. That can’t be done if you think you have any electoral say whatsoever.

  15. Clearly, Bibi is drawn into covert loyalties or threats or incentives or a combination of all, by the powers to be in the US and to forces outside of Israel.