Deal would see PM leave post to Gantz within six months; plan designed to take advantage of ‘rare opportunity’ of tacit US backing, minister says
By TOI STAFF
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks before a map of the Jordan Valley, vowing to extend Israeli sovereignty there if reelected, during a speech in Ramat Gan on September 10, 2019. (Menahem Kahana/AFP)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to serve as premier first in a rotational government with rival party Blue and White for only as long as it takes him to make good on a promise to annex the West Bank’s Jordan Valley, his party said Monday.
The Likud and Blue and White parties have been locked in unsuccessful unity talks with the country steadily slipping toward a third round of elections. Likud has insisted that Netanyahu go first in a rotational deal, even for only a few months, but Blue and White has stuck to its promise not to join a government led by a prime minister under indictment.
Netanyahu in September vowed that if reelected he would immediately annex the Jordan Valley, a swath of land linking the West Bank to Jordan that Israel sees as a vital security asset, in what was widely seen in Israel as a bid to attract support from right-wing voters.
According to a report in the Israel Hayom daily, a rotational deal offered by Likud would allow Netanyahu to remain in office for six months in order to push through the annexation of Jordan Valley, after which he would step aside to fight bribery and fraud charges.
A Likud source told the paper, widely seen as a mouthpiece for Netanyahu, that Blue and White would not see a better deal.
According to Israel Hayom, after Netanyahu stepped aside, Gantz would assume the premiership for a year and a half before returning the position to Likud.
Netanyahu and other Likud officials have touted the possible annexation of West Bank territories claimed by the Palestinians, citing tacit support from US President Donald Trump’s administration. Discussion of the matter has sparked fierce international condemnation, including an angry response from Jordan amid a nadir in ties between the two countries.
While Blue and White also supports annexation of the Jordan Valley, it has not said it would move ahead with it unilaterally.
Environmental Protection Minister Ze’ev Elkin confirmed the Likud offer to the Kan public broadcaster.
“Understand that the process [of annexation] requires tacit agreement from the Americans. There is currently a rare opportunity that we cannot miss,” he said.
“There are two options. We can let Blue and White push us into elections again or we can try to reach an understanding. We are ready to go far,” he continued. “It makes no sense for Blue and White not to accept the offer — we will [regardless] continue in power for another six months if there is an election.”
Blue and White has said it was willing to form a government with Likud, but only if Netanyahu steps down as leader. The party reportedly fears Netanyahu would use his time as premier in a rotational government to push through an immunity package and avoid criminal prosecution.
Late last month, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit announced that Netanyahu would be charged with criminal wrongdoing in three cases against him, including bribery in the far-reaching Bezeq corruption probe. However, due to the current political deadlock it will probably take several months before Mandelblit can even formally file the charges in court.
If no unity government is formed, new elections are expected to be called for sometime in March, the third in under a year.
@ Real rightwinger:
Well said.
The Mandate would appear to institute Rights for All.
Religious Freedom being one. This would require Area A to comply.
Israel as the offspring, has a responsibility to bring Israeli Law to all of the lands of the Mandate.
@ Edgar G.:
I just now looked him up as R.B.Saxe and found the Bear Alley piece. I found it some years ago, and all the comments below written by Gerald were written by me. I’d think about Saxe every while and look to see if anything more had been found.
Astonishing coincidence between you and I… As you see in the Bear Alley blurb, even seasoned researchers, found it hard, and only by chance of the grandson writing in, and the obituary, gave them the info. I’d forgotten a lot, including that he wrote that hit tune. years before it became a hit when sung by Donald Peers. I heard it almost every time I turned on the radio. Peers was not young he must have been about 45 and I, even as a musician, had never heard of him before he made that song famous. And he died at about the very same age, and lived a life rather much like Dickson.. Odd.??
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Did you indeed…? I was sure that nobody on this site certainly, had ever heard of him. I’ve come across some occasional write ups on him, a few years ago, on obscure sites. Those who write in, always seem to refer to the “The Ghost Knows His Greengages” book, which was likely his first, but the first one I read was “The Ghost Does a Richard The Third”…I liked it and kept a look out for more, and got them in second hand book stores.
On the internet, quite a few years ago all that was known about him was that an unknown author called R.B. Saxe had written a book or two. Then a few years later, someone had written in and gave a little megillah on his life, including his real name and occupation (which I forget) . He was in the RAF during the War also. He wrote these books and then faded away nd nobody knows where he went or what happened to him. With your computer skills you should be able to track it ll down.
And then let me know.. Thanks.@ Sebastien Zorn:
I have that Zangwill book ..what a coincidence. His masterpiece, which I got when very young, is “The King of Schorrers” A howl, in serious step-time. Such proud chutzpah…Unbelievble. As much chutzpah as Gantz…. thinking he is able to run a country….
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Did you indeed…? I was sure that nobody on this site certainly, had ever heard of him. I’ve come across some occasional write ups on him, a few years ago, on obscure sites. Those who write in, always seem to refer to the “The Ghost Knows His Greengages” book, which was likely his first, but the first one I read was “The Ghost Does a Richard The Third”…I liked it and kept a look out for more, and got them in second hand book stores.
On the internet, quite a few years ago all that was known about him was that an unknown author called R.B. Saxe had written a book or two. Then a few years later, someone had written in and gave a little megillah on his life, including his real name and occupation (which I forget) . He was in the RAF during the War also. He wrote these books and then faded away nd nobody knows where he went or what happened to him. With your computer skills you should be able to track it ll down.
And then let me know.. Thanks.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Hard to find, even in a library or online. Project Gutenberg doesn’t have. Amazon has a couple but very expensive, $56 and $65. There are articles, including a Wikipedia article in French. John Francis Dickinson was his name. R.B. Saxe was his nom de plume. Did find the first locked room mystery novel and it was by none other than Israel Zangwill! The Big Bow Mystery. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28164/28164-h/28164-h.htm
@ Edgar G.:
I remember reading R.B. Saxe as a kid. Thanks for reminding me.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
This reminds me of Sammy Creed; going into a Paris cafe for coffee, and says “toot sweet…two lumps”….He was the assistant to John Dobbs , known as “the Ghost”. A major character in a series of books by a very obscure -and mysterious- author that nobody knows anything about, called R.B. Saxe. , I just happen to have a few of his books. He only wrote a handful and then disappeared into limbo, the same way as he had appeared.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
I thought you were highlighting “fritter” which has to be fried….forward to ,,, Olive oil, which smokes, when used to fry. and I also visualised an olive with a drooping cigarette, this last has no **connection** but the fritter, and fried, has.. Yes, I know not up to standard, but I was squeezed out, my mind wasn’t working on all 12 cylinders. (Lagonda style cylinders-or maybe Hispano-Suiza) ..
The asterisks ……. because when I was typing “olive oil’ I was thinking of Popeye-and Bluto..and the droopy cigarette was because I think that in one or more of those cartoons there was a character called Droopy, not to be confused with Dopey (who always had very droopy pants)-which is the way I’m feeling right now. It’s nearly 2.45 a.m….and I’m fading.
“And as the sun sinks slowly in the west, I’ll say “farewell” to this lovely coral blog site for tonight”……As James A. Fitzpatrick used to say at the end of his travelogues. I liked them, he was always interesting.
That’s the way my mind works…… anti-clockwise-with an inside-out double dummy swerve.(a rugby play)…..???…..!!!!….????**
@ Edgar G.:
Lost ya there, chum. Explicate, c vu play.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
And don’t use olive oil, it smokes. Which makes it bad for the lungs.
@ Edgar G.:
Aaah. Ya skwered me, matie! Anyway, let’s not fritter the day away.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Wouldn’t “spiced skewers” be a trifle hard to digest…? And…. Don’t tell me that a paneer is just the Indian way of saying punner……!!
@ Edgar G.:
Perhaps. We are, after all, what we eat. https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/paneer
@ Sebastien Zorn:
How cn we dub you… punner funner….??!!
The eagerness to annex the Jordan Valley reflects an enduring commitment to the failed Oslo 2-state solution process, a refusal to consider the annexation of the entirety of “West Bank” and once again the small minded and meek thinking of ghetto “Judaism” that fails to put Jewish nationalism and livelihood first over the cause of our enemies.
A rare historic opportunity of tacit US permission is met with not the aggressive grab of the bull by the horns but instead a cowering chihuahua bark for table scraps that lacks conviction in the justice of its own cause. Like a thief in the night, “Trump is giving us a blank check so let’s rush to grab the tiniest sliver of land we never dreamed of being granted that is the most critical of security interests but not dare an inch further!”
The powers that be are still hoping to bequeath Fakestinians with a statehood in Judea and Samaria, and they believe that owning the Jordan valley will help cushion that eventual blow.
They still haven’t left the Oslo box, and the unelected deep state forces of Israel are still not letting go against the few who have.
Why all this celebration of Netanyahu and the Jordan Valley, along with the Greenblatt plan which is to come? Don’t you see that it’s altogether a modified form of Oslo 2-state solution where Israel has nickle and dimed its way to a tiny bit more security than the previous Olmert & Barak frameworks?????
@ Edgar G.:
All prescient and accounted for.
@ Ted Belman:
Ted
What!!!
I was agreeing with you. you have far too thin a skin for this game Ted!
@ Sebastien Zorn:
I didn’t know that…Just shows how prescient I am. I could buy a Lotto ticket, but it doesn’t work that way…. I accidentally omitted a “perhaps” in that last sentence…but no matter.
@ Edgar G.:
Edgar G. Said:
And Trump only reversed the Hansell Memorandum a couple of weeks ago.
I don’t see as “emet” Netnyahu associates’ comment about him ONLY wanting to be PM for a few months , so that he can extend sovereignty over the Jordan Valley, and (presumably the lower Dead Sea area etc)……. At time of the elections, there was NO hint of this, and I’m positive (without being in the PM’s inner circle) that Netanyahu fully intended to stay for years, until he was prevented by old age, or a genuine, legal vote.
He must also have taken the crooked accusations and indictments into consideration, but confidently expected that they would either not be proceeded with, or that he would overcome them.
Now…all he’s supposed to want, are a few, paltry months, to do what he should have done years ago, despite anti-Jew opposition, and not caring about the international climate. But NOW, since Trump has already been in office for 3 years, it could have been done already, by making the first move to speak with the Pres, and get his implied backing-if nothing else.
In this case, the US “blind-eye” tacitly encouraging, IS actually a result of Netanyahu representations to Trump….we don’t know, but I would not be surprised.
It would be just another reason why Israel NEEDS this master statesman.
@ Felix Quigley:
I don’t know what your problem is. I am very familiar with those maps and so is Martin Sherman. My plan gives all the land west of the Jordan R to Israel.
Reports are starting to filter out that a Unity Govt. that would have Bibi serve for the first 5 to 6 months as PM are coming out. Gantz would then take over for two years.
The reports say it is not a done deal but is a real possibility.
@ Edgar G.:
Suggestion by Bear extending Israeli law is perfect. The meaning is taking possession what is truly yours. that brings in the Spencer book chapter one.
the real content of this is taking possession of this west bank thing in total.
Bringing into being the real Jewish soul that Ziff talks about so well…he died very young actually.
Need a rejuvenation to challenge Gantz, but Yeats is not talking about years old but about spirit and youth.
And up yours BBC!
@ Sebastien Zorn:
So right here Sebastien
trying to get a handle on this from time, and thought I would try for Yeats
“A Study Guide for William Butler Yeats’s “Sailing to Byzantium”
https://books.google.es › books
Gale, Cengage Learning – 2016 – ?Literary Criticism
One of the central ideas in this work is how time affects all living things, … the poem also notes how humans gain mental powers as physical ability slips away.”
I fear time rushes by and chances are going to be lost
As I read this by ted the 3 dim maps came into mind and I strugggled for the name, then it came, the guy with the shining teeth, Mark Langfan
I want to try to find out now how the hell what Ted is saying fits into these maps
In 1991, Mr. Langfan created a 3 dimensional topographic raised-relief map system of Israel. Viewing the 3D Israel map one can easily and quickly be informed of many of the underlying resource and security issues involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict such as West Bank water resources and Israeli ‘defensible’ borders. Over the past 20 years, Mr. Langfan has briefed many congressional and Senate offices, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Israel Desk, and the New York Times Editorial Board using his topographic map of Israel.
https://marklangfan.com/about/
I have a hundred ideas about how to use this.
@ Edgar G.:
Edgar
In fact before reading your comment I had already copied this
“Blue and White has said it was willing to form a government with Likud, but only if Netanyahu steps down as leader. The party reportedly fears Netanyahu would use his time as premier in a rotational government to push through an immunity package and avoid criminal prosecution.”
With the thought that the issues facing Jews are so serious and huge yet this guy is following attack on Netanyahu with a fanatical zeal.
Something is very rotten there.
Real power seems to be slipping away. This guy Gantz has too much power. Toomany were ready to stick Bibi and i wonder about Shaked and Bennett in this too.
looking at it coldly there is a complete lack of material leadership. Martin the only real alternative comes out with (his little) statements but needed a party.
In this Edgar I think book by Spencer is a help The Palestinian Delusion.
PS I have been this morning on a ring in arguing for Israel and Mossad with the English over Andy and Maxwell. the English are the worst. The BBC is the most evil on earth. Even arguing against them makes me feel awful.
News Flash to those of you who support applying sovereignty, civil law, annexation, new york cheese cake, or whatever you want to call it, and still think any deal should be made that would put any of these three clowns in the drivers seat on procedural grounds, THEY ARE ON RECORD AS BEING AGAINST IT! Bibi doesn’t always keep his word but to quote Elie Wiesel, “If somebody says he wants to kill you, believe him.”
“The Lieberman Plan suggests a territorial exchange whereby Israel would annex almost all Israeli settlements in the West Bank which are situated in major settlement blocs close to the border, and withdraw from the remaining few deep inside the Palestinian territories. At the same time, it would transfer Arab-Israeli areas to the Palestinian state.[1” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieberman_Plan
@ Peter Dale:
Yes I also wish they wouldn’t use the term “annex”. Israel’s position under International Law, many times documented, is very clear, and ,as Bear says, he would only need to announce extending Israeli Law over these areas. I have written on this many times. and I believe also, that Ted is right, and, as a lawyer, careful to make sure that all these offshoot results should be enclosed in the initial document of “annexation”, thus “nailing down” all the corners….
This is all a MUST. I don’t trust Gantz, he is too fervently pursuing Netanyahu , so obviously to make SURE that he goes OUT of politics and government, and into prison, Exactly like a personal vendetta….He prefers to pursue the trumped up charges, than to make up a government, coalition or otherwise.
@ Peter Dale:
In Hebrew when people speak on this subject they use the Hebrew word that translates more to applying “sovereignty” and mean applying Israeli Civil Law. As Israeli has the legal rights to the land and is just applying its civil law.
I think we should be careful of the terms used here. Annexation in international law refers to the forcible acquisition of one state’s territory by another state and is considered to be illegal. This is not that. The proposal means reclaiming Jewish lands from illegal Jordanian occupiers. Using annex as a verb in fact concedes that there is another state. There is not, never was and never will be.
While he is annexing the Jordan Valley, he should also annex (extend sovereignty) to all settlement blocs. It should all be done at the same time.. Also sovereignty should also be extended to E zone betrween Maalet Adumin and Jerusalem.
Perhaps someoone could clarify. If that is his intention will it not be a term of the coalition agreement so that its passing is assured. Same goes for the immunity agreement.
Do it and be damed, ‘damed if you do, damed if you don’t as they say.’ Maybe then you can retire to caasaria with your head held high.