Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumIsrael set for new election?
http://www.jewishnews.net.au/israel-set-for-new-election/29786Israel is awash with speculation that new elections could be on the way, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus deadline for building a coalition looms.
His official deadline falls this weekend, but with just one faction on board apart from his own the six-seat Hatnuah Party he is still short of the Knesset majority he needs. He has just 37 of the chambers 120 seats, meaning that he requires another 24. Yet a stalemate appears to have taken hold, as Netanyahu remains determined to secure a far larger majority.
He is not interested in the coalition he could build easily, which is small enough that two of the parties would have a veto power and cause the collapse of the government on any issue, Hebrew University political scientist Abraham Diskin told The AJN.
The kind of stable coalition that Netanyahu wants requires a combination of the Charedi and non-Charedi parties. But with Labour insisting it wont join, Netanyahu has a problem.
The two remaining non-Charedi candidates say they will only enter as a pair, and only if the Charedi parties are excluded. Centrist Yesh Atid and religious-Zionist Jewish Home say they are determined to draft Charedim to the army, which they believe will be impossible with the communitys political representatives in the government.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)It seems to work as a distraction in the USA, and shiny things distract from the problems at home.
I guess if they can't get it together then the POTUS will visit another country.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)if they try and remove the social entitlements for the haredi they will have a civil war of their very own.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)According to a source within Shas, Fridays meeting ended without progress and there are still significant gaps between the two sides regarding ultra-Orthodox service.
The Jewish Home party has made it clear that an alliance formed with Yair Lapids Yesh Atid party, according to which both parties would either join the government together or join the opposition, remains firm. Jewish Home representatives on Friday also said they backed Yesh Atids demand that ultra-Orthodox schools teach the full core curriculum of subjects, including English and Mathematics, as a condition for state funding.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/likud-proposes-joint-talks-with-yesh-atid-and-jewish-home/
Either Netanyahu agrees to take them both and leave the haredi outside, or calls another election, in which case Yesh Atid will probably do better than before.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)the Haredi the or everyone else well nearly hmmmm kind of enjoyable to watch though
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)at most they can get him to 55 votes, even if Tzipi Livni stands by him and he can get a couple more votes down the list.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Gee, who could have predicted this?
sabbat hunter
(6,825 posts)there was a government in Israel that didn't require cobbling together a coalition of multiple parties rather than just one party having a majority, or maybe just having one partner? Do we have to go back to the "grand coalition" of Shamir/Peres? and before then?
Israel needs major reformation of how they elect a government.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)I wish people who see Bibi as the Jewish avenger, brave and true, would be aware of how this guy used the memory of Jewish persecution yesterday. He broke new ground. For the purpose of removing Yair Lapid as the obstacle to his forming a right-wing/ultra-Orthodox government, Netanyahu likened the Yesh Atid party leaders refusal to sit in a government with Haredi parties to past boycotts against Jews. He also identified Lapids stance with current international boycotts of Israel and of products made in the settlements. For the goal of pressuring Naftali Bennett, leader of the settler-backed Habayit Hayehudi party, to break his alliance with Lapid and join up with the Haredi parties in his next government, Netanyahu told a news conference last night:
"Theres a boycott against a sector in Israel and this goes against my views.
I think that we, as Jews who have suffered from bans, we cry out in protest when Israel is shunned in international forums as we should. We protest when settlers in Judea and Samaria have to deal with product boycotts as we should. So the people who have to be the most sensitive to this issue are the settlers.
As Jews who have suffered from bans, we cry out in protest. So, Mr. Bennett, are you with Lapid, that boycotter of Jews, or are you against him?"
I suppose I should give Bibi credit for restraint he could have evoked the image of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Europe being herded into gas chambers, but he limited himself to the goyims boycotts. (Note that he didnt mention Lapid by name, giving himself what he thinks of as plausible deniability. A classic Netanyahu performance.)
http://972mag.com/now-bibi-is-calling-yair-lapid-an-anti-semite/67001/
oberliner
(58,724 posts)Who is a vile individual and a really dumb one to boot.
Nowhere does anyone call anyone an anti-semite in that article.
It is honestly beyond comprehension that this man is published anywhere after the episode with Greta Berlin.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)and it is odd how Great Berlin is only brought up as some sort icon by one side, I have never seen much support for her by those who believe in self determination for Palestinians, but it does seem she gets more publicity from her detractors than her supposed supporters