Benny Gantz: ‘Yair Lapid Can’t Form A Government, And He Knows It’
Yehuda Shlezinger
JNS, Dec. 6, 2020The Knesset still has not dispersed, and a date for the next election has not been set. But the turmoil in the anti-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu campcontinued unabated and even intensified over the weekend. Blue and White leader Benny Gantz is fighting Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid. Moshe Ya’alon is squabbling with both of them, and the names Gadi Eizenkot and Ron Huldai are being bandied about in an ultimate effort to replace Netanyahu as premier.The former political allies, Gantz and Lapid, visited the television studios on Saturday, and following their respective interviews, it appears that a path to a renewed partnership is particularly unlikely. Gantz told Channel 12’s “Meet the Press”: “I’ll lead the camp; Yair Lapid can’t form a government in Israel. His friends know this, and he knows it. I’m ready to cooperate with anyone who wants to join; I’ll move forward, and people will follow my lead.”Gantz also discussed the prospect of former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot’s foray into politics. “I’d be happy for Gadi to contribute politically, and I’d certainly be happy for him to join me,” he said.
Another former army chief and Lapid’s No. 2, Ya’alon, declared that he, too, was considering severing the partnership between Yesh Atid and his Telem Party and incorporating Eizenkot as his deputy. “Gadi Eizenkot understood Gantz’s lesson,” said Ya’alon. “If he enters [politics], then it’s clear he will enter with me and my party and I will lead. I didn’t decide to leave Lapid; decisions will be made when there are elections. I met with Eizenkot [last] week; he’s an excellent person, and we meet often.”
Individuals who have spoken with Eizenkot, however, told Israel Hayom that Eizenkot was still undecided about entering politics at all, and in any case, his views align with those of center-right parties.
Lapid responded on Saturday, telling Channel 13 News: “I’m not mad at [Ya’alon]. Politicians are allowed to take stock of their situations. But if you want to replace the government, Yesh Atid will be the only option.”
Regardless, until Eizenkot decides—if he decides—to run, officials in Blue and White are preoccupied with the fight over the national budget. Gantz continues insisting he won’t compromise on the matter. “More than a few pundits will eat their hats,” he said. “Either the 2021 budget will pass in the Knesset, or we’ll go to elections.” … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
______________________________________________________
Sa’ar Steps Out Of Netanyahu’s Shadow, And Will Likely Cost Him The Premiership
Haviv Rettig Gur
Times of Israel, Dec. 9, 2020
The first shipment of vaccines from Pfizer landed in Israel on Wednesday morning, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on hand at Ben Gurion Airport to welcome the flight and make sure he gets the full measure of credit for its arrival.
It’s a moment that could have signaled the beginning of a turnaround for Netanyahu’s political prospects, the start of the return of right-wing voters to his Likud party after they abandoned it in recent months in anger at the government’s handling of the pandemic.
But an hour after the plane’s arrival, Likud MK Gideon Sa’ar handed in his resignation to Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin, and set back Netanyahu’s hopes for victory by a long way.
Netanyahu was already in trouble before Sa’ar’s Tuesday announcement that he was launching his own party. Naftali Bennett’s right-wing Yamina party has been polling at between 19 and 24 seats for several months now, and Bennett is widely believed to be seeking to oust Netanyahu from power. If the polls are even close to right — if Bennett can draw even 15 seats on election day — Netanyahu will not have enough seats alone to ensure the current prime minister is also the next one.
Nor will Netanyahu have any willing partners across the aisle. After his refusal to fulfill his rotation deal with Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, it will be hard to find a political leader in the current Knesset willing to sign a similar agreement with him in the next one.
One media outlet, the radio station 103 FM, managed to commission and publish a flash poll between Sa’ar’s announcement of his new party on Tuesday at 8 p.m. and the Wednesday morning news broadcasts. Sa’ar would win a stunning 17 seats, it found.
The poll, produced by Panels Politics, showed Sa’ar’s broad appeal on the center-right. He would draw three to four seats apiece from Likud, Blue and White, centrist Yesh Atid, and rightist Yamina. That’s bad news for Netanyahu, especially after Sa’ar openly declared on Tuesday his opposition to Netanyahu’s leadership and vowed not to serve in a government with him.
Likud had changed, said the former party no. 2, becoming “a tool for the personal interests of the person in charge” and “a cult of personality.”
“I can no longer support the Netanyahu-led government or be a member of a Likud party led by him… Today Israel needs unity and stability — Netanyahu can offer neither.”
That’s a more direct challenge to Netanyahu, and a more explicit vow not to serve with him, than anything Yamina leader Bennett has said in public. All of which turns Sa’ar’s initial polling numbers into an existential political threat to Netanyahu. According to the poll, Sa’ar, among the most popular figures in the Likud rank and file until he challenged Netanyahu’s leadership last year, moves some four seats from pro-Netanyahu Likud to an anti-Netanyahu offshoot. And while he also weakens Yamina and Yesh Atid, it is Netanyahu who cannot afford the drop. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
______________________________________________________
Biden and Israel’s Unsteady Right
Caroline B. Glick
Israel Hayom, Dec. 4, 2020
In an interview with the New York Times Tuesday, presumptive President-elect Joe Biden reaffirmed his plan to return the US to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. The US will rescind its economic sanctions on Iran if it complies with the nuclear deal’s limitations on its nuclear activities. Once this happens, Biden said he will seek to negotiate a new, longer-term nuclear deal with Iran’s ayatollahs. The current deal expires in five years.
Biden insisted the goal of his policy is to prevent Iran from getting the bomb. But practically speaking, Biden’s policy guarantees Iran will develop a nuclear arsenal and the missiles to deliver them. This is true both because the nuclear deal will expire, and Iran will be free to build nuclear bombs as it likes in 2025, and because the 2015 nuclear deal has no effective enforcement mechanism.
The UN inspectors tasked with ensuring Iranian compliance are only permitted to enter civilian nuclear sites. Since Iran has sole authority to determine if a site is civilian or military, it can and has rendered the deal’s inspection regime a pathetic joke.
It goes without saying that Israel cannot accept this state of affairs. Just as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was compelled to oppose Barack Obama’s nuclear deal, so Israel has no choice but to strongly oppose Biden’s plans.
Unfortunately, Israel is currently incapable of clearly opposing Biden’s plan that will give the mullahs the means to carry out their plan to destroy the Jewish state. That is because currently, Israel doesn’t have one government. It has two governments pretending to be a unity government. But in practice, they disagree on everything, including how to handle Biden’s Iran policy and pursue contrary policies on all issues.
Netanyahu’s Likud government recognizes the danger posed by Biden’s Iran policy. Last week, Netanyahu loyalist Ambassador Ron Dermer said flat out that it would be “a mistake” for a Biden administration to return to the nuclear deal.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s Blue and White government doesn’t understand the danger.
Two weeks ago, Gantz’s partner Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Netanyahu’s uncompromising position is wrong. According to media reports, Ashkenazi said Israel can develop common ground with a Biden administration on Iran. Biden’s advisers, he claimed recognize the problems with the 2015 deal and are open to suggestions regarding its improvement. Ashkenazi wants to persuade the members of Biden’s Iran team to link Iran’s nuclear program to its ballistic missile program and its regional aggression.
On paper, Ashkenazi’s position seems reasonable, but in the real world, it is fanciful. Biden’s determination to return to the nuclear deal without conditions except an unenforceable Iranian commitment to limit its nuclear activities makes clear that there will be no reconsideration of anything. As to his plan to negotiate a new deal, Iran will have little reason to do so. By ending Trump’s sanctions, Biden will lose all leverage. … [To reach the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
_____________________________________________________
Biden Makes the Netanyahu-Gantz Divorce Necessary
Jonathan S. Tobin
Algemeiner, Dec. 6, 2020
This isn’t what Israelis want to hear right now, but it’s nonetheless true: they need to hold another election. The prospect of a new administration in Washington is cause for concern, even if it may not prove to be the end of the world. But the challenge that this will pose requires Jerusalem to speak with one voice.
An Israeli government with the prime minister’s office at odds with both the defense and foreign ministries is a luxury the Jewish state might have been able to afford as long as President Donald Trump was in the White House and the US-Israel relationship was one rooted in close cooperation and a common vision about strategic issues. But with President-elect Joe Biden about to take office with a foreign-policy team committed to the failed Middle East policies of the Obama administration, Israel’s margin for error is about to be reduced.
Even if that means Israelis must suffer through the agony of a fourth election in two years, a divorce between unity government partners Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz has become a necessity.
After having held three inconclusive elections inside of a year, yet another trip to the ballot box would seem to be the last thing the Jewish state needs. In April and September of 2019, and then again in March of this year, Israelis headed to the polls to elect a Knesset. Each time resulted in a stalemate with neither Netanyahu nor his chief rival — Blue and White Party leader Gantz — able to muster a majority.
The standoff finally ended in April of this year, when Gantz split his party by joining a unity government with Netanyahu. Doing so made no political sense for him since the only point of Blue and White was to topple the prime minister rather than to enact different policies. Indeed, on all of the important war and peace issues, Gantz tried to run to the right of Netanyahu. But realizing the futility of the continued stalemate and responding patriotically to the crisis that the coronavirus pandemic presented to the nation, he decided that throwing in with his nemesis was the right thing to do.
Many in his own party denounced him as a traitor and a fool. The terms of the deal he cut with Netanyahu not only brought the rump of Blue and White who stuck with him an outsized share of government posts, it also offered him a pathway to the prime ministership since it called for the two to switch jobs in 18 months. Yet few at the time thought Netanyahu would stick to that deal, and nothing that has happened in the eight months since then has changed anyone’s mind about that. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
______________________________________________________
For Further Reference:
Election Déjà Vu for Israelis: Joshua Mitnick, FP, Dec. 2, 2020 — Israeli lawmakers on Wednesday took a large step toward calling another national election, which would be the fourth in the past two years, by giving preliminary approval to a bill to dissolve the parliament.
Political Turmoil Forces Major Parties To Rethink March To Early Election: Mati Tuchfeld, Israel Hayom, Dec. 9, 2020 — Likud MK Gideon Sa’ar’s launch of a new premiership bid aimed at toppling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu through a newly formed party has prompted Likud and Blue and White to intensify talks aimed at avoiding an early arch to the polls.
Israel’s Center-Left Is In Disarray: Mati Tuchfeld, JNS, Dec. 6, 2020— Blue and White Party head Benny Gantz reiterated his refusal to compromise on the state budget in a series of interviews on Saturday night.
Correction: New Saudi Poll Shows Sharp Rise in Support for Israel Ties, Despite Caveats: David Pollock, Fikra Forum, Dec. 8, 2020 — Amidst American and Israeli press reports—and official Saudi denials—of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s recent meeting with Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman in Neom, Saudi Arabia, a reliable new public opinion poll commissioned by The Washington Institute shows that the Saudi public is divided but increasingly open to contacts with Israel.
The Galactic Federation Book About Aliens Being Real Is By A Fantasy Author [Updated]: Leah Williams, Gizmodo, Dec. 9, 2020 — This year we’ve had devastating bushfires. A worldwide global pandemic. Monoliths. Aliens existing feels like a natural next step for 2020, but that doesn’t make it fact. In a widely reported interview with Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, Chaim Eshed, said to be a former Israeli space chief, claimed that aliens not only exist, but work exclusively with the U.S. and Israel as part of a ‘Galactic Federation’.
