Table Of Contents:
Opinion Netanyahu Won, but Israel’s Right Wing Lost: Nave Dromi, Haaretz, Mar. 31, 2020
No Government Expected by Passover: Gil Hoffman, Jerusalem Post, Apr. 5, 2020
Coronavirus Lessons for the Coalition Talks: Caroline B. Glick, Israel Hayom, Apr. 3, 2020
Is Mossad’s Yossi Cohen the Future after Bibi-Gantz? – Analysis: Jonah Jeremy Bob, Jerusalem Post, Apr. 1, 2020
_____________________________________________
Opinion Netanyahu Won, but Israel’s Right Wing Lost
Nave Dromi
Haaretz, Mar. 31, 2020
The feelings of anger that the left is directing at Benny Gantz are exaggerated and even baseless, especially if that same left has any agenda other than “Just not Bibi.” Because the government that’s coming together is not going to be a right-wing government, certainly not the way the right would have imagined it. It’s a government which reflects that while Benjamin Netanyahu won, the right lost. It’s a government that indeed removes the cloud of personally-tailored laws that was hovering over Netanyahu’s head, but at the same time spreads heavy clouds over the head of the national camp.
The division of portfolios between the right-wing bloc and Kahol Lavan in its reduced format, without Yesh Atid, is decidedly not equal. In relation to its size and power, Gantz is getting a pretty good deal. One could argue about that, perhaps, if he hadn’t gotten the justice portfolio – whose great importance was made clear in the struggle between the High Court of Justice and Yuli Edelstein – but Netanyahu gave in even on this critical front.
That’s why it’s hard to watch the amount of venom that Kahol Lavan voters and left-wingers have been spewing out in recent days without wondering what they’re so upset about. Gantz made a good deal from his perspective. He of course knew very well what to expect from the camp that stood behind him – and sought to push him into a minority government with the support of the Joint List – but he also knew very well that by entering a government headed by Netanyahu, under these conditions, he would serve his camp much more effectively.
The right’s failure is huge. Chili Tropper, who is slated to be justice minister, certainly won’t fight for a fair, professional judicial system the way Amir Ohana did. Gabi Ashkenazi, who built a “tolerant” army, won’t fight left-wing anarchists nor will he build a Jewish neighborhood in Hebron like Naftali Bennett was planning. And if it were up to Miki Haimovich, she would have left the natural gas – and the billions of dollars – buried in the ground.
That doesn’t mean the portfolios on offer to the other partners – education, culture, health, agriculture and transportation – are not important or politically advantageous. Bezalel Smotrich as transportation minister managed to invest in the Judea and Samaria communities by paving roads and strengthening infrastructure while bolstering his public image. The finance minister’s job can build or destroy (primarily destroy) a politician. It propelled Netanyahu to the Prime Minister’s Office, but it ruined Moshe Kahlon. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
______________________________________________________
No Government Expected by Passover
Gil Hoffman
Jerusalem Post, Apr. 5, 2020
Blue and White and Likud negotiating teams met late Saturday night in an effort to finalize a coalition agreement that could be brought to a vote in party institutions on Sunday and the Knesset on Monday, before the parliament adjourns to its Passover recess.
But sources in both parties said over the weekend that even if that would happen, Israel still would have no government before Passover, because legislation must be passed to facilitate the government’s formation that will be challenged in the High Court of Justice.
One such bill would enable the swearing-in of two prime ministers, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu serving the first year and a half of the term and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz the next year and a half.
Netanyahu and Gantz met at the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem on Friday. They met outdoors and maintained distance of six meters to respect Health Ministry guidelines. Netanyahu is self-quarantining, due to his contact with Health Minister Yaakov Litzman, who was diagnosed with the virus.
The conversation advanced the interests of both Likud and Blue and White, according to a joint statement issued by the parties. They both instructed their individual negotiation teams to try and bring about agreements that would allow for a coalition agreement to be reached.
One key issue that remains undecided is how to advance US President Donald Trump’s peace plan. Likud has been willing to delay plans to express sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and communities in Judea and Samaria for four months. Blue and White has demanded longer.
Gantz informed the public on Friday that “essential and critical issues remain to be decided in coalition talks.” In a post on Facebook, Gantz said that most issues had already been finalized, including guarantees that the rule of law would be enforced despite Netanyahu’s criminal indictments.”Most things have already been finalized, and I can guarantee you that there will be no one in the state who will not feel the change after we enter the government,” Gantz said on Facebook.
Gantz said that “everybody understands that only a national unity government will save Israel and get it out of the financial hardships waiting around the corner once we defeat the coronavirus.”
Netanyahu also spoke on Friday with Yamina leader Naftali Bennett. After Yamina issued a fierce statement on Thursday vowing to fight corruption from the opposition, Netanyahu told Bennett that he wanted Yamina in his government. Bennett said his party would decide whether to join based on the coalition’s guidelines on key policies.
Labor leader Amir Peretz told Meretz chairman Nitzan Horowitz on Saturday night that he had formally asked the Knesset Arrangements Committee to end the bond between Labor and Meretz and split into two separate factions.
In the March 2 election, the two parties and the Gesher party of MK Orly Lev-Abecassis ran together as Labor-Gesher-Meretz and won a disappointing seven seats. When the split is approved, Labor will be a faction of three seats, Meretz three and Gesher one.
Labor MK Merav Michaeli said she would protest if Peretz and Labor MK Itzik Shmuli joined the government, but she said she would not leave Labor.
______________________________________________________
Coronavirus Lessons for the Coalition Talks
Caroline B. Glick
Israel Hayom, Apr. 3, 2020
We are living through a grave crisis. And crises have a knack for clarifying fundamental truths. The coronavirus pandemic has exposed several of them.
First, our ability to control our world is limited. An unknown number of months ago, through unclear means, the coronavirus broke out in China and landed in the rest of the world shortly thereafter. Over the past month, everything that makes up our lives and our world came to a grinding halt. Schools closed. Workplaces shut down. Israel’s previously stable and promising economic outlook has disappeared. No one can tell us when or if our lives will ever go back to normal and what our economy will look like when this is over.
The second truth the pandemic has shown us is that no matter how bad things are in Israel, the plight of our neighbors is immeasurably worse. Consider Egypt. The Egyptian economy has been teetering on the brink of collapse for a decade. The Egyptian health system failed long before the coronavirus was a gleam in a bat’s eye. Government hospitals lack both basic equipment and a sufficient number of physicians. The Egyptian government is trying to enact social distancing. Mosques and churches have been shuttered. But it appears that Cairo’s overarching strategy for handling the pandemic is to punish anyone who discusses the dimensions of the outbreak in Egypt.
A week and a half ago, authorities in Cairo stripped the press credentials from a Guardian reporter who published the findings of a study of Egypt’s coronavirus status that had been reported by the Lancet medical journal. The Lancet report claimed that the number of people in Egypt with the coronavirus is far higher than the official data. At the start of this week, the Egyptian government claimed that Egypt had 286 coronavirus patients and that eight people had died in Egypt from the virus. The Lancet report alleged that more than 19,000 people in Egypt have coronavirus.
Then there is Lebanon. The coronavirus pandemic arrived in Lebanon just as the Hezbollah-controlled government of Prime Minister Hassan Diab defaulted on $1.2 billion in foreign loan payments. In the months that preceded the virus, thousands of protesters had flooded Lebanon’s streets demanding massive constitutional changes. The pandemic got them off the street. But it also hammered the final nail into the coffin of Lebanese nationalism. The Hezbollah-controlled Health Ministry, and Hezbollah itself, are focusing their resources on treating Shiites. Meanwhile, the Druze, Christian and Sunni militia, as well as political parties, are catering to their constituencies.
Jordan entered the pandemic after having barely survived a profound economic crisis that brought hundreds of thousands of Jordanians into the streets demanding government reform and destabilizing the government. Jordanians from all ethnicities have lost faith in the Hashemite Kingdom which owes its survival to Israeli and US support.
Iraq and Syria are both failed states, engaged in varying levels of civil war. They are run by combinations of warlords, Iranian proxies and Iran. They have no means of contending with normal life, let along with a pandemic.
Then there is Iran. The greatest state sponsor of terrorism and the author of much of the instability and suffering afflicting the region is also the greatest casualty of the coronavirus pandemic. Like Egypt and Lebanon, the crisis befell Iran in the midst of an economic meltdown. Iran’s economic difficulties aren’t the only reason it cannot contend with the coronavirus. The regime has exhibited total incompetence in managing the outbreak.
… [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
______________________________________________________
Is Mossad’s Yossi Cohen the Future after Bibi-Gantz? – Analysis
Jonah Jeremy Bob
Jerusalem Post, Apr. 1, 2020
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White head Benny Gantz have still not finalized their national-unity deal which should frame Israel’s politics for at least the next three years.
Nonetheless, there might already be someone waiting in the wings to step up when their terms are completed: Mossad director Yossi Cohen.
What makes Cohen different from other Mossad directors? And why would he have a shot at leading the country one day?
Former Mossad chiefs Isser Harel, Meir Amit and Danny Yatom all made it into the Knesset. Amit even briefly served in minor ministerial positions. But none of them – or other Mossad chiefs who were far more private both during and after their years with the secret service – ever had a serious chance to lead the country.
But Cohen is different.
First, he has name recognition. Both he and the prime minister have made the deeds of the Mossad under his reign more public than they were under any previous director. Every Israeli, whether he carefully follows national security and the spy world or not, already knows that Cohen masterminded and carried out two operations of historic proportions.
The first was the agency’s appropriation of Iran’s nuclear secrets from the heart of Tehran in January 2018; the second is his leading the drive to bring medical equipment to Israel to combat the coronavirus crisis. Bringing Iran’s secrets to Israel led the US, for better or worse, to pull out of the Iran deal and altered the discussion that the Islamic Republic was having with the European Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency over whether it was concealing aspects of its nuclear program.
Ten million masks and up to four million test kits arriving in Israel at rapid speed, not to mention ventilators and other items, are numbers that are impossible to miss.
WHY HAS Netanyahu allowed Cohen such exposure?
He made it very clear. He made it known in an interview that the two best people to succeed him when he retires were not any of his current ministers, but rather Cohen or US Ambassador Ron Dermer.
Besides the above well-known operations, details have begun to leak of Cohen’s other military-style operations and assassinations of top terrorist-scientists, as well as his still not fully disclosed involvement in America’s taking out Qasem Soleimani, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force chief (this according to NBC, Avigdor Liberman and information known to The Jerusalem Post). These details will continue to be revealed by the time he steps into the political arena. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
______________________________________________________
For Further Reference:
Israel’s Policy against the Coronavirus: Findings from a Strategic War Game: Itai Brun, Udi Dekel, Noa Shusterman, INSS, Apr. 5, 2020 — The discussion commenced with an analysis of the current situation and an assessment regarding the coming weeks, with Prof. Jacob Moran-Gilad presenting the public health aspects, Dr. Avihai Lifschitz the economic aspects, and Brig. Gen. (ret.) Dr. Meir Elran the societal aspects:
Likud: No Unity Government if Left Blocks Annexation: Danielle Roth-Avneri, Israel Hayom, Apr. 5, 2020 — With less than 10 days to go, Blue and White leader informed President Reuven Rivlin on Sunday that he might need a 14-day extension to form a government due to complications in the coalition talks with Likud, despite optimism on both sides.
Podcast: Moshe Koppel on How Israel’s Perpetual Election Came to an End: Moshe Koppel, Tikvah Podcasts, Apr. 3, 2020 — With the recent agreement between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his chief political rival, Benny Gantz, a governing coalition is at long last beginning to emerge in Israel. After three national elections in a single year, the Jewish state will soon have a regular cabinet and resume the work of government.
Mandate100 | ‘People Say I am a Post-Zionist, But I am a Non-Ideological Person, Committed to Storytelling’: Tom Segev on the British Mandate and David Ben-Gurion: Tom Segev, Fathom Journal, March 2020 — The Israeli historian Tom Segev’s books One Palestine Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate (2000) and A State at Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion (2018) have attracted critical acclaim, controversy and wide readerships in equal measure. In this wide-ranging interview that kicks off Fathom’s Mandate100 series, BICOM CEO James Sorene talks to Segev about the British Mandate, David Ben-Gurion and the craft of combining journalism and history.
