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Contents:
This Week: Lists of Candidates are Finalized: Manfred Gerstenfeld, CIJR, Jan. 26, 2015— January 29 is the deadline for parties to submit their list of candidates to the Central Elections Committee.
Even After Speech Fiasco, Israel Will Survive Netanyahu-Obama Feud: Jonathan S. Tobin, Commentary, Jan. 30, 2015 — It’s been a bad couple of weeks for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
V15 – Look Who is Behind the New US Democratic-Style Campaign in Israel: Lori Lowenthal Marcus, Jewish Press, Jan. 28, 2014— There’s a new grassroots, door-to-door knocking, community organizing style campaign effort that just landed in Israel. How Netanyahu Can Win: Daniel Doron, Weekly Standard, Jan. 19, 2015— Coming on the heels of a spate of revelations regarding corruption in the Israeli government – as well as worrisome signs of dysfunction in Israeli governance, exposed during last summer’s unresolved campaign against Hamas – the Israeli public was shocked again recently by yet more revelations of pervasive corruption in high places.
Angry Scenes as Argentine Special Prosecutor Alberto Nisman is Buried Alongside AMIA Victims in Buenos Aires Jewish Cemetery: Ben Cohen, Algemeiner, Jan. 29, 2014
Likud Says Herzog Breaking Fundraising Laws: Gil Hoffman, Jerusalem Post, Jan. 29, 2015
V15 US Political Operative Marinated in Hate-Israel Activism: Lori Lowenthal Marcus, Jewish Press, Jan. 30, 2015
Diverse Israeli Arab Political Factions Join Forces to Keep Place in Parliament: Jodi Rudoren, New York Times, Jan. 23, 2015
THIS WEEK: LISTS OF CANDIDATES ARE FINALIZED
Manfred Gerstenfeld
CIJR, Jan. 26, 2015
January 29 is the deadline for parties to submit their list of candidates to the Central Elections Committee. Some additional parties published their list this past week. The extreme left-wing Meretz re-elected its current parliamentarians as the first five candidates on its list. The Israel Beitenu list of candidates, selected by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, has also been published. Besides the five Knesset members who had announced that they did not seek re-election, Lieberman demoted various other sitting MKs to unrealistic places. Newcomers on his list include Safed Mayor Ilan Shohat, in fourth position, and journalist Sharon Gal in fifth.
Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid and Koolanu leader Moshe Kahlon held a meeting about the possibility of these two centrist parties running together. Subsequently, it was announced that they would run separately. Yesh Atid still has to announce its list. Three of its MKs have announced that they will not run again. According to the polls, several other current parliamentarians will not return to the Knesset, as the party is likely to lose seven or more of its nineteen seats. With religious MK General (Res.) Elazar Stern joining Yesh Atid, the party hopes to attract additional religious voters.
In the Likud, the problems regarding the recount of votes from the party’s primaries have not abated. The head of the Likud’s Supreme Court, former MK Michael Kleiner, recommended that Netanyahu appoint either Dichter or Hotovely to one of the two realistic slots which have been reserved for a candidate of his choosing. The remaining candidate would then get the 20th position, around which the recount issue has been focused. According to Kleiner, the only other alternative would be to recount all votes. It was thereafter decided to recount all votes.
Kadima leader Shaul Mofaz turned down the offer of the Zionist Camp to join its list and be its candidate for the Ministry of Defense. Mofaz had wanted Kadima to join the Zionist Camp and be given two realistic slots. He considered the offer made by the Zionist Camp to be insulting. The Zionist Camp has announced that Gen. (Res.) Amos Yadlin will be its candidate for the Ministry of Defense. Yadlin will not run for the Knesset. Even if the Zionist Camp does win control of the next government, it will probably not be able to retain for itself more than two of the four major cabinet positions, i.e., those of the prime minister and of the ministers of foreign affairs, defense and finance.
The ultra-Orthodox lists have yet to announce their candidates. The four Arab parties have finally decided to run together on one list. The four parties are Raam (United Arab List), Taal (Arab Movement for Renewal), Balad (National Democratic Assembly), and the Arab-Jewish party Hadash (Democratic Front for Peace and Equality). Most polls give this joint list 11 seats, the same number as they currently hold in 19th Knesset. There has been some discussion between the Zionist Camp and some Arab Knesset members about whether the Arab parties could join a coalition led by the Zionist Camp. The Arab representatives said that they could, under certain circumstances, support a Zionist Camp government from the outside, provided they were given budgets for their constituencies. Netanyahu has excluded a unity government between the Likud and the Zionist Camp after the elections. He said that, “Labor picked an extreme leftwing and anti-Zionist list. There is a gaping chasm between the Likud, led by me, and Labor.” Lieberman, who has made an effort to move his party from the right to the center, has said that Israel Beitenu will not sit in a coalition government with Meretz. He did not rule out, however, the possibility of entering a government led by Herzog and Livni. Lieberman stressed, however, “What we are obligated to is basic policy: will there be an effort to destroy Hamas? We can’t progress on the peace process without kicking out [PA President Mahmoud Abbas] or destroying Hamas.”
The week’s major political events were of different natures. Israeli helicopters struck in Syria, killing the terrorist Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of a slain Hezbollah military leader, as well as an Iranian general. Israel has not officially announced its responsibility for this action, yet has explained that it did not know that the Iranian general was in the vehicle. Later in the week, a Palestinian Arab terrorist stabbed at least 17 people on a Tel Aviv bus. Several of the wounded are in severe condition. These events were drawn into the elections sphere by the opposition parties. Maj. Gen. (res.) Yoav Galant of Koolanu suggested, regarding the killing of Mughniyeh that, “you can learn that sometimes the timing is not unrelated to the subject of elections.” The main controversial issue by far, however, was that Netanyahu accepted the invitation of John Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the US House of Representatives, to address the US Congress in a joint session to speak on Iran and Islamist extremism. The White House, which had not been informed, voiced its disapproval about this break of protocol. Neither President Obama nor Secretary of State Kerry will meet Israel’s prime minister on the occasion of his visit. The speech has been scheduled for March 3rd, when Netanyahu will be in the US to address the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC. In Israel many consider such a speech, made a mere two weeks before Election Day, to be election propaganda. Various polls have been published over the past week. The large number of parties and the small voter sample size has led to sizable variations between the polls. A large number of voters remain undecided. Currently, Likud and the Zionist Camp seem to be leading, both with around 25 seats. In the center Yesh Atid seems to be getting more seats than Koolanu. Among the ultra-Orthodox Shas seems to be gaining popularity.
ISRAEL WILL SURVIVE NETANYAHU-OBAMA FEUD
Jonathan S. Tobin
Commentary, Jan. 30, 2015
It’s been a bad couple of weeks for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His decision to accept House Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to address a joint session has brought down on his head the scorn of the American political establishment and press. But all is not lost for Netanyahu. There may be no good solution to his dilemma with respect to the speech to Congress and little hope that the Obama administration will do the right thing with respect to Iran, he remains the most likely person to emerge from Israel’s March election as the next prime minister. Though some may think that would be an even bigger disaster for his country considering that administration sources are spreading rumors that President Obama will never again meet with Netanyahu, no one should think such an outcome will be the end of the alliance or even such bad news for the prime minister.
Though Netanyahu’s American supporters continue to defend the idea of him giving such a speech, there’s no way to sugarcoat what has become a disaster for Israel and the prime minister. The blunder has not only made it easier for President Obama to divert attention from his indefensible opposition to sanctions that would turn up the heat on Iran in the nuclear talks. It has also enabled the White House to rally Democrats to oppose more sanctions, causing some to say that they won’t even attend Netanyahu’s speech out of loyalty to the president. Joining the gang tackle, some in the press are floating stories about Ambassador Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s loyal aide and the person who helped cook up this fiasco with Boehner, being frozen out of future contacts with the administration.
But while, contrary to the expectations of some on the right, this hasn’t exactly boosted Netanyahu’s standing at home, neither has it caused his prospects for re-election to crash. Indeed, while his Likud Party seemed to be losing ground to the Labor-Tzipi Livni alliance that now calls itself the Zionist Camp, by the end of the week, polls showed that Netanyahu’s stock had gone up. A review of all the polls showed that Likud was either tied with Labor or edging slightly ahead. More to the point, any way you look at the electoral math of the coming Knesset, finding a way for Labor leader Isaac Herzog to form a coalition, even one that isn’t particularly stable, seems highly unlikely. Even if Herzog’s party manages to nose out Likud for the top spot in the March elections giving him the theoretical first shot at forming a coalition, his task seems impossible. A Labor-led coalition is theoretically possible but it would require the sort of coalition of not merely rivals but open enemies. Herzog must build his coalition with the joint Arab list — forcing him to rely on open anti-Zionists to form his “Zionist Camp” government — or the Ultra-Orthodox religious parties. It is impossible to imagine those two polar opposites serving together. But even if he eliminates one or the other, it’s equally difficult to see like Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu or Yitzhak Lieberman’s Yisrael Beytenu, working with the Arabs. It’s equally hard to imagine how Lapid or Meretz, Labor’s natural ally on the far left, co-exist with the religious parties or how either scenario for a coalition could last.
By contrast, it will be far easier for Netanyahu to assemble a coalition consisting of the parties of the right and the center even without the religious parties though it is highly likely that he would opt for a Cabinet that included the ultra-Orthodox this time, giving him yet another strong, albeit quarrelsome government to preside over. Thus, the odds are that sometime this spring, Netanyahu will be sworn in for a fourth term as prime minister, much to the chagrin of his sparring partner in the White House. But if Obama won’t talk to Netanyahu and is even pledging as one anonymous White House source claimed, to be willing to make the prime minister pay a price for his effrontery in opposing him on sanctions, won’t that be terrible for Israel?
The short answer is that it certainly won’t make for a cordial relationship. But it’s hard to see how it will make things any worse than they have been for the last six years. After all, Obama has been sniping at and snubbing Netanyahu and his country ever since he entered the presidency. Obama has tilted the diplomatic playing field in favor of the Palestinians, undermined Israel’s claims to Jerusalem in ways no predecessor had done and even cut off the resupply of ammunition during last summer’s war with Gaza out of pique at Netanyahu’s government.
But in spite of this, the all-important security relationship continued. What’s necessary for the alliance to function is that the Pentagon and Israel’s Ministry of Defense communicate regularly, not the president and the prime minister. The same goes for the two security establishments, that continue to work well together. In fact, it might be a very good thing for the alliance if Obama were to refuse to meet Netanyahu for the remainder of his time in office. Only bad things tend to happen when the two, who openly despise each other, are forced to come together. It would be far better for both countries for the leaders to stay apart, enabling their underlings to do what needs to be done to ensure the security of both nations. Were Obama to try and take revenge on Israel by supporting the Palestinians in the United Nations, it would harm the U.S. as much, if not more than it would Israel.
Netanyahu also knows that whoever wins in 2016, with the possible and extremely unlikely exception of Rand Paul, any of the possibilities to be the 45th president will be friendlier to Israel than Obama. The issue of Iran’s nuclear threat will continue to hang over Israel and the alliance and Obama’s push for détente with the Islamist regime is a genuine threat to the Jewish state’s security as well as to that of moderate Arab governments. But once the current arguments about sanctions subside, as they inevitably will, Israel will carry on and Obama’s enmity notwithstanding, it will survive. Even a fourth term for Netanyahu will not change that.
V15 – LOOK WHO IS BEHIND THE NEW US
DEMOCRATIC-STYLE CAMPAIGN IN ISRAEL
Lori Lowenthal Marcus
Jewish Press, Jan. 28, 2015
There’s a new grassroots, door-to-door knocking, community organizing style campaign effort that just landed in Israel. It’s focused on hoping for change and changing for hope and taking-the-street-to-the-street style shake it up electioneering. Flying in to run the show is none other than Jeremy Bird. The same Bird who was the deputy national campaign director and then national campaign director for Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns, respectively. The new outfit is called V15 (as in Victory 2015), and it is a project of something called OneVoice, which is itself a program of the PeaceWorks Network, a non-profit, tax-exempt entity. Really. Funding this political campaign effort.
V15 sent out a press release in which it described itself as a “a non-partisan movement founded by young adults just as the 2015 Israeli elections were announced, V15 members have set aside party affiliation to disrupt the status quo.” But just about everybody else is calling it the “Anybody but Bibi” campaign. So who is behind this V15, in addition to Obama’s former campaigns director? Well, as we learn from J.E Dyer, over at Liberty Unyielding, when OneVoice was formed in 2003, its inaugural board of advisers included Gary Gladstein. And who is Gladstein? He used to be the chief operations officer of Soros Fund Management. As in George Soros. Doesn’t it feel as if everything really, really awful has Soros’ fingerprints somehow, someway?
OneVoice explains in its 2014 Annual Report that it is dedicated to peaceful solutions in the Middle East. This is how it describes the actions it takes to bring about change: “promoting popular resistance, state-building, and the Arab Peace Initiative, while advocating for an end to the conflict and a two-state solution along the 1967 borders.” Hmm. Something is missing there. Nothing about ending terrorism or violence or incitement. And it’s pretty much the same view of how to “resolve” the Middle East conflict that flows out of the White House and Foggy Bottom. In Secretary of State John Kerry’s requiem for Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, he cited as one of the king’s greatest contributions, that the “courageous Arab Peace Initiative that he sponsored remains a critical document for the goal we shared of two states, Israel and Palestine.”
Making cameo appearances in the OneVoice 2014 Annual Report are both Tzippi Livni and J Street. Not quite so apolitical as it claims. Here’s another problematic aspect of this whole V15/OneVoice/PeaceWorks Network Foundation campaign effort. What does the PeaceWorks Foundation have to say about its OneVoice project on its tax return? It describes this project as an organization which “aims to amplify the voice of the silent majority of moderates who wish for peace and prosperity. These efforts are known as the OneVoice movement.” And on its tax form, where it is required to state the purpose of grants it makes to entities or organizations outside of the U.S., including the grants it makes to the “Middle East and Africa,” the purpose it states is “educate peace and condemn violence.” Nothing about running a campaign field office. And how could it, given it is a 501(c)(3) entity. Where is Lois Lerner when you need her?
Finally, there is another source of information about the kinds of bedfellows the V15/OneVoice/Peace Works Network keeps. It is the listing it provides of its partners. Along with at least half a dozen “peace” organizations and even the UK Conservative Party, it has lots of questionable listings. Those include: Association of British Muslims, the Christian Muslim Forum, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the New Israel Fund, Yachad (the “British J Street”), Labour Friends of Palestine & the Middle East, the UK Labour Party and Labour Friends of Israel.Their partners also include the European Commission and the U.S. Department of State.There will be much more to come on V15.
Daniel Doron
Weekly Standard, Jan. 19, 2015
Coming on the heels of a spate of revelations regarding corruption in the Israeli government – as well as worrisome signs of dysfunction in Israeli governance, exposed during last summer’s unresolved campaign against Hamas – the Israeli public was shocked again recently by yet more revelations of pervasive corruption in high places. Now a dark cloud on the political horizon, corruption (as well as its neglect by the authorities) shows signs of developing into a major political storm. It could deeply affect the upcoming March elections, in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have to defend his seat against a still fragmented – but very determined – opposition that will run on the slogan “anyone but Bibi.”
In recent days, dozens of officials and lobbyists connected with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s Israel Beitenu party have been arrested. They are accused of involvement in elaborate scams to siphon off scores of millions of shekels in government allotments. Almost daily, an ongoing investigation reveals new cases of corruption and a wider network of miscreants, probably extending to other parties as well. The plague has spread outside of the government. A major Israeli bank, Le’umi, was recently fined 1.4 billion shekels by U.S. regulators for facilitating tax evasion. Management in the semi-official Israel Electric Corporation received millions of Euros in bribes from the Siemens Corporation. Similar corruption charges have been leveled against Mekorot, Israel’s premier water management corporation. And even in retail markets across the country, price-gouging has become the norm, impoverishing a large part of Israel’s population.
“Is corruption endangering Israel?” a prominent columnist has wondered. The answer, alas, is yes. Not because corruption in Israel is so exceptional; corruption is lamentably common everywhere. But as the only country openly threatened with extinction, Israel cannot allow its social and moral fiber to be compromised. Corruption is undermining governability and the citizens’ faith in politics and government, as well as in their economic leadership. Since Bismarck invented the welfare state, which, with excessive “takings,” became a major re-distributor of wealth, the nexus between politics and big money has become tighter. This is a chief source of corruption even in liberal democracies, let alone in former socialist regimes. Nowhere is this more true than in Israel. Corruption has progressively become so endemic in politics that it makes state agencies dysfunctional. As a result, services that the government is supposed to provide – health, education or even internal or external security – are deeply inadequate, thus causing great hardship for citizens and undermining the legitimacy of the government. Corruption also inhibits growth and is a heavy drag on the economy.
The central problem is this: The government is simply too involved in the broader economy. Indeed, over seventy years of quasi-socialist governance, Israel nationalized practically everything. The government has suffocated business with over-regulation and exorbitant taxation, which it has used to fund sprawling bureaucracies, and a huge collectivist sector in agriculture and manufacturing. Regulation is crushing; it can take ten years for a mid-sized real estate project to receive certification. The Israeli government owns 93 percent of all land, most natural resources, electricity, transportation, roads, rails, ports, and airfields. The public sector employs every third person. After socialism went bankrupt in the 1970s, and after Labor lost its seventy-year monopoly on power, the conservative Likud government cut the massive subsidies that kept loss-making government and Labor enterprises afloat. Still, this wasn’t as good as it looked: many public assets were “sold” to political cronies for a pittance in a phony privatization scheme. As a result, Israel’s economy became dominated by price-gouging tycoon-owned monopolies. Its financial markets, earlier de-facto nationalized, have remained monopolistic and shot with cronyism. Most savings allocated to cronies were wasted through inefficient use. As a result, labor productivity in Israel is only two thirds what it is in the US. Workers are paid a measly monthly median salary of $1,900, while prices are higher than in America. Over half of Israel’s population lives on the brink of poverty.
Israel’s political system of proportional representation, which requires costly, unmanageable coalitions, has become a source of instability in itself. In the last 66 years, Israel has had 33 governments. This has cost untold billions in unnecessary election costs, as well as governmental dysfunction. Coalition governments enable sectarian groups to extract political and financial spoils from the politically split majority. “Special allocations” to coalition partners become a slippery slope to corruption. While everyone is aware that corruption is threatening Israel’s viability, its political and economic causes are not being addressed. Except for a few heroic efforts, like those of deputy Attorney General Avi Licht and anti-trust regulator Professor David Gilo, who are attempting to curb a the grotesque natural gas cartel that threatens Israeli democracy, little has been done. Many wonder why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who courageously led reforms of the Israeli economy when he was finance minister in 2005, has not addressed corruption since becoming prime minister. The reason may simply be that he is utterly consumed by the need to address urgent security threats, and unable to take on such a politically exhausting task – especially when the opposition is doing all it can to defeat any suggestion of reform, enabling the most retrograde forces in Israel to exploit the very workers that the leftist opposition supposedly represents. Netanyahu has, to put it mildly, his hands full, dealing with a nearly nuclear Iran, the mayhem created by the putative Arab Spring and the U.S.’s grave mishandling of it, as well as relentless pressure from the Obama administration and self-satisfied European elites. With so many existential challenges facing his country, it’s a wonder that the prime minister finds time to breath….
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
Angry Scenes as Argentine Special Prosecutor Alberto Nisman is Buried Alongside AMIA Victims in Buenos Aires Jewish Cemetery: Ben Cohen, Algemeiner, Jan. 29, 2014—Amid angry reactions from some mourners who objected to funeral wreaths sent by the Argentine government, Alberto Nisman, the Argentine Special Prosecutor who died in mysterious circumstances earlier this month, was today buried at the La Tablada Jewish cemetery in Buenos Aires.
Likud Says Herzog Breaking Fundraising Laws: Gil Hoffman, Jerusalem Post, Jan. 29, 2015—Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog has violated laws prohibiting accepting funds from non-Israeli citizens and foreign- funded organizations and governments, Likud MKs said Sunday at a Tel Aviv press conference.
V15 US Political Operative Marinated in Hate-Israel Activism: Lori Lowenthal Marcus, Jewish Press, Jan. 30, 2015 —Jeremy Bird, the Team Obama community organizing campaign wizard, has come far from his early midwestern roots.
Diverse Israeli Arab Political Factions Join Forces to Keep Place in Parliament: Jodi Rudoren, New York Times, Jan. 23, 2015—Facing an increased electoral threshold that threatens to bar small parties from Parliament, Israel’s Arab political factions announced on Friday the formation of a single ticket for the March elections.
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