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Daily Briefing:ISRAELIS SHIFT FURTHER TO THE RIGHT AS BENNETT RISES IN POLLS (October 22,2020)

: Naftali Bennett, head of The Jewish Home party and Minister of Economy, Israel (Source: Wikipedia)

Table Of Contents:

Is a ‘New Right’ Ascending in Israel?:  Alex Traiman, JNS, Oct. 19, 2020


ANALYSIS: Bennett’s Meteoric Rise in Israeli Politics Explained: Yochanan Visser, Israel National News, Oct. 18, 2020

A Magic Carpet Ride Over the Anti-Netanyahu Protests:  Caroline Glick, Caroline Glick, Oct. 9, 2020

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Is a ‘New Right’ Ascending in Israel?
Alex Traiman
JNS, Oct. 19, 2020A constant stream of political polls gives clues to the stability of Israel’s current unity government anchored by Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party and challenger Benny Gantz’s Blue and White Party. The two opposing parties united in April to put an end to a bitter three-election campaign cycle and deal with the coronavirus crisis.While Israel has had low mortality rates as compared to the United States, Europe and elsewhere, many Israelis are expressing a lack of satisfaction in the government’s management of the crisis.The unity government is glued together by a rotation arrangement between the coalition’s central parties, in which Gantz is scheduled to take over as prime minister in November 2021. Yet the likelihood that Netanyahu will gracefully part the premiership is slim. In the six months since the government was formed, Blue and White has served as an opposition within the coalition. Defense Minister Gantz, and Blue and White No. 2 Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, have been relegated to the sidelines by Netanyahu. And an ongoing budget crisis may automatically topple the government and trigger new elections in the coming weeks, without the premiership being handed to Gantz.Netanyahu may attempt to jettison Blue and White, and retool his coalition with other parties, or push towards a fresh national election prior to next November.

A new election is likely to bring about a political realignment. Based on current polls, Israelis no longer see Gantz as the most viable alternative to Netanyahu. Nor do they view current opposition leader Yair Lapid as prime ministerial material.

Rather, a growing number of Israelis have been expressing newfound favor for longtime right-wing national camp leader Naftali Bennett. Bennett, who served briefly as defense minister prior to the formation of the unity government, opted to take his small six-seat Yamina Party into the opposition, rather than accept a demotion and serve in a Likud-Blue and White government as a junior coalition partner.

While defense minister, Bennett had lobbied to personally lead the national effort to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet he was consistently rebuffed by Netanyahu, who was not intending to keep Bennett in the senior defense post. Since heading to the opposition, Bennett has relentlessly and pointedly attacked the government’s handling of the pandemic.

The strategy has made Bennett appear as one of the few responsible politicians interested in seriously addressing Israel’s most serious problem. Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s other opponents—both from within the coalition as well as the opposition—continuously bicker over tactical political maneuvers and the prime minister’s fitness to hold office while on trial for questionable corruption charges. …To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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ANALYSIS: Bennett’s Meteoric Rise in Israeli Politics Explained
Yochanan Visser
Israel National News, Oct. 18, 2020

As Israel is beginning to ease a second month-long lockdown which aimed to contain the second wave of the COVID-19 virus, only one political leader is profiting from the chaos in the country. We’re talking about former Defense and Education Minister Naftali Bennett; whose Yamina Party is steadily rising in the polls and who is regarded as one of the few politicians who could replace current Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu’s party Likud has fallen in the polls from 35 Knesset seats only two months ago to 26 today while Yamina rose from its current 5 seats to between 20 and 23 in recent polling.

Last week during the opening session of the Knesset, Bennett attacked Netanyahu and said: “Instead of fighting the (Corona) pandemic in the country, you prefer to attack me, just as King Saul once persecuted David in his last days.”

The leader of the Yamina party then doubled down on his criticism of Netanyahu. “Instead of fighting around the clock for the people to save Israel from the health and economic crisis, you are wasting your energy fighting me.” Neither political tricks nor any ruse will stop me from helping my beloved people in the midst of this hardship, as they suffer from government negligence,” Bennett fumed.

It was other evidence that the relationship between the two right-wing leaders has further deteriorated during the coronavirus crisis. Two months ago, Bennett almost burst out in tears during another speech in the Knesset when he accused the Gantz-Natanyahu government of having not done enough to contain the huge crisis Israel is experiencing.

Bennett has been highly critical of Netanyahu’s handling of the COVID-17 outbreak from the very beginning and formed a shadow Corona cabinet while drawing up an alternative plan to contain the health and economic crisis in Israel.
 
The last chapter and summation of Bennett’s plan, published under the title “From Crisis to Prosperity,” was translated by the news organization IMRA and brought on Arutz Sheva and deals with opportunities for the state of Israel in light of the Corona crisis.

Bennett, a former high-tech entrepreneur, also offers alternatives to the current coronavirus regime of the Netanyahu-Gantz government and thinks it would be a huge mistake to return to Israel’s situation prior to the Corona outbreak in February this year. “With all the difficulty, COVID-19 has opened a window of opportunity for us to launch the State of Israel an entire generation forward. Complex social and economic processes that without the pandemic would have been delayed for many years can now progress rapidly, if only we decide to act with courage working together,” the Yamina leader wrote at the end of his plan. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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Gantz Said Threatening New Elections If Netanyahu Tries To Again Delay Budget
Times of Israel staff

Times of Israel, Oct. 16, 2020

Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz will not agree to a further delay in passing the state budget for 2021 and would act to disperse the Knesset and send Israel to another round of elections if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu walks back his agreement to pass the budget by the end of the year, according to a Friday report.

The unsourced Channel 13 report did not give further details, saying only that it was in response to its report Thursday that Likud MK and Netanyahu ally Shlomo Karhi is planning to introduce legislation that would grant another extension to the deadline. If the Knesset disperses in November, it would mean elections in February, the fourth round in two years.

The initial budget deadline had been in August, with a failure to pass the 2020-2021 budget by then requiring the Knesset to dissolve. But Likud and Blue and White agreed to a last-minute compromise that gave the parties 100 more days. That expires in November.

Israel has limped through 2020 with a state budget, and the coalition agreement provided for a two-year 2020-21 budget to be passed in the summer. Channel 13 noted that Karhi would not put his bill forward without approval from Netanyahu, who critics assert is bent on preventing Gantz from becoming prime minister in November 2021, as agreed upon in their coalition deal.

One of the few loopholes in that agreement that would prevent the Blue and White chairman from replacing Netanyahu after a year and a half would be if the parties failed to pass a budget, thus sparking early elections.

Netanyahu was reportedly considering a resort to elections at the end of the summer, but refrained from doing so while the country was still recovering from the pandemic and amid increased criticism of his leadership during the pandemic.

In the months since though, cases continued to rise, forcing the country into a second, unpopular lockdown. At the same time, recent polls indicate that the popularity and trust in Netanyahu’s right-wing rival, Yamina chairman Naftali Bennett, have sky-rocketed, while Netanyahu and Likud are slipping.

The troubling poll numbers evidently have Netanyahu preferring another deadline extension, rather than testing his chances by sending the country toward the fourth election in two years, and thus presumably emboldening Gantz.

Channel 13 further reported, on Friday evening, that Netanyahu has instructed Finance Minister Israel Katz to prepare a budget for 2021, and have it ready for approval by February, so that he can defuse the crisis if he wants to, and seek “not to be blamed” if Israel plunges into elections again.

The Knesset last passed a state budget in March 2018, which was in force until the end of 2019. The lack of a comprehensive budget law in 2020 has left many ministries struggling with unexpected budget shortfalls and made it difficult to plan ahead. Many organizations, including those that ran the largest programs for at-risk youth in the country, were forced to close for part of the year as government support dried up. Some treasury officials have warned that Israel’s credit rating with international lending agencies could be hurt. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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A Magic Carpet Ride Over the Anti-Netanyahu Protests
Caroline Glick
Caroline Glick, Oct. 9, 2020

The Israeli Left likes to claim its no-holds-barred fight against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his supporters is an ideological struggle that pits the forces of democracy and old-time Zionism against the forces of tyranny and tribalism. Events of recent weeks tell the opposite tale.

In 2008, then-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin leaped onto the world stage following then-Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain’s surprise decision to select the young, charismatic first-term governor as his running mate. In one of the early photos released following her selection, Palin was seen standing behind her desk in the Alaska governor’s office. Amidst the mementos and family photos, a small flag of Israel hung from her wall.

Amazed Israelis marveled at the unexpected display of friendship from the until-then unknown governor halfway around the world. Many assumed that Palin’s support for Israel owed to her evangelical Christian faith. But while her faith did inform her position, so did her attachment to Alaska. Many Alaskans view their history as enmeshed with that of the State of Israel due to a little known historical episode that happened in 1949.

Months after Israel was founded, and as Arab armies still pounded it from all sides, the provisional government asked Alaska Airlines, the airline of what was then the US territory of Alaska, to take on the daring mission of transporting the Jews of Yemen home to the new Jewish state.

Over a period of seven months, in what became known as “Operation Magic Carpet,” Alaska Airlines crews risked their lives day in and day out to bring forty thousand Jews from Yemen to Israel.

Alaska Airlines features the tale – from the Alaskans’ perspective – on its website. Among other things, the website quotes flight attendant Marian Metzger saying, “We realized this was going to be part of the history of Israel.”

And through Metzger and her colleagues, it also became part of Alaskan history joining the fates of the 49th state in the union with the reborn state of the Jewish people.

When Palin visited Israel, she didn’t expect to receive a thank you from the descendants of the Alaska Airlines passengers on its Aden-Tel Aviv route. She went to the Western Wall and prayed and traveled the country like a normal tourist enjoying the beautiful state built by the communities of Jewish exiles who returned to their homeland after two thousand years, communities her state was privileged to have had a hand in bringing home. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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For Further Reference:

Senior Likud Official: ‘Blue and White’s Behavior is Leading Us to New elections in March’:  Hezki Baruch, Arutz Sheva, Oct. 21, 2020 A senior Likud official warned Wednesday afternoon that the ongoing budget battle between the Likud and the Blue and White party has become intractable, and will ultimately lead to the dissolving of the 23rd Knesset by the end of the year and snap elections early in 2021.

Poll: Over Half of Voting Public Want Netanyahu to Quit Politics:  Gil Hoffman, Jerusalem Post, Oct. 16, 2020 –– More than half of Israelis of voting age want Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to leave politics, according to a new poll published by Panels Research for The Jerusalem Post and Maariv newspapers.

What’s Next in Israeli Politics? Israel Policy Forum, Oct. 20, 2020

First Face-to-Face Forum Between Gulf, Israeli Women a Hit:  Felice Friedson, The Medialine, Oct. 19, 2020 — The newly established Gulf-Israel Women’s Forum has kicked-off, with participation by the first female Emirati life coach; a deputy mayor of Jerusalem; a Hebrew-literate Emirati who is co-authoring a kosher cookbook; and a professor of international relations at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya.

The Coronavirus Crisis: Recommendations for Israel | Team of Experts Led by Lt. Gen. (ret.) Gadi Eisenkot: Editor: Mor Yahalom, INSS, Special Publication, Oct.  20, 2020 The Covid-19 pandemic spread throughout the world in early 2020, leading to a global crisis. Although the worst-case scenarios of morbidity and mortality have not played out in Israel as of today, the pandemic has confronted Israel’s civilian population and leadership with complex challenges. Furthermore, because the repercussions of the pandemic will have an impact on the dynamic situation in the Middle East—on a scale and timeline that are yet to be fully understood—it is already clear that this is a global turning point.

Former State Prosecutor Blasts ‘Conspiracy Theories’ After Attacks from Likud:  Times of Israel, Oct. 17, 2020 Shai Nitzan responded on Friday to the release of old recordings in which Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit is heard bashing the former state attorney for failing to clear him of wrongdoing in an old scandal.

 

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