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Contents:
One More Week To Go: the Campaign Heats Up: Manfred Gerstenfeld, CIJR, Mar. 9, 2015 — Throughout the previous weeks of the election campaign, Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Likud have been on the receiving end of much criticism …
What’s at Stake in the Israel Election of March 17?: Paul Merkley, Bayview Review, Mar. 3, 2015 — So far, little attention is being given in our part of the world to the contest between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Isaac Herzog
The Final Week: Jerusalem Post, Mar. 8, 2015 — Saturday night’s rally against the reelection of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was one of the first signs of life in this lackadaisical election season.
In Israel’s Hour of Need: Caroline Glick, Jerusalem Post, Feb. 26, 2015 — It is hard to get your arms around the stubborn determination of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today.
CJL Benefit Dinner 2015 Speech Dr Dan Schuftan (Video): Centre for Jewish Life, Youtube, Feb. 24, 2014
Netanyahu’s Speech Divides Israel, Too: Nicholas Casey & Joshua Mitnick Wall Street Journal, Mar. 3, 2014
Obama, Netanyahu’s Speech, and American Leadership: Tzvi Kahn, National Review, Mar. 9, 2014
Viva la Revolucion? Zionist Union Uses Che in Campaign Materials: Lahav Harkov, Jerusalem Post, Mar. 9, 2014
ONE MORE WEEK TO GO: THE CAMPAIGN HEATS UP
Manfred Gerstenfeld
CIJR, Mar. 9, 2015
Throughout the previous weeks of the election campaign, Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Likud have been on the receiving end of much criticism, most recently with “Bottlegate”, the State Comptroller Office’s report on it, and far more importantly, the State Comptroller Office’s report on the housing crisis. These issues dominated much of the anti-Netanyahu agenda. Over the past week, Netanyahu succeeded in taking back part of the election agenda through his speeches at AIPAC and the US Congress.
Netanyahu’s speech to Congress made a sizeable impact in the United States. It placed more scrutiny on the Obama administration’s handling of the Iran nuclear issue. Whether or not all of this has made a significant impact on Israeli voters remains unclear. The election messages have now become more focused and concise, due in part to the television campaigns. The Likud central message is “It is either us, or them”. This slogan emphasizes that the choice of prime minister is between Netanyahu and Herzog/Livni. Some Likud advertisements show a picture of Herzog morphing into one of Livni. It assumes that most people see Herzog as more popular than Livni, who has frequently shifted party allegiance. It stresses the fact that Livni will replace Herzog as prime minister after two years, if the Zionist Union wins the elections. The Zionist Union’s central message is that Netanyahu has failed and thus should go home.
A crucial issue is which candidate for prime minister the party leaders will support when they are called in after the elections by President Rivlin. Shas leader Aryeh Deri stated that his party will support Netanyahu, though it has not excluded the possibility of entering a coalition led by Herzog. Shas has also repeated that it will not enter a coalition with Lapid’s Yesh Atid. Lapid has stated that he will not join a government if the law requiring mandatory army service of the ultra-Orthodox population will be repealed. This makes the creation of a Zionist Union-led coalition even more difficult. This is the more so as the Joint Arab List has stated that it will not join any government whatsoever. Their spokesperson Raja Zaatry declared that, “We cannot be part of a government that still occupies our people.” He added that if, from the outside, the Joint Arab list can prevent Netanyahu from forming a government, they may do so.
Another important issue is the agreements between various parties concerning surplus votes. Once all Knesset seats, for which there are the required number of votes, have been allotted, there remain a certain number of votes which are insufficient to have parties qualify for an additional seat. These surplus votes are then pooled with those of the party’s partner in the surplus votes agreement. This may give one of the two parties concerned enough votes for an additional seat. Earlier in the campaign, the Zionist Union and Meretz had concluded such a pooling agreement. Annulling this agreement would allow Meretz to enter into a similar agreement with the Joint Arab List. It would then enable the Zionist Union to conclude such an agreement with Yesh Atid, which doesn’t have a pooling partner. However, the Arab List refused this proposal. One result of this bargaining was that Yesh Atid, which claims to be centrist, is now increasingly seen as belonging to the left.
Even more than in previous weeks, the key issue of the campaign seems to be Netanyahu remaining the prime minister. Yet that is not totally clear, because Herzog and Livni have refused to explicitly exclude the possibility of the Zionist Union being part of a Netanyahu-led government. Moshe Kahlon, leader of Koolanu, has consistently refused to say whom his party will endorse as Prime Minister. That leaves the Joint Arab List and Meretz as the two parties that have declared that they will not support Netanyahu in any case. Yediot Achronot, Israel’s second-largest daily, and its website, Ynet, have sharply attacked Netanyahu throughout the campaign. They now published a document, dated August 2013, which states that Netanyahu had agreed to make substantial territorial concessions to the Palestinians. The Likud had a confusing variety of rebuttals, one of them, coming from the Prime Minister’s Office, stating that, "Prime Minister Netanyahu has made clear for years that given the current conditions in the Middle East, any territory that is given will be seized by the radical Islam just like what happened Gaza and in southern Lebanon."
A mass rally against the re-election of Netanyahu as prime minister was held on the evening of March 7th in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, with some 35,000 people in attendance. The main speaker was former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, who has been criticizing Netanyahu for years. Dagan said that Israel faces its worst crisis ever under Netanyahu’s leadership. An effort was also made to revive the social protests of 2011. Tents were pitched once again on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, but only drew limited attention. After some days the Tel Aviv municipality had the tents removed. In the meantime, polls keep indicating that the Likud is slightly behind the Zionist Union, yet none of them show the Zionist Union gaining more than 24 seats. The division between the blocs remains more or less the same. Likud, Bayit Yehudi and Israel Beitenu have close to 40 seats, to which one can add at least 3 more seats if Yishai’s Yahad list passes the threshold. Yesh Atid’s 19 seats in the 19th Knesset are seemingly divided between that party and Kahlon’s Koolanu, which together have about 20 seats in the polls. The Zionist Union and Meretz together may reach 30 seats, a gain of about 3. The two ultra-Orthodox parties currently have 18 seats, which in the polls are now divided between the three ultra-Orthodox parties. The Joint Arab List has 12 seats in most polls, giving them a gain of 1 seat.
All of this makes one wonder what these elections are about, if there is such little movement between the blocs. As there are still many voters who remain undecided, this lack of movement may change substantially when the election results are in…
[To Read the Full Article With Footnotes Click the Following Link—Ed.]
Manfred Gerstenfeld is a CIJR Academic Fellow
WHAT’S AT STAKE IN THE ISRAEL ELECTION OF MARCH 17?
Paul Merkley
Bayview Review, Mar. 3, 2015
…So far, little attention is being given in our part of the world to the contest between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Isaac Herzog, leader of the Labour Party, the man presumed most likely to be called upon to form a government if Netanyahu stumbles. It is not as though Herzog were a non-entity. Herzog has a distinguished pedigree — son of a former Israeli President and grandson of a one-time Chief Rabbi of Ireland; he has been Leader of the Opposition since becoming Chairman of the Labour Party in November, 2013, having served previously in important Ministries under both Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak. Since the present election was called, he has improved prospects for victory by folding his Labor Party list into a broader list, Zionist Union, that includes Tzipi Livni’s Kadima as well as other leaderless factions on the left.
No one can pretend that the choice between Netanyahu & co and Herzog & and co is one between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Herzog insists that the economy is heading for the tanks and needs reforming on all fronts. As for external affairs, Herzog has denounced Netanyahu for effectively turning his back on the Peace Process and says that in doing so Netanyahu has, all by himself, caused the present diplomatic impasse with the United States while bringing down the outrage of civilized people everywhere…
Rather than focusing on the contest between these two leading Israeli politicians and their two causes journalists and editors have been talking about an ugly confrontation going on between Netanyahu and the President of the United States. Since at least the days of Kennedy, American Presidents have involved themselves as much as they have dared in Israeli elections – sometimes, right up to their eyeballs. In a private meeting just prior to the Israeli election of May 17, 1999, President Clinton promised Ehud Barak to do everything possible to help out; when the election came; several of Bill Clinton’s own campaign consultants, were lent by him to the Barak campaign, from whose bosom they briefed the President with privileged details. Clinton directed major supporters of the Democratic Party to give generously to the Barak campaign. Stories reflecting the Clinton Government’s unhappiness with Netanyahu’s neglect of the path of peace were leaked to the media. But in his oily way, Clinton managed to carry off the impression of dignified impartiality when the press asked him about political affairs in Israel…
Journalists who are unacquainted with history (is there another kind?) are giving out the impression that the current “feud” has suddenly appeared out of current events. But the difficulties began right at the beginning of Obama’s Presidency – and it is important to grasp that these difficulties follow from the largest possible differences of philosophy and as well from fundamental differences of character. From the beginning, President Barack Obama, has been as fully-invested as Clinton ever was in care and feeding of Netanyahu’s opposition, but he has never thought it necessary or even appropriate to pretend impartiality in the contest; indeed, he has made it clear to all who will listen that anything that assists the candidacy of Netanyahu contributes to the ruin of his grand vision for mankind and is thus a form of treason to the best interests of American, Israelis and The World. For years Obama has been dedicated to cutting Netanyahu down to size: that is, to a posture of deference such as befits the leader of a minor player in world affairs in the presence of the world’s leading statesman, the man who represents mankind’s best hope for peace.
The first of many personal encounters between the incumbent President of the United States and the incumbent Prime Minister of Israel Binyamin Netanyahu took place in May, 2009. It was a conspicuously awkward encounter. The news-site Arutz sheva, (Israel National News) recalled the event (nearly four years later) as “marked by a rude display of public disrespect by the American leader in which he abandoned the Israeli prime minister to wait in the White House while he went off to enjoy a private evening meal alone with his family. Netanyahu was subsequently escorted from the White House through a side door, rather than openly through the front — a further humiliation that left unpleasant memories with which both leaders have since been forced to contend.” … The neglect of ceremonial courtesy on this occasion, whether intended or not, brought to most minds a stark contrast to the elegance of Obama’s meetings a few weeks earlier with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia – before whom he bowed out of respect for “His Majesty”. These gestures, taken together, were meant to signal a revolutionary re-calculation of America’s foreign policy priorities…
Glad to have an opportunity to play the statesman in the largest possible arena, and to thereby widen the public-relations advantage over Herzog and his ally Tzipi Livni, Netanyahu has managed to acquire an invitation to address a special meeting of Congress on March 3. Netanyahu made it clear at once that he intended to speak frankly and bluntly about the contrary understandings of his government and Obama’s government regarding what Netanyahu regards as the most dangerous development in international affairs— the imminent prospect of a diplomatic agreement that would allow Iran to expand its nuclear capabilities under yet another version of the kind of international observation that has in the past failed to prevent the nuclear- militarizing of Pakistan and North Korea. At a Likud Party event in Jerusalem Netanyahu recently proclaimed: “A bad deal with Iran is taking shape in Munich, one that will endanger the existence of Israel. Therefore I am determined to travel to Washington and to present Israel’s position before the members of Congress and the American people.”…
Journalists who describe the current donnybrook between Netanyahu and Obama in terms of personal feud, get away with this only because they are either ignorant of or indifferent to the most important fact among all the important facts involved in this case — that Israel is a near neighbour to Iran, while the United States is half a world away. The consequence of any miscalculation that the United States may make in course of its negotiations with Iran will inevitably fall upon Israel. Any subsequent diplomacy for the purpose of re-settling Iran’s “rights” will take place after Israel has been removed from the world. President Obama ought at least to step up and acknowledge this – but, to my knowledge, he never has.
Elie Wiesel in a recent full page advertisement in the New York Times draws the world’s attention to the fact that Netanyahu’s appeal to Congress and the world will come “in the day before Purim” — “the day when, in ancient times, ‘a wicked man in Persia named Haman’ sought to destroy the Jews… Now Iran, modern Persia, has produced a new enemy. The Ayatollah Khamenei has been as clear as his predecessor in declaring his goal: ‘the annihilation and destruction’ of Israel. He is bent on acquiring the weapons needed to make good on the deadly promise.”…
[To Read the Full Article With Footnotes Click the Following Link—Ed.]
Paul Merkley is a CIJR Academic Fellow
Jerusalem Post, Mar. 8, 2015
Saturday night’s rally against the reelection of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was one of the first signs of life in this lackadaisical election season. As if waking from a mind-numbing slumber brought on by apathy, cynicism and the prospects of yet another early election with the same deck of cards slightly reshuffled, thousands of people gathered at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv to call on Israelis to vote in a new leadership on March 17.
It’s unfortunate that the rally was based on a negative message of “anyone but Netanyahu” and was not a positive gathering enthusiastically backing a party and leader with new and exciting ideas. This demonstrates that no matter how much a certain segment of the population is fed up with having Netanyahu lead the country, there is still no groundswell of support for his main opponents, Zionist Union leaders Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni.
This election has basically been theirs to win or lose, but it appears that Herzog and Livni have not been able to step up to inspire the centrists and center-left voters to the extent needed to create a political upheaval. Instead of touting the attributes of an alternative to Netanyahu, the speakers at the rally – most noticeably former head of the Mossad Meir Dagan – focused almost exclusively on why the incumbent must go. “Israel is a nation surrounded by enemies, but I am not afraid of enemies. I am frightened by our leadership,” said Dagan in an emotional speech. A longtime critic of Netanyahu, Dagan was the marquee speaker at the event which also featured a Druse officer in the IDF and a widow of another IDF officer who was killed in last summer’s Operation Protective Edge. The speakers raised valid points regarding the need for a political settlement with the Palestinians, with former OC Northern Command Maj.-Gen (res.) Amiram Levine stating that Israel cannot sustain the status quo and, without negotiating a Palestinian state, “we will lose all of Israel.”
Unfortunately, no speakers mentioned the fact that despite Netanyahu’s alleged willingness to negotiate with the PA based on the 1949 armistice lines, he received absolutely no response from Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, a testament to Palestinian intransigence that is a seemingly insurmountable obstacle to the kind of peace Levine called for. Other speakers related to the social issues that have dominated the election campaign, such as housing and food prices. But what was missing was the solutions – and the galvanizing figure to implement those solution – to all of the ills raised at the rally.
Since the days of former prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, the Center-Left has not produced a charismatic leader that Israelis who do want a change can enthusiastically back. Herzog and Livni, while running neck and neck in the polls with the Likud, have not generated the fervor and passion that could have made them the front-runners in the campaign. Instead, they have for the most part campaigned on a similar “anyone but Bibi” platform, as touted at the rally. It’s a shame that they haven’t been able to offer a campaign of hope instead of a negative message. As a result, their natural constituency has been diffused, with support splintered between their Zionist Union, Yesh Atid and Kulanu.
While it’s commendable that tens of thousands of citizens felt compelled to become engaged in the elections to the extent that they emerged en masse on Saturday night, with eight days left before Election Day it might be a case of too little, too late. This campaign season has been one of the most uneventful and uninspiring in recent memory. The days when voters gathered to raptly watch the party election TV ads, party volunteers jammed intersections handing out flyers, and huge banners dotted the country’s landscape are largely of a bygone era. We can only hope that in the final week of campaigning, the country springs to life from its malaise, with meaningful debate and careful consideration of the candidates…
Saturday night’s rally was a faint reminder that the elections really do matter and will determine how we live for the next four years, or until early elections are called again. It was an encouraging sign that Israelis still feel they have a say in the direction their country should head. Unfortunately, the negative message and lack of new ideas at the rally only underscored the fact that, despite the country being led for the last six years by the same person, a viable alternative with broad-ranging appeal has not emerged.
Caroline Glick
Jerusalem Post, Feb. 26, 2015
It is hard to get your arms around the stubborn determination of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today. For most of the nine years he has served as Israel’s leader, first from 1996 to 1999 and now since 2009, Netanyahu shied away from confrontations or buckled under pressure. He signed deals with the Palestinians he knew the Palestinians would never uphold in the hopes of winning the support of hostile US administrations and a fair shake from the pathologically hateful Israeli media. In recent years he released terrorist murderers from prison. He abrogated Jewish property rights in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria. He agreed to support the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River. He agreed to keep giving the Palestinians of Gaza free electricity while they waged war against Israel. He did all of these things in a bid to accommodate US President Barack Obama and win over the media, while keeping the leftist parties in his coalitions happy.
For his part, for the past six years Obama has undermined Israel’s national security. He has publicly humiliated Netanyahu repeatedly. He has delegitimized Israel’s very existence, embracing the jihadist lie that Israel’s existence is the product of post-Holocaust European guilt rather than 4,000 years of Jewish history. He and his representatives have given a backwind to the forces that seek to wage economic warfare against Israel, repeatedly indicating that the application of economic sanctions against Israel – illegal under the World Trade Organization treaties – are a natural response to Israel’s unwillingness to bow to every Palestinian demand. The same goes for the movement to deny the legitimacy of Israel’s very existence. Senior administration officials have threatened that Israel will become illegitimate if it refuses to surrender to Palestinian demands.
Last summer, Obama openly colluded with Hamas’s terrorist war against Israel. He tried to coerce Israel into accepting ceasefire terms that would have amounted to an unconditional surrender to Hamas’s demands for open borders and the free flow of funds to the terrorist group. He enacted a partial arms embargo on Israel in the midst of war. He cut off air traffic to Ben-Gurion International Airport under specious and grossly prejudicial terms in an open act of economic warfare against Israel. And yet, despite Obama’s scandalous treatment of Israel, Netanyahu has continued to paper over differences in public and thank Obama for the little his has done on Israel’s behalf. He always makes a point of thanking Obama for agreeing to Congress’s demand to continue funding the Iron Dome missile defense system (although Obama has sought repeatedly to slash funding for the project)…
Israelis were united in our opposition to Obama’s behavior. But Netanyahu said nothing publicly in criticism of Obama’s destructive, dangerous policy. He held his tongue in the hopes of winning Obama over through quiet diplomacy. He held his tongue, because he believed that the damage Obama was causing Israel was not irreversible in most cases. And it was better to maintain the guise of good relations, in the hopes of actually achieving them, than to expose the fractures in US-Israel ties caused by Obama’s enormous hostility toward Israel and by his strategic myopia that endangered both Israel and the US’s other regional allies. And yet, today Netanyahu, the serial accommodator, is putting everything on the line. He will not accommodate. He will not be bullied. He will not be threatened, even as all the powers that have grown used to bringing him to his knees – the Obama administration, the American Jewish Left, the Israeli media, and the Labor party grow ever more shrill and threatening in their attacks against him…
[To Read the Full Article With Footnotes Click the Following Link—Ed.]
CJL Benefit Dinner 2015 Speech Dr Dan Schuftan (Video): Centre for Jewish Life, Youtube, Feb. 24, 2014
Netanyahu’s Speech Divides Israel, Too: Nicholas Casey & Joshua Mitnick Wall Street Journal, Mar. 3, 2014—Just as it polarized official Washington, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech Tuesday divided Israeli voters, who will decide in two weeks whether to elect him to a fourth term.
Obama, Netanyahu’s Speech, and American Leadership: Tzvi Kahn, National Review, Mar. 9, 2014——“Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand.”
Viva la Revolucion? Zionist Union Uses Che in Campaign Materials: Lahav Harkov, Jerusalem Post, Mar. 9, 2014—Zionist Union baffled many with its use an image of Marxist guerilla leader Che Guevara, best known for his part in the Cuban revolution, in its campaign this week.
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