Category Archives: Israel

Israel

Kadima leaves Israeli grand coalition over national service ‘Tal Law’ proposal

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Well, that was short-lived.

After just 70 days in what was meant to be the broadest coalition in a generation of Israeli politics, Shaul Mofaz, the leader of the centrist Kadima party, announced that Kadima will leave Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition over the terms of a controversial law designed to address the exemption of ultra-orthodox haredim Jews — yeshiva students of traditional religious texts — from mandatory service in the Israel Defense Force.

Netanyahu will continue as prime minster, albeit with his original 66-member coalition in the Knesset, Israel’s 120-seat parliament, with an August 1 deadline for enacting a new law.

Under the latest proposal, half of haredim between age 18 and 23 would be drafted into the IDF and another half would be drafted into national service between age 23 and 26.  It is only the latest attempt — the so-called “Tal Law” first emerged in 2002 and was extended in 2007, and has been controversial throughout its history.  Israel’s High Court of Justice, however, ruled that the Tal Law is unconstitutional and ordered the government to enact a replacement to the current law by August 1.

Mofaz, who had argued for a compulsory draft of everyone up to age 23, complained that the latest proposal did not go far enough:

Mofaz said that the proposal violates the ruling of the High Court on the issue, the principle of equal sharing of the burden of military service, is not proportional and does not meet the ultimate test of effectively resolving the issue.

Mofaz also noted that the proposal also did not include all draftable persons, and therefore, in reality, would merely maintain the unmanageable status quo.

The decision reinforces the difficult in crafting an alternative to the Tal Law in a manner that satisfies everyone in Netanyahu’s coalition. In addition to his own Likud Party and a small breakaway faction of Labor Party MKs loyal to defense minister and former prime minister Ehud Barak, the coalition contains several ultra-orthodox parties, including Shas, who are the most pro-exemption parties in the Knesset.  But it also contains the nationalist and secular Yisrael Beiteinu, which is introducing to the Knesset a bill that would require all 18-year-olds to serve (although Netanyahu has allowed Yisrael Beiteinu to introduce the bill, the remaining members of his coalition will defeat it).

Earlier this month, Netanyahu dissolved the Plesner Committee, which had been tasked with coming up with an alternative to the Tal Law, after committee members representing both Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu resigned from the committee in protest.

The question of whether to exempt haredimfrom IDF service — or whether to fashion some alternative form of civil service on the basis of equal burden-sharing — is an emotional issue in a country where security threats remain a top concern of all Israelis. Continue reading Kadima leaves Israeli grand coalition over national service ‘Tal Law’ proposal →

Israel

Netanyahu’s new broad unity coalition a week later: winners and losers

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It’s been more than a week since Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu formed a staggeringly unexpected coalition with his main opposition, Kadima.

Netanyahu’s prior coalition in the Knesset (Israeli’s 120-seat parliament) already included his own hawkish Likud Party (27 seats), the populist, nationalist and secular Yisrael Beiteinu (15 seats), whose leader Avigdor Lieberman has served as Israel’s deputy prime minister and its minister of foreign affairs, several haredim, ultra-orthodox parties, the largest of which is Shas (11 seats), and Independence (5 seats), a breakaway segment of former Labor Party members loyal to defense minister and former prime minister Ehud Barak.

In the 2009 election, Kadima — the party, which means ‘forward’ in Hebrew, was founded by then-prime minister Ariel Sharon in 2005 with members of the Labor Party to support Sharon’s disengagement plan and was the party of his successor, Ehud Olmert — actually won a greater number of seats (28 seats) under leader Tzipi Livni.

The deal leaves the Labor Party, with its eight seats, as the primary opposition in the Knesset.

Kadima’s March 2012 leadership election saw Livni defeated by Shaul Mofaz, a former defense minister under Sharon.  It took Mofaz, who once called Netanyahu a “liar” and pledged not to join a Netanyahu government, only two months to join the Netanyahu government, as acting vice prime minister, thereby giving Netanyahu a 94-seat coalition, the widest such Israeli government in 28 years.

Why the coalition, just 24 hours after Netanyahu had called for early elections?

Jeffrey Goldberg, writing for The Atlantic, suggested seven must-read reasons last week, ranging from a potential strike on Iran to giving Netanyahu the centrist support to negotiate with the Palestinians to allowing Netanyahu and Lieberman to push forward with a reform of the Tal Law to provide an alternative form of national service for currently-exempt ultraorthodox Israelis from the two-year military service requirement.

For Kadima, the answer is simple: “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”

Whatever the reason, the conventional wisdom has been fairly standard across the board:
  • It’s a masterstroke for Netanyahu, who will now have another year and a half as prime minister with the widest government possible.
  • It’s nearly a masterstroke for Mofaz and Kadima, which polls suggested would have lost many seats in a September election.
  • It’s a good deal for Barak, whose Independence slate might not have even returned to the Knesset in early elections, and whose support Netanyahu has always coveted.
  • It’s decent news for the haredim parties, which did not want elections and which can now, having been part of the government for three years, can protest any reforms to the Tal Law, leave the government, and have a pertinent campaign issue in 2013.
  • It’s bad news for Labor under its new leader Shelly Yachimovich, as it would have been the main winner in early elections — taking many of the seats Kadima was set to lose.
  • It’s also bad news for Yair Lapid, the new force in Israeli politics whose new political party / vehicle Yesh Atid (‘There is a Future’) will now be shut out of the Knesset for at least 18 more months, in which time his momentum may stall.
  • It’s horrible news for Livni, who quit the Knesset in early May, days before the unity deal was announced.  Continue reading Netanyahu’s new broad unity coalition a week later: winners and losers →

Iran, Israel

Bibi and the duck

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Since the landmark 1996 election when Benjamin Netanyahu first became a world figure by defeating Shimon Peres to become Israeli prime minister, I’ve been fascinated by his ability to remain in the center of Israeli politics for nearly two decades — in his bellicosity and in his tenacity, he reminds me of Israel’s version of Richard Nixon.

Not to make light of the deadly serious three-way dance going on among the United States, Israel and Iran over Iran’s nuclear program (and the potential US and Israeli military response to it), which could have wide-ranging impacts on the politics of all three countries and the world beyond, I found this video fabulously hilarious, which mashes up Netanyahu’s speech yesterday to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee with Daffy Duck.

File it alongside the Putin/Mr. Burns parody from last week.

BBC News explores the duck analogy in greater detail here.