Tag Archives: mofaz

Lieberman resignation complicates Netanyahu coalition’s election chances

avigdor

That Israel’s hard-line foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman will resign following indictments Thursday for breach of trust doesn’t mean he’s leaving politics.

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To the contrary, Lieberman’s move seems calculated to allow him to return to the forefront of Israel’s coalition government, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, upon the strong likelihood that Netanyahu emerges from upcoming elections as prime minister.  Given that Israel’s essentially in campaign season, Lieberman (pictured above) is moving aggressively — and wisely, probably — to lift his parliamentary immunity in order to bring investigations to resolution as fast as possible about the charges that remain.

Those charges, by the way, are only derivative of the main charges against Lieberman that stem from a 12-year investigation with respect to money laundering and fraud — Lieberman stood accused of receiving millions from international businessmen while he was serving in office.  Israel’s attorney general Yehuda Weinstein determined not to pursue charges against him on those accusations.  The remaining charge is that Lieberman breached public trust by appointing Ze’ev Ben Aryeh as ambassador to Belarus without disclosing that Ben Aryeh had alerted Lieberman that he was being investigated by Belorussian authorities.  So all things considered, Thursday was somewhat of a victory for Lieberman in that it lifted a decade-long shadow from his public life.

Netanyahu is holding Lieberman’s portfolio ‘in trust’ and will serve simultaneously as prime minister and foreign minister until the January 22 elections for the Knesset (הכנסת), Israel’s 120-seat unicameral parliament.

In advance of the election, Netanyahu had teamed up with Lieberman to merge Israel’s longstanding center-right party Likud (הַלִּכּוּד‎, ‘The Consolidation’) with Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu (ישראל ביתנו‎, ‘Israel is Our Home’).  At the last election, Yisrael Beiteinu, with a strongly nationalist secular profile that appeals to many of Israel’s ethnic Russian Jewish population, won 15 seats to 27 for Likud, and 28 for the more centrist — and now-imploding — Kadima (קדימה, Forward).  The coalition between Netanyahu and Lieberman has remained the core of Israel’s government since 2009, and their combined ‘Likud Beiteinu’ ticket ensures that Lieberman and his allies will take at least 15 seats if the coalition retains its combined 42 Knesset seats.

The news threatens to sidetrack Lieberman less than a month after Netanyahu’s defense minister and former prime minister Ehud Barak said he wouldn’t stand for election in the Knesset, just two years after leaving Israel’s longstanding center-left party, Labor (מפלגת העבודה הישראלית) to found his own breakaway party, ‘Independence’ (סיעת העצמאות).  Netanyahu could still, however, re-appoint Barak as a non-MK defense minister after the election.

But despite the conventional wisdom that Netanyahu will easily glide to reelection, things are looking decidedly less secure for him in the wake of a number of disappointments for his government — Netanyahu was widely seen to have publicly challenged U.S. president Barack Obama over Iran and also to have favored Republican candidate Mitt Romney in the U.S. presidential election, so Obama’s reelection was widely seen as a setback for Netanyahu.

Furthermore, the eight-day bombing campaign in Gaza in November, the United Nations vote on Nov. 30 to recognize Palestine as a non-member observer state and the Israeli announcement of further settlements in the West Bank have called into question Netanyahu’s sincerity on achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace, but his diplomatic abilities as well, given Israel’s increasingly negative image in the world.  Those defeats came after Netanyahu’s cartoonish Cassandra siren demanding ‘red lines’ with regard to Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program.

Those troubles are borne out in a poll released today — conducted before Lieberman’s resignation — that finds ‘Likud Beiteinu’ would win just 37 seats in the election, a bit of a retreat from their current 42 seats.  In the poll, 54% of Israeli voters say that Israel’s diplomatic position has gotten worse in the past four years, at a time when Israeli diplomacy will remain vital throughout the Middle East in 2013 and beyond — on Egypt, on Palestine, on Syria and Lebanon and on Iran.

But Likud Beiteinu’s loss — so far — has not meant a gain for the forces of Israel’s horribly fractured center-left.  Instead, the even more stridently Zionist, conservative Bayit Yehudi (הבית היהודי, ‘The Jewish Home’) would win 16 seats, up from just three in the current Knesset.

That party — or rather coalition of parties — is led by Naftali Bennett, who served as Netanyahu’s chief of staff in opposition from 2006 to 2008, and it has been a component, albeit a small component, of Netanyahu’s coalition, and could be expected to join future Netanyahu-led coalitions as well.  Bennett is rapidly becoming a rising star in Israel, and he’ll be headed for a major cabinet post if he places third — or higher — in January’s elections.  Bennett, born to American parents and a former New York City resident, founded and sold a company in his 20s to become independently wealthy before returning to Israel, serving in the Israeli Defense Force during the short-lived 2006 war in Lebanon and then in politics as Netanyahu’s chief of staff.

For now, then, while Lieberman’s troubles could result in harming Lieberman’s reputation, it shouldn’t affect Netanyahu’s position to remain prime minister — though a stronger Jewish Home bloc in the Knesset would arguably make a future Netanyahu government more Zionist in nature and less secular.

The poll showed that the center-left, currently fragmented among three major groups, would win just 36 seats total, meaning that, even if a world where the three parties could unite somehow, they still don’t command enough support to form a government:  Continue reading Lieberman resignation complicates Netanyahu coalition’s election chances

Netanyahu announces early elections in Israel

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday announced that he would call early elections for Israel’s unicameral legislature, the Knesset:

In a televised statement, Netanyahu said  that, as his coalition government would not be able to agree on a national budget for 2013, he had “decided, for the benefit of Israel, to hold elections now and as quickly as possible.”

The elections would take place within three months, the prime minister said.

“In a few months, the tenure of the most stable government in decades will come to an end,” Netanyahu said. “This stability has helped us achieve the two main objectives we promised the citizens of Israel – to strengthen security at a time when a dangerous upheaval is gripping the Middle East, and [to fortify] the economy during…a  financial turmoil.”

In calling for elections “as soon as possible,” which can be held a minimum of three months after the dismissal of the Knesset, Netanyahu appeared to be targeting as soon as January 15 , but the election could be held in February as well.  The Knesset is expected to be dismissed as soon as possible, ostensibly over the budget, but really as much because Netanyahu believes he’s in as good a position as he’ll be between now and October 2013, the last possible date elections could be held.

So where does the race stand today?

Nearly everyone expects today that Netanyahu’s conservative Likud (הַלִּכּוּד‎) party will win the greatest number of seats in the upcoming election and thereupon form a coalition (with any number of parties from the left, center or right and from both the secular and religious parties), extending Netanyahu’s grip on Israeli power at a time when the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran in the future seems more likely than not.

Speaking of Iran, the race could well feature Iran and U.S.-Israeli relations as a top issue.  In any event, the Israeli election will follow the U.S. presidential election.  Netanyahu has recently been making an incredibly high-profile case for U.S. president Barack Obama to set ‘red lines’ over Iran’s nuclear program — ‘red lines’ that, if crossed, would trigger a military response from the United States and/or Israel.  Although Obama’s challenger in the U.S. race, Republican Mitt Romney, has argued for an even more hawkish foreign policy on Iran, Netanyahu has been criticised by both U.S. and Israeli politicians for trying to influence the U.S. election.  By the time the Israeli election will be held, however, we’ll have a much clearer idea as to the state of U.S. foreign policy through at least January 2017 — and if Obama is reelected, Netanyahu’s strategy of rare public disagreement with the U.S. president could become a major issue in the campaign.

Netanyahu, however, will likely make the case that he (along with his current defense minister, Ehud Barak, who himself served as prime minister from 1999 to 2001) is best placed to steer Israel through the small nation’s thorny foreign policy issues, including not only Iran and the nuclear issue, but a new president in Egypt, Mohammed Morsi, who comes from the Muslim Brotherhood, and the longstanding issue of the Palestinian territories.  A strong Likud showing could conceivably provide Netanyahu with enough support to launch a preemptive attack on Iran, with or without U.S. support.

It will be the first election since February 2009, when Netanyahu’s Likud nearly tied then-governing Kadima (קדימה‎, Forward), the centrist party founded by Ariel Sharon and other Likud moderates in 2005, including former prime minister Ehud Olmert and former leader Tzipi Livni, a former foreign minister under Olmert.  In that election, Kadima won 28 seats under Livni’s in the 120-seat Knesset and Likud won 27 seats (then an increase of 15 seats).  Although Kadima won a marginally greater number of seats, Netanyahu was able to pull together a majority coalition and thereupon became prime minister, while Livni refused to join any coalition headed by Netanyahu, thereby becoming Israel’s main opposition leader — until March 2012.

In March, Shaul Mofaz, a former defense minister under Sharon, defeated Livni in an internal Kadima leadership contest, and Livni subsequently resigned from the Knesset in May.  Soon thereafter, Mofaz caused Kadima to join Netanyahu’s existing coalition, although Kadima left the coalition in July over negotiations with respect to the so-called Tal Law and how to deal with the exemption of ultra-orthodox haredim Jews from mandatory service in the Israel Defense Force.

Kadima’s support was already expected to collapse from its 2009 levels, but Mofaz’s zig-zag from opposition to coalition and back to opposition has done nothing to boost the party’s image among Israeli voters.  Although Olmert was recently acquitted of fraud charges that ultimately led to his resignation in 2009, and he is currently seen as more popular than either Mofaz or Livni, he has not yet decided whether to return to politics.  Olmert’s return to politics, either from within Kadima or through a new party with Livni, could potentially upend the election.

A recent Haaretz poll shows Likud with a clear lead at 28%, while 35% of Israelis think Netanyahu is best suited to be prime minister.  Kadima, meanwhile, lags far behind at just 8% support, with just 6% of Israelis supporting Mofaz as the best choice for prime minister:

Israel’s Labor party (מפלגת העבודה הישראלית‎), which has traditionally been the leftist counterweight to Likud, stands to return as the chief opposition party — it fell to just 13 seats in the last Knesset, but now is the strong second-place party with 20% support under leader Shelly Yachimovich, a former journalist who took over the leadership from Ehud Barak, who has served as minister of defense since 2007 under both Olmert and now Netanyahu.  Barak, who himself served as prime minister from 1999 to 2001, left Labor in January 2011 to form his own party.  As Labor leader, Yachimovich has emphasized bread-and-butter economic issues, such as employment, high cost of living and income inequality, as well as social justice within Israel.  The poll shows that 38% of Israelis approve of Netanyahu’s government, while 53% oppose it, which leaves some amount of space for a spirited opponent to make headway between now and elections. Continue reading Netanyahu announces early elections in Israel

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

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

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

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