Tag: Likud Party

As Palestinians Confront a Second Nakba, the Relationship Between Israel and Hamas is ‘Complicated’

Netanyahu’s goal is to prevent the two-state solution at any cost.

Chandigarh: First coined by the Central Intelligence Agency in the early 1950s to signify the unintended consequences of covert operations, the term ‘blowback’ perhaps best describes the events in Israel and Palestine following Hamas’s October 7 terrorist strike.

For, largely unspoken, and articulated sotto voce, if at all, in the enduring fog of the Gaza war, is the indisputable reality that Israel had previously helped nurture and cosset Hamas through the ’70s and ’80s and later. According to a cross-section of analysts and overseas media reports, Israeli leaders – especially Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – had continued to intermittently back the Islamist terror group to cynically further their selfish political ends to retain power.

Several media outlets, including the Washington Post, have convincingly argued in recent years that Hamas was in reality Israel’s Taliban, patronised by Tel Aviv in the age-old colonial strategy of divide-and-rule for its own complex and twisted cynical ends. But in classic blowback follow-through, Hamas, under Tel Aviv’s patronage, mutated into a deadly, cunning and implacable foe for its sponsor, its ferocity culminating in last month’s well-planned hit in which it killed around 1,400 Israelis and took 240 others hostage.

Analysts said Israel’s prior backing of Hamas was prompted by its attempt to ‘manage’ Tel Aviv’s immediate point of Palestinian pain, which for the newly founded Jewish nation, was personified in its early years of existence by Yasser Arafat’s secular and left-leaning Fatah party. Fatah – meaning victory – comprised the core of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) founded in 1964 to fight for a homeland, 16 years after its people were arbitrarily rendered homeless.

And though a terrorist organisation for Israel, the PLO was recognised by neighbouring Arab states as well as India – the first non-Arab country to acknowledge it as the sole and legitimate representative of dispossessed Palestinians. Arafat, with his distinctive black and white chequered keffiyeh headdress and holstered pistol at his hip, visited India periodically.

A mural of Yasser Arafat. Photo: Anthony Baratier/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Consequently, Israel’s military and security establishment, facing an existential crisis, needed to offset the PLO with one of its own kind and Hamas – an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Isamiyya or Islamic Resistance Movement – ideally fitted the bill.

Affiliated with Egypt’s proscribed Muslim Brotherhood, the Sunni-Palestinian Hamas group was founded in Gaza in 1973 as an Islamist charity organisation called Mujama-al-Islamiya, by Ahmed Yassin, a near-blind and quadriplegic Imam and activist. In his proselytising endeavours, Yassin soon found an unexpected ally in Israel, which at the time controlled Gaza, having captured it from Egypt after the six-day war in 1967, and under Tel Aviv’s patronage, he set about establishing a network of kindergartens, schools, clinics, blood banks, daycare centres, youth groups and even an Islamic University.

The Palestinian imam was further emboldened by Israel loosening previous restrictions on activists promoting political Islam in Gaza, and thus proceeded to officially register his Mujama al-Isamiya first as a charity and later, once again with Tel Aviv’s backing, elevated its status to that of an association. Mujama members were also permitted by Israel to disseminate their message in occupied Gaza to build ‘goodwill’ amongst local Palestinians. Subsequently, this eventually assisted Hamas in acquiring political legitimacy, by securing control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, following elections that took place after the 2005 Israeli pull-out from the area.

Israel, for its part, then fully engaged in battling the PLO, stood back when its ‘collaborator’ Islamist group inevitably clashed with and combated its rival Fatah Palestinian secularists. In this region, a ‘collaborator’ from either the Jewish or Muslim communities co-operating with the other side, is regarded as the ultimate traitor. Even mere suspicion, in many cases, of collaborating with ‘the other’, was enough to hopelessly damn the concerned person.

Steady Israeli funding to Mujama, meanwhile, augmented its influence and reach and having attained financial solvency alongside military organisation, it ended up morphing into Hamas in 1987-88, following the outbreak of the First of three Intifadas or rebellions by Palestinians against their Israeli occupiers. However, soon after, the fledgling Hamas’s ‘sponsorship’ ties with Israel broke down as its founding Charter or Covenant refused to accept the latter’s existence and vowed to work towards its total elimination. Hamas also categorically rejected the two-state solution to the long-running conflict, committing itself to seeking an Islamic Palestinian entity over the combined territories of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip through a concerted campaign of terrorism.

In short, the opening moves of what was steadily building up to the blowback were in place. But events would unravel gradually and bloodily, as they normally do in such instances, over the next three decades, in which Israel fought three wars with Hamas – in 2009, 2012 and 2014 – and enforced a 17-year-long blockade of the Gaza Strip in addition to frequent air strikes and targeted assassinations.

But the UK-based AnalystNews online news service last month stated that ‘even more ‘sinister’ was the way the Israeli authorities continued to deliberately enable Hamas. Netanyahu’s political strategy, it declared had, since 2009 revolved around keeping Hamas alive and kicking, even if it hurts Israelis. “While Israel and Netanyahu give lip service to seeking a two-state solution, Hamas provides (it) a convenient excuse to avoid pursuing one,” the news portal added.

A day after the October 7 attack, the conservative Jerusalem-based Times of Israel online newspaper went even further via an op-ed piece entitled: ‘For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces.‘

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Photo: X/@netanyahu

Authored by the newspaper’s political correspondent Tal Schneider, the commentary stated that for years, various governments led by Netanyahu had pursued an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank – bringing Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas to his knees – while initiating moves that propped up Hamas.

The idea, Schneider stated, was to prevent Abbas – or anyone else in the PA’s (feeble) West Bank government – from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state. Amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas had been upgraded from a mere terror group to an organisation with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad, Schneider wrote. Most of the time, she added, Israel’s policy was to treat the PA as a burden and Hamas as an asset.

Earlier, in 2021, Brigadier General Yitzhak Segev, Gaza governor in the early 1980s, had told the New York Times that he had helped finance Hamas as a counterweight to the secularists and Leftists of the PLO and the Fatah Party led by Arafat. He admitted to funding Hamas himself with Israeli taxpayer money that was later used to kill the same people who were funding them, revealing thereby the copybook rollout of the classic blowback syndrome.

This was corroborated further by David Remick in the New Yorker in late October, when he quoted Netanyahu telling his Likud Party supporters at a closed-door meeting in 2019 that anyone who wanted to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state must support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas. “This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank,” the Israeli PM had added, according to Remick.

And yet again, to further drive home the same point, Israeli general-turned-academic-researcher Gershon Hacohen said that in order to prevent the two-state option, Netanyahu was ‘turning Hamas into his closest partner’. The former two-star Israeli Defence Forces officer said Hamas was an enemy, but covertly it was a (Netanyahu) ally. He further added that Israel was wreaking devastation in Gaza in pursuit of a monster it helped spawn.

In short, the blowback in Gaza and Israel has just begun unravelling and its consequences – inadvertent or intended – augur another Nakba or catastrophe for the Palestinians.

 

Do ‘Targets’ of the Israel Security Agency Face Close Supervision or Enjoy Immunity?

The title that the Israeli media attaches to suspects of far-right terrorism – “a target of the Shin Bet” – sometimes means exactly the opposite of what we think.

Elisha Yered, the former spokesman for Israeli Member of the Knesset (Israel’s Parliament) Limor Son Har-Melech from the far-right Otzma-Yehudit party, is suspected of obstruction of the police’s investigation and aiding the murder of 19-year-old Qosai Jammal Mi’tan from the village Burqa, near Ramallah in the West Bank. Israeli media reports stated that Yered is a “target of the Shin Bet”, the acronym of the Israel Security Agency.

Apparently, it can be understood from the combination of the words “target of the Shin Bet” that this is a person whose dangerousness is already known to the Israeli security services and he is under their close supervision and treated by them seriously. But in practice, this often means that this person enjoys immunity from criminal prosecution and can continue to freely harm the bodies and property of Palestinian civilians until the Shin Bet decides that he has crossed a red line.

On March 2023, five months before the murder of Mi’tan, Israel’s attorney general advocate Gali Beharev-Miara gave her exceptional approval for the criminal investigation of a member of the Knesset on suspicion of inciting terrorism, for his statements about the “burning of Huwara” (Zvika Fogel, also from Otzma-Yehudit), the Palestinian village where a pogrom was carried out by the Israeli far right. However, even though Elisha Yered tweeted similar things and even distributed a video of incitement, he has yet to be investigated.

The police suspect that after Mi’tan’s murder, Yered took the weapon with which Yehiel Indore allegedly shot Mi’tan, and buried it in the lands of the Ramat Migron outpost where he lives. After the police arrived at his house, Yered led them to the buried weapon. Despite this, it was reported that an indictment is not expected to be filed against Yered.

According to the Israeli Criminal Procedure law, if the police learn of the commission of a crime, they must open an investigation, but when it comes to a “target of the Shin Bet” many times the obligation in the law is not met and the far-right activists are not investigated and prosecuted. It is not only about political considerations of the law enforcement authorities but also because of the fear of exposing intelligence agents and sources.

It is not known how many of the hundreds who are believed to belong to the “Hilltop Youth” who are responsible for most of the Israeli far right terrorist incidents in the West Ban – and Elisha Yered is identified with them – are agents or collaborators of the Shin Bet. In the US, for example, it became clear in retrospect that during the years of political persecution carried out by the head of the FBI J. Edgar Hoover, out of about 5,000 members of the American Communist Party – about 1,500 were agents and collaborators of the FBI.

J. Edgar Hoover. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/FBI, Public Domain

The car of the Shin Bet

This is how, for example, violence was allowed to deteriorate in the plant nursery of Muhammad Mahmada, near the village of As-Sawiya in the West Bank. Between 2021 and 2022, Mahmada suffered from repeated incidents of theft and vandalism by “Hilltop Youth” who repeatedly came to his plant nursery, using the same vehicle. The far-right activists and their vehicle were clearly visible in the plant nursery’s security camera footage, and the settlement Ariel police received a report that some of the stolen trees were planted at the entrance to the Rehelim settlement, and that the vehicle used in the incidents was seen in that settlement. They were not arrested. The law was not enforced on them.

In the end, Mahmada managed to catch the far-right activists on his own, the fifth time they came to his plant nursery to carry out their plan. Although it is the same cell of “Hilltop Youth” that operated, the prosecution unit filed only one indictment against one of them, and only on one of the recurring incidents. The charge was for theft, the defendant was not attributed membership of a terrorist organisation, nor a racial motive.

The reason for the unusual conduct was revealed in an investigation published by the Israeli journalist Elisha Ben-Kimon on February 4, 2022 – the vehicle used in the chain of incidents in Mahmada’s plant nursery belonged to the Shin Bet. A Shin Bet agent who was implanted in the cell of the “Hilltop Youth” participated in the incidents.

In response to the complaint submitted to Israel’s deputy state prosecutor for special duties against the Shin Bet, on June 2022, he said that “recently a response was received from some of the parties to whom the complaint was forwarded. In view of the content of the response received, it was decided to deepen the investigation and forward your request to additional parties in order to exhaust the investigation. Another update will be sent after all the responses have been examined and when a decision has been made on them.” Mahmada has been waiting for this decision for over a year.

And so, the Israel Police continued to act negligently, did not recognise the incidents as terrorist incidents, and the deputy state prosecutor for special duties continued to drag his feet in investigating the conduct of the Shin Bet. Therefore, perhaps it is no wonder that on the morning of December 19, 2022, a sixth incident took place at Mahmada’s plant nursery, which was a step up in violence. The “Hilltop Youth” cell arrived again, made a hole in the wall of the building with a hammer and entered through it, stole the security camera and associated apparatus and other property and set fire to the building. Worst of all, they tried to insert a gas tank into the building they set fire to. The gas tank got stuck in the hole they made in the wall. Only by a miracle did the gas tank nor the whole building explode.

Representative image of the Israel Palestine frontier. Photo: Jürg Fraefel/Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Does the Shin Bet’s method work?

Back to Elisha Yered: a review of additional investigation files shows that the Yered and Mahmada cases are not unusual, and this Shin Bet method is also used for other far-right activists. The Shin Bet regularly gathers information about the terrorist activities of the far-right activists, through agents and collaborators and also in other ways, but refrains from stopping such activity in real-time or sharing evidence with the police that would allow them to be prosecuted – except in exceptional cases.

In this way, when one of the “Hilltop Youth” is taken for questioning, the Shin Bet investigators can lay out before him all the terrorist incidents that they know he was involved in over the years. The “surprised” suspect can “choose” whether to admit his involvement in the specific incident for which he was arrested or be prosecuted for the multitude of terror incidents that the Shin Bet knows about – and sometimes to consider whether to become a collaborator of the Shin Bet.

This also emerges from the facts of the indictment filed against Amiram Ben Uliel who was convicted of murdering the members of the Dawabsha family by setting on fire their home in the West Bank town of Duma, south of Nablus, while they were sleeping. There it is stated that he was known to the Shin Bet and operated for two years prior to the incident as part of a new terror cell of far-right activists who sought to promote an extreme and violent ideological concept aimed at destabilising the State of Israel through the use of terrorism and violence, including killings.

In other words, it is implied in the indictment filed against Ben Uliel that the Shin Bet did not stop his terror cell in real time. At a closed conference of the Likud Party’s youth in Tel Aviv, the then minister of defence Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon admitted that the security services knew who was responsible for the attack on the Dawabsha family’s home but avoided prosecuting him so as not to reveal intelligence sources in the court. In the end, in view of the tremendous public and political pressure exerted on Israel following the shock of the murder of parents and their one-and-a-half-year-old son, an indictment was filed against Ben Uliel and another suspect.

Does this modus operandi of the Shin Bet reduce Israeli far-right terrorism or encourage it and give such activists a free hand? Since there is no transparency regarding the activities of the Shin Bet, it is difficult to make an overall objective assessment. In any case, it is clear who is paying the price. This is an experiment on Palestinian human beings who, unfortunately, are not recognised by most of the Israeli media and public as human beings, and therefore the experiment on them can continue without interruption.

Attorney Eitay Mack represents Mahmada and other Palestinian victims of Israeli far-right terrorism together with the Israeli human rights organisation Tag-Meir Forum.

This article first appeared on the Hebrew media platform The Seventh Eye. 

Israel: After Mass Protests, Netanyahu Announces Decision to Delay Controversial Judicial Reforms

The announcement comes as tens of thousands of Israelis protested against the reforms outside parliament and amid a nationwide strike that began on Monday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday announced that the plan to overhaul the judiciary would be delayed, saying he wanted to seek compromise with opponents of the controversial reforms.

“When there’s an opportunity to avoid civil war through dialogue, I, as prime minister, am taking a timeout for dialogue,” Netanyahu said.

Earlier Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said he had agreed with Netanyahu to the delay until the Knesset – the Israeli parliament – reconvened for its summer session on April 30.

The announcement comes as tens of thousands of Israelis protested against the reforms outside parliament and amid a nationwide strike that began on Monday.

Israel’s airport authority said flights from Ben Gurion International Airport had been grounded, while Israel’s umbrella organisation of trade unions, Histadrut, called for 700,000 workers in health, transit and banking, among other fields, to down tools.

On Sunday, Netanyahu announced that he was dismissing Yoav Gallant as the country’s defence minister. Gallant, who is a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, had called on the government to stop its plans to overhaul the judiciary the day before.

Why are the reforms contentious?

The government announced the planned changes in January, arguing that they were needed to restore a balance between the executive and judicial branches.

Netanyahu’s government also argued that judges had become too interventionist.

The judicial overhaul would give the government sway in choosing judges and limit the Supreme Court’s power to strike down laws.

Opponents of the legal changes say the ruling coalition – the most right-wing in Israel’s history – is seeking to erode the separation of powers in Israel, putting the country on an authoritarian path.

Some indications of the Likud party being willing to rethink began to emerge late on Sunday as the protests intensified.

Culture minister Micky Zohar, a close Netanyahu ally, said the party would back the prime minister if he moved to postpone the reforms.

Likud is the largest party within the broad ruling coalition but only accounts for about half of its seats in the Knesset.

This article first appeared on DW.

Clashes in Jerusalem: Extremism Is on the Rise in Israel

Extremist Israelis marched in Jerusalem last week chanting ‘Death to Arabs’.

After neo-Nazis marched in Charlottesville, North Carolina, and then president Donald Trump responded by saying there were “good people on both sides,” people who abhor white supremacism stood up, took notice, and condemned the marchers. Anti-racists would be wise to do the same about the far-right march that took place last week in Jerusalem.

The situation in Jerusalem began with clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces over restrictions placed on the Damascus Gate entrance to the Old City. Then, in response to TikTok videos showing two Palestinian youths slapping an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man, the far-right Jewish group Lehava called for a “demonstration of national dignity”. Leaked WhatsApp messages from the group revealed calls to lynch Palestinians.

As the Jewish-Israeli extremists marauded through the streets on Thursday, April 22, Israeli forces fired rubber-coated steel bullets at Palestinian counterprotesters. The remarks of a young Orthodox Jewish girl went viral on social media: “I don’t want to burn your villages, I just want you to leave and we’ll take them.” On her shirt was a sticker reading “Rabbi Kahane is right,” referencing the late ultranationalist rabbi whose group was placed on the US terror list in 2004.

One hundred and five Palestinians were injured, 22 requiring hospitalisation. Twenty Israeli police officers were also injured. The next morning, Israel’s internal security minister Amir Ohana released a statement condemning “attacks by Arabs”. He said nothing of the violence committed by Jews.

Also read: Israel Uses Cover of US Elections to Wipe Entire Palestinian Community Off the Map

US State Department spokesperson Ned Price condemned the “rhetoric of extremist protestors”. However, the US embassy in Jerusalem’s statement that they were “deeply concerned” avoided the issue of Jewish extremism.

Avi Mayer of the American Jewish Committee tweeted: “The individuals perpetrating [violence] are as foreign to me and my Judaism as are skinheads, white supremacists, and other racists around the world.” But those who chanted “Death to Arabs” in Jerusalem are a normalised, accepted part of Israel.

Members of Lehava, the group that organised the extremist march in Jerusalem, are followers of Kahanism, a Jewish supremacist ideology based on the views of Rabbi Meir Kahane. Inspired by Kahane, in 1994, Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 Palestinians in the West Bank’s Ibrahimi mosque. As recently as 2014, three members of Lehava were charged with setting fire to an integrated, bilingual Palestinian-Jewish school.

In 1988, the Kach Party, Kahanism’s political arm, was banned from running for the Israeli Knesset. In 2004, the US State Department labeled Kach a terrorist organisation. But the Kahanist movement has recently made its way back into Israel’s government — where it is being met with open arms.

During Israel’s recent election, Benjamin Netanyahu, willing to do anything to hold on to his prime ministership, encouraged voters from his own Likud Party to cast their ballots for the anti-Arab Religious Zionism slate, which included the Kahanist-inspired Otzma Yehudit Party, so that they could make it over the election threshold. Religious Zionism won six seats, bringing Kahanism back into Israel’s Knesset for the first time since the 1980s.

Also read: Photo Essay: Dead Sheep in the Jordan Valley

As Netanyahu is proving unable to form a coalition, attention is now turning toward Naftali Bennett, the next most likely candidate to become Israel’s prime minister.

In 2016, Bennett called Israelis to be willing to “give our lives” to annex the West Bank, evoking the Kahanist view that terrorist acts against Palestinians are patriotic acts of martyrdom. Bennett’s negotiations as he hopes to form a government have included meetings with religious Zionism.

Such statements as Bennett’s call for violence have surely led to increased levels of unrest in the Holy Land. After last week’s extremist march in Jerusalem, clashes continued between Palestinian protestors and Israeli forces. In addition, rockets were launched from Gaza and the Israeli military responded with bombings. Finally, on Sunday, April 25, in order to deescalate the situation, Israel’s police commissioner ordered that the barricades at Damascus Gate be removed.

Though the situation in Jerusalem has now calmed, the floodgates of Jewish extremism have already been flung wide open.

The neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville and Trump’s response rightfully alarmed the world. Though Trump has been ousted from office, we all know that the violent racist movement that blossomed during his presidency did not begin with him and is far from gone. We would be wise, in the aftermath of last week’s “Death to Arabs” march in Jerusalem, to speak out against Kahanism in Israel.

Ariel Gold is the national codirector and senior Middle East policy analyst with CODEPINK for Peace.

This article was published on Jacobin. Read the original here.

Israel’s Election: With Netanyahu’s Victory Unlikely, What Happens Next?

The right-wing bloc led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party had a slight edge but was in a tight race with a grouping of centre, left and right-wing parties.

Jerusalem: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to secure a solid parliamentary majority in Israel’s election, according to TV exit polls early on Wednesday which predicted no clear winner.

The right-wing bloc led by Netanyahu’s Likud party had a slight edge but was in a tight race with a grouping of centre, left and right-wing parties looking to unseat him.

Who are the main players?

Netanyahu is the most dominant Israeli politician of his generation. He campaigned on Israel’s world-beating COVID-19 vaccine rollout but also ran under a cloud of corruption allegations. A polarising figure, he has denied all wrongdoing in his corruption trial, which is set to resume in April.

In the last three elections he faced rivals from the left. But this time he was also up against right-wing contenders. And while his stewardship of the vaccination campaign drew praise, critics accuse him of mismanaging the pandemic during lockdowns that hit Israel’s economy hard.

Also read: Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s Corruption Trial Resumes. Here’s What Can Happen Now

Yair Lapid, 57, a former finance minister and TV host who leads the centre-left party Yesh Atid – “There is a Future”. His party is predicted to come second. Lapid campaigned to “bring sanity” back to Israel with clean government and moderate leadership. He hopes to achieve what seems almost impossible and unite half a dozen disparate parties from across the political spectrum. All want to see Netanyahu removed but are not obvious bedfellows.

Naftali Bennett, 48, a former Netanyahu aide, defence minister and high-tech millionaire who heads the ultra-hawkish Yamina party and is vying to be the next leader of the Israeli right. Though his party is predicted to take only 7 seats, Bennett has positioned himself as a potential king-maker, refusing to commit to Netanyahu or against him. Some analysts believe he is more likely to back his fellow conservative, Netanyahu.

Gideon Saar, 54, a former cabinet minister who quit Likud to set up the New Hope party, vowing to end Netanyahu’s reign. Like Likud, his party opposes Palestinian statehood. Saar’s campaign centred on clean government and jump-starting the economy. New Hope is predicted to win only about 6 seats, but he is seen as a highly skilled politician in the anti-Netanyahu camp who could perhaps help bring together factions from across the left-right spectrum.

Also read: Israel: Snap Election in March as Parliament Fails to Pass Budget

What about the actual results?

The final tally is expected by Friday, but the numbers are updated as vote-counting proceeds, so a clearer picture will emerge as exit polls give way to results. It takes a long time to count because Israel uses paper ballots and 4.5 million Israelis voted.

A party must pass a threshold of 3.25% of the votes to enter parliament. Around 12 parties have a real chance of qualifying.

What happens after the results are published?

Israel’s president will consult with party leaders about their preference for prime minister. By April 7, 2021 he is expected to choose the legislator with the best chance of putting together a coalition. That nominee has up to 42 days to form a government. If he or she fails, the president asks another politician to try.

How long until a government is in place?

No party has ever won an outright majority. Coalition negotiations often drag on for weeks.

(Reuters)

Israel: Benjamin Netanyahu Declares Primary Election Victory

The longtime PM’s win ensures the embattled leader a place in Israel’s federal election, the third in 12 months.


Benjamin Netanyahu declared victory early Friday over rival Gideon Saar in a primary election battle for leadership of the conservative Likud party.

“A huge win! Thank you to Likud members for their trust, support, and love,” Netanyahu said in a tweet after polls closed at 11 pm.

The victory secures Netanyahu’s place on the ballot for parliamentary elections to be held in March. This will be Israel’s third such election in the last year.

Voters kept away by bad weather

Initial results showed the prime minister with a comfortable margin over former Education Minister Saar. An official tally is expected later Friday morning.

Around 57,000 Likud party members cast their vote on Thursday, just under 50% of eligible voters. The voting window was extended due to stormy weather, which may have discouraged many from participating.

Netanyahu had called on party members to turn out to vote when, with only five hours remaining, only 30% had cast their vote.

Also read: Israel Heads for Third Election in a Year After Months of Political Impasse

“Everything is within reach, but only if you get out to vote. The low percentage of turnout hurts us,” he wrote on Twitter.

Saar was Netanyahu’s only opponent in the primary. He had announced his candidacy in November after Netanyahu was indicted for fraud, bribery, and breach of trust.

The 70-year-old premier has denied the charges.

Third time’s the charm?

Likud party members have largely remained loyal to the prime minister. The party has only had four leaders since it was established in the 1970s.

While a Netanyahu victory was expected, support for Saar had grown leading up to the vote. Saar had said he would be better positioned to form a government after the new elections.

Neither Netanyahu nor centrist Blue and White party rival Benny Gantz was able to form a government after elections in September.

The Likud and Blue and White parties were tied in both the September and March elections in 2019.

Israel’s next parliamentary election will be held on March 2.

The article was originally published on DW. You can read it here. 

Setback for Netanyahu as Exit Polls Say Israel Election Too Close to Call

Exit polls show Netanyahu’s Likud and the centrist Blue and White in a tie. Neither party appears to have enough seats with their allies to form a majority.


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to suffer a setback in national elections Tuesday, with his religious and nationalist allies failing to secure a parliamentary majority, early exit polls showed.

Exit polls from Israel’s three major television stations showed the centrist Blue and White party of ex-military chief Benny Gantz is projected to win 32 to 34 seats, while Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party is on pace for between 30 and 33 seats. Another projection estimated both parties would receive 32 seats each.

Israeli exit polls are often imprecise and initial results expected on Wednesday could shift the seat count.

Either way, the results indicate that Netanyahu or Gantz will face tough and protracted negotiations to cobble together a government.

The initial results showed that neither Blue and White nor Likud would be able to form a 61-seat majority in the 120 member Knesset with the support of their allies.

Likud and its religious and nationalist allies with which it hoped to form a majority only have 55 seats, less than in April’s election, according to the average of the three exit polls. Blue and White could enlist the support of 59 for a centre-left government.

Lieberman as kingmaker

The results put ex-Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman in a kingmaker role. His secular, hardline Yisrael Beitenu that receives most of its support from Russian-speakers was on pace to win 9 seats, nearly double its performance in April’s election.

Lieberman, a former Netanyahu protege, refused to join a Likud-led government following April’s election because of what he described as excessive influence from ultra-Orthodox religious parties. His move forced Netanyahu to call new elections to avoid giving other parties a chance to form a government.

Also read: Will Election-Weary Israelis End Benjamin Netanyahu’s Rule?

Late Tuesday, the Moldovan-born Lieberman reiterated that he sought a broad unity government with Likud and Blue and White.

“There is only one option for us,” he said, adding the unity government should exclude the country’s ultra-Orthodox religious parties. 

Netanyahu’s future in doubt

A potential complication is that Gantz has ruled out forming a government with a Netanyahu-led Likud at a time when the prime minister is expected to be indicted on corruption charges in the coming weeks. Lawmakers in Gantz’s party have said they are open to a unity government with Likud, but not under Netanyahu’s leadership.

“We will act to form a broad unity government that will express the will of the people,” Gantz said at a post-election rally, though he cautioned supporters to wait for final results.

Lieberman is unlikely to want to sit in a government with left-wing Arab parties or the ultra-Orthodox religious parties. Blue and White is also unlikely to ask Arab parties to join a coalition.

Netanyahu in a late-night address to party supporters said that he wanted to assemble a “strong Zionist government and to prevent a dangerous anti-Zionist government” with any Arab parties.

Continuing a campaign theme against Israel’s 20% Arab minority that critics have called racist, he claimed that Arab parties “negate the existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state” and “glorify bloodthirsty murderers.”

Arab parties come in third place

The Joint List, an alliance of Arab parties, came in third with 14 seats, according to exit polls. They have suggested they could potentially block Netanyahu from becoming prime minister by recommending Gantz.

In other results, the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism were expected to win nine and eight seats, respectively; the right-wing Yamina party seven; the Labor Party six; and Democratic Union five seats. The ultranationalist Jewish Power faction, widely viewed as a supremacist group, failed to overcome the threshold to enter parliament.

Over the next days, the focus will shift to President Reuven Rivlin, who is responsible for choosing the candidate he believes has the best chance to form a government. That is usually, but not always, the leader of the largest party.

This article was originally published on DW.

Will Election-Weary Israelis End Benjamin Netanyahu’s Rule?

The prime minister is fighting for his political survival as voters are going to the polls for the second time in six months.


In a public park in West Jerusalem, a small group of Blue and White activists have gathered for a picnic. Ahead of Tuesday’s election, they’re discussing their strategy to mobilise their voters to cast their ballot for Benny Gantz, the former military chief and leader of the Blue and White centrist alliance.

Not an easy task in a city that has a long tradition of voting for right-wing and ultra-Orthodox parties. But Gantz’s party proved to be a real threat to Prime Minister Netanyahu and his Likud party in the last election in April and current polls predict another tight race. “I think Bibi Netanyahu did a lot of good for our country but after 13 years, it’s time for a change,” says activist Yamit Avrahmu. “I think that Benny can bring a new spirit. Our country needs this.”

Representative image. Photo: Reuters

Fierce disagreements between his potential coalition partners – the ultra-Orthodox parties and Avigdor Lieberman, head of the secular right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party – abruptly halted Netanyahu’s ambitions to become Israel’s longest-serving prime minister after April’s election.

Now, Israelis have to do it all over again – and some have described Netanyahu’s campaign as a fight for his political life, not least as he faces possible indictments on three corruption charges.

“These elections are about three main things: one is Netanyahu’s character and leadership. The second is the threat to the democratic institutions, and third the competition over values: traditional versus liberal, secular versus religious,” says Tamir Sheafer, dean at the Social Sciences Department at Hebrew University.

In a cozy cafe in West Jerusalem, owner Nuriel Zarifi has no doubt who to vote for. He personally knows the prime minister who sometimes stops by for a coffee and a Danish pastry. The walls feature pictures of the prime minister’s visits.

“The man has experience. This is important to every ordinary citizen, especially in a country like Israel with so many challenges. And he has good relations with world leaders like Angela Merkel, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin. With him, we can sleep peacefully at night,” he says.

In another league

Netanyahu’s campaign portrays him as a true statesman, the only one capable of keeping Israeli citizens safe. Recent trips abroad to meet UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in London and Russian leader Putin in Sochi underline that image. Other huge campaign banners titled “a different league” show him shaking hands with US President Trump.

Recent reports, however, about a possible opening for talks between Iran and the US have overshadowed the close relationship. And it is yet to be seen whether Netanyahu’s campaign promises will actually sway right-wing voters to cast their ballots for Likud rather than for smaller right-wing parties and other potential coalition partners.

Last week, Netanyahu promised to “apply sovereignty” to Israeli settlements in the Jordan valley and the area north of the Dead Sea if voters give him a mandate to do so. Netanyahu said it was an historic opportunity, not least because the US administration plans to unveil its so-called Mideast peace plan sometime after the election.

Also read: Netanyahu Announces Post-Poll Plan to Annex Jordan Valley

Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, whom Netanyahu describes as a “weak leftist,” called the pledge an “empty promise,” but was quick to point out that his party platform has always made it clear that the Jordan Valley “is a part of Israel forever.”

“Netanyahu is happy to promise anything in this election. And people are very cynical about it, including the right wing who are in favour of the annexation. They are saying ‘well you’ve been prime minister for 13 years, why haven’t you done it by now,'” says Haaretz journalist Anshel Pfeffer.

Netanyahu’s political opponents from the centre-left have made a major campaign issue out of the looming indictment case. They accuse him of embracing more extremist right-wing politicians in exchange for their loyalty pledges so that he can remain in power. “Israelis have been victims of a corrupt government for a long time,” says Stav Shafir, a former Labour politician and number two in the newly formed Democratic Union, a merger of three centre-left parties. There is a need, she says, to “fight the right that became ever more radical and more and more extreme, more racist.”

The key to power: coalition talks

The real power struggle begins the day after the elections. Polls show mixed outcomes as to what coalition government Israelis prefer. A recent poll by the Israel Democracy Institute showed that among Jewish Israelis, 39% want a unity government with Likud and Blue and White as major coalition partners.

In another poll by the “Knesset Channel,” 38% said they prefer a right-wing, ultra-Orthodox coalition, and only 21% would like to see a unity government.

Also read: Israeli Lawmakers Approve Netanyahu’s Jordan Valley Annexation Plan

“In Israeli politics anything can happen. Netanyahu says he wants a coalition of 61 Knesset members on the right end of the political map,” says Gil Hoffman, chief political correspondent for the daily Jerusalem Post. “That’s not so much for ideological reasons, but because the same 61 Knesset members should be the ones who say that he wouldn’t have to stand down if he is indicted.”

Another possibility is that neither Likud nor Blue and White will be able to form a coalition. In this scenario, Likud would be forced to elect a new leader to stay in power, says Hoffman.

“That new leader would be able to form a unity government very easily because all other parties are saying that while the Likud could be a coalition partner, Netanyahu cannot [be part of it].”

The article was originally published in DW. You can read it here. 

Israel to Hold Fresh Election as Netanyahu Fails to Form Government

The turmoil arose from a feud over military conscription between Netanyahu’s presumed allies: ex-defence minister Avigdor Lieberman, a far-right secularist and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties.

Jerusalem: Israeli lawmakers voted to dissolve parliament early on Thursday, paving the way for a new election after veteran Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a coalition government before a midnight deadline.

The September 17 ballot will be Israel‘s second this year. It spells an unprecedented upheaval even for a country used to political infighting and is a big blow to Netanyahu, who had claimed victory in the last election on April 9.

Parliament’s 74-to-45 vote took place just minutes after a midnight deadline for Netanyahu to assemble his fifth government.

The turmoil arose – officially, at least – from a feud over military conscription between Netanyahu‘s presumed allies: ex-defence minister Avigdor Lieberman, a far-right secularist, and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties.

Those parties want young religious scholars exempted, en masse from mandatory national service. But Lieberman and many other Israelis want them to share the burden.

Netanyahu denounced the draft spat as a “Kafkaesque” ruse.

“It’s just unbelievable. Avigdor Lieberman is now part of the left,” he told reporters. “It is perfectly clear that he wanted to topple this government…to cobble together a few more votes.”

Yet the new ballot represents less of a setback for Netanyahu than the alternative in which Israel‘s president, Reuven Rivlin, could have asked another politician to try and form a ruling coalition.

Faced with the prospect of having to step aside and watch one of his political rivals push him to the margins, Netanyahu instead drummed up votes to dissolve the 120-seat Knesset.

Netanyahu signalled he will run in the next election, telling reporters: “We will win”. The spokesman for his conservative Likud party sent out a text emoji showing a smiling Netanyahu with the message: “Get out and vote.”

Also read: Israelis Protest Against Move to Grant PM Netanyahu Immunity From Prosecution

But the failed coalition building of a 69-year-old leader who just weeks ago was hailed by supporters as a political “magician” may open rifts and stir up challenges within Likud.

Courts and statecraft 

The premier is also dogged by potential criminal charges in three corruption cases. He has denied wrongdoing and is due to argue at a pre-trial hearing in October against any indictment.

A new election could further complicate US efforts to press ahead with President Donald Trump’s peace plan in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even before it has been announced, Palestinians have spurned it as a blow to their statehood hopes.

The White House team behind the proposal, including Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, is in the Middle East to drum up support for an economic “workshop” in Bahrain next month to encourage investment in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

The group arrived in Israel on Wednesday and planned to meet Netanyahu on Thursday. “Lots to pray for!” tweeted one of the envoys, Jason Greenblatt, from Jerusalem’s Western Wall.

Three hours before Wednesday’s 2100 GMT deadline, Likud said it had secured 60 signatures, half of parliament, but shy of the majority required for a measure of stable governance.

In another sign of Netanyahu‘s strong desire to retain the premiership, the opposition centre-left Labour party said it had been offered – and had refused – a chance to join a Likud-led coalition. Likud, which has for long said that it plans to head a strong right-wing government, neither denied or confirmed this.

First elected in the late 1990s, Netanyahu has been in power for the past decade. In mid-July, he will overtake Israel‘s founding father, David Ben-Gurion, as longest-serving premier.

The last election ended with Netanyahu neck-and-neck against Benny Gantz, a politically untested ex-armed forces chief.

Lieberman, who quit as defence minister in November, in protest at what he deemed insufficient Israeli military force in fighting Hamas in Gaza, has denied allegations that his real intention was to oust Netanyahu and lead a “national camp”.

Until the drama over coalition building, public attention had been focused more on moves Netanyahu loyalists were planning in parliament to grant him immunity from criminal prosecution and to pass a law ensuring such protection could not be withdrawn by the Supreme Court.

(Reuters)

Israel: Why the Campaign of The Generals Who Challenged Netanyahu Failed

The three former IDF chiefs – Benny Gantz, Moshe Ya’alon and Gabi Ashkenazifailed – failed in their efforts to create a new centrist, non-ideological bloc that would replace Netanyahu’s ruling right-wing bloc.

The close results of the April 9 Israeli elections, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the apparent winner, represent a missed opportunity for his centrist rivals.

As a foreign policy scholar who researches Israeli politics, I believe that perhaps the greatest irony of the election was the failure of Netanyahu’s challengers, the newly formed “generals’ party,” to contest his approach to security.

Security has long been the central issue in Israeli politics. It’s the one area in which this unique party would presumably have had the most to say. Former Israeli generals and retired intelligence chiefs have traditionally been the nation’s most outspoken critics of Netanyahu’s security policies.

Yet, the generals did not capitalise on their security credentials by offering a real alternative to the government’s policies, especially the government’s hard-line policies toward the Palestinians. Instead, their “Blue and White” ticket chose to turn this election into one more referendum on Netanyahu’s character.

In doing so, they failed in their effort to create a new centrist, nonideological bloc that would replace Netanyahu’s ruling right-wing bloc.

Control of Israel’s government, the Knesset, seen here, is at stake in the election. Credit: Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

Military at home in politics

The participation of retired generals in Israeli politics is nothing new. The Israel Defense Forces, or IDF, has always been the country’s most revered institution, and it has been common practice for generals to enter the political arena upon retirement.

Three of Israel’s 12 prime ministers – Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon – were retired generals, and numerous other military veterans have entered the political fray over the years, some more successfully than others.

But the unified list of three former IDF chiefs – Benny Gantz, Moshe Ya’alon and Gabi Ashkenazi – who teamed up in February to unseat the prime minister was without precedent.

The generals’ Blue and White ticket was co-led by the popular centrist politician Yair Lapid, whose enigmatic views on security issues mirrored the vague centrism of the three generals. The party tried to attract both right-of-center and left-of-center voters by running a campaign that was largely devoid of substance.

It studiously avoided engaging in key issues, such as the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Blue and White offered only banal policy pronouncements and a Trump-like “Israel First” slogan.

Netanyahu’s agenda lives

Netanyahu received bad news in the midst of his election campaign. In February, Israel’s attorney general announced his intention to indict him on three separate corruption cases.Pa

By focusing on Netanyahu’s flawed character and homing in on his corruption scandals, the Blue and White candidates convinced centre-left voters to abandon the traditionally left-leaning Labor and Meretz parties.

But they did not convince right-of-centre voters to abandon Netanyahu.

I believe that by failing to offer a coherent alternative to the right’s hard-line national security approach, the leadership of Blue and White failed to sway voters from Netanyahu’s camp over to their centrist slate.

Instead, they took votes from the left-bloc parties. Indeed, Tuesday’s results show that both Labor and Meretz suffered stinging defeats, with Labor falling to historic lows – their voters shifted over to Blue and White.

Also read: Israel: Benjamin Netanyahu Secures Fifth Term as Prime Minister

Likud in the lead

To be sure, replacing Netanyahu’s dominant Likud party was no small ambition – not even for generals who once led their country into the battlefield.

The right-wing bloc has dominated the Israeli political scene for years. That’s due to several factors, including Israelis’ reaction to the violence that accompanied the second Palestinian intifada in the early 2000s, more violence – still ongoing – that followed Israel’s decision to unilaterally leave the Gaza Strip and years of on-again, off-again failed peace talks.

Indeed, a preelection survey found that a plurality of Jewish Israelis, 40%, wanted to see the formation of a right-wing government. Just 25% preferred a right-centre government; 16%, a centrist government of national unity; and a centre-left or left-wing government was the least preferred option at 15%.

Even so, this election was a missed opportunity to do what the opposition in Israel has long failed to do: to present a distinct alternative security agenda.

Netanyahu’s hardline approach on the Palestinian issue is the only approach with which young Israelis, who have grown up with Netanyahu, are familiar. His narrative of Israel’s failure to reach peace with the Palestinians – it’s the Palestinians’ fault – is their only version of that story.

Not surprisingly, a preelection poll by the Israel Democracy Institute found that 18-24-year-old voters overwhelmingly preferred Netanyahu to the more moderate Gantz – the opposite of the trend among Israelis 65 and older.

Letting Netanyahu off the hook on security issues allowed him to maintain his self-cultivated image as “Mr. Security.” It also enabled him to put the generals on the defensive, warning that they would establish a Palestinian state that “will endanger our existence.”

Who defines Israel’s national interest?

The security community, composed of veterans of the IDF and Israel’s intelligence agencies, has for years argued the opposite.

Several organisations of senior security establishment veterans have argued that the two-state solution is the only way to preserve Israel as both a Jewish and democratic state. They include the Peace and Security Association and the more recently formed Commanders for Israel’s Security, and are supported by hundreds of former generals and intelligence chiefs.

The silence of Gantz’s team on the two-state solution also enabled Netanyahu to move the security discussion from a status quo policy, which critics call “creeping annexation,” to a full embrace of the hard-right’s agenda to annex the occupied territories.

Just three days before the election, Netanyahu vowed to annex West Bank settlements, a step he had always resisted but apparently felt he needed to take to shore up his right flank.

It was also a step he could take in the absence of countervailing pressure from his centrist rivals, who could have emphasised – but didn’t – the dangers of annexation to Israeli national interests.

Netanyahu was therefore able to get away with a dramatic policy shift that, if carried out, would bury the prospects for a two-state solution. He endorsed that position in June 2009, but has since abandoned his pledge.

The last two IDF chiefs who beat a Likud prime minister – Rabin in 1992 and Barak in 1999 – offered clear alternatives to the incumbent’s policies. By calling for a reordering of national priorities, they were able to form left-of-centre governments, a scenario that is impossible today due to the decimation of the left.

Guy Ziv, Assistant Professor, American University School of International Service.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.