Likud Party

Israel: Benjamin Netanyahu Secures Fifth Term as Prime Minister

With 97% of the votes counted, neither of the candidates’ parties had captured a ruling majority, but Netanyahu was clearly in a strong position to form a coalition government with other right-wing factions that have backed him.

Jerusalem: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has won the Israeli national election, securing a record fifth term in office despite running neck-to-neck with his challenger Benny Gantz, the country’s three main television channels said on Wednesday.

The closely contested race was widely seen in Israel as a referendum on Netanyahu‘s character and record in the face of corruption allegations. He faces possible indictment in three graft cases, and has denied wrongdoing in all of them.

The veteran right-wing leader’s Likud party and Gantz’s new centrist Blue and White party both won 35 seats, according to the Knesset website and the Israeli TV channels. That would mean a five-seat gain for Likud.

“It is a night of colossal victory,” 69-year-old Netanyahu told cheering supporters in a late-night speech at Likud headquarters, while cautioning that a “long night and possibly day” lay ahead awaiting official results.

Fireworks flared behind him as his wife Sara applauded and kissed him. “He’s a magician,” the crowd chanted.

Final results were expected by Friday, though the provisional results showed 65 of the Knesset’s 120 seats would go to the right-wing bloc of parties led by Netanyahu, against a total of 55 seats for centre-left factions.

If he wins, Netanyahu, 69, will be on track to be the longest-serving prime minister in Israel’s 71-year history. Netanyahu said he had already begun talks with prospective coalition allies.

In power since 2009, and having led the country for a total 13 years including his first term in the 1990s, Netanyahu has been fighting for his political survival.

He faces possible indictment in three graft cases. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Also Read: Netanyahu’s Legal Woes Grow as Police Seek Fresh Bribery Charges

Rival Gantz, a popular 59-year-old former general, had also claimed victory earlier, citing preliminary exit polls published soon after voting ended on Tuesday that showed his party had won more seats than Likud.

“We are the victors,” said Gantz, a former military chief fighting his first election. “We want to thank Benjamin Netanyahu for his service to the nation.”

Despite both men claiming victory on Tuesday night, a clearer picture emerged by Wednesday morning as the results began streaming in, painting Netanyahu as the winner.

Netanyahu highlights Trump ties

During the campaign, the rival parties accused each other of corruption, fostering bigotry and being soft on security.

Netanyahu highlighted his close relationship with US President Donald Trump, who delighted Israelis and angered Palestinians by recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2017 and moving the American Embassy to the holy city last May.

Two weeks before the election, Trump signed a proclamation, with Netanyahu at his side at the White House, recognising Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war.

In a rare turn during the race towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Netanyahu further alarmed Palestinians by pledging to annex Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank if re-elected. Palestinians seek a state there and in the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Netanyahu‘s pre-election promise was widely seen as an attempt to draw right-wing votes rather than a change of policy. But with Trump’s moves on Jerusalem and The Golan, the prime minister may feel emboldened to advocate for annexation.

Commenting on the election, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said: “Israelis have voted to preserve the status quo. They have said no to peace and yes to the occupation”.

The last round of U.S.-brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians collapsed in 2014.

Trump is expected to release his administration’s long-awaited Middle East peace plan after the election. If it includes Israeli concessions to the Palestinians, Netanyahu’s probable far-right coalition allies will likely object.

A close result in the election would put smaller parties in a powerful position, turning marginal political figures into kingmakers.

Once the votes are tallied, President Reuven Rivlin will ask parties that have won parliamentary seats who they support for prime minister. He will then pick a party leader to try to form a coalition, giving the candidate 28 days to do so, with a two-week extension if needed.

(Reuters)

Israel’s Netanyahu Pledges to Annex Jewish Settlements if Re-elected

Annexation of the West Bank is likely to further hinder Israel-Palestine peace talks, which have been on hold since 2014.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that if he secured another term in office, he would move to annex Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

The remark came ahead of nationwide elections in Israel that will take place next week.

“I won’t clear a single settlement. And I will naturally ensure that we control the area west of the Jordan River,” Netanyahu said during an interview with Israeli television.

Netanyahu has promoted Jewish settlement expansion into the territory during his four terms as prime minister, but he had stopped short of saying he would annex settlements, until now.

Turkish outrage

Turkey’s foreign minister on Sunday said that the West Bank was Palestinian territory and Israel’s occupation violated international law.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu’s irresponsible statement to seek votes just before the Israeli general elections cannot and will not change this fact,” Mevlut Cavusoglu said.

Turkish government spokesman Ibrahim Kalin tweeted: “Will Western democracies react or will they keep appeasing? Shame on them all!”

Also Read: Netanyahu’s Hardline Foreign Policies May Outlast His Tenure

Two-state solution in danger

The West Bank has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War. Nearly 3 million Palestinians live in the territory, along with hundreds of thousands of Jewish Israelis who have settled there over the years.

Palestinians hope to build a state out of the West Bank territory if a two-state solution is ever achieved in the conflict.

Many countries around the world have sided with Palestinians in deeming Jewish settlements in the West Bank to be illegal under the Geneva Conventions, which have barred settling on land that was captured in war.

The debate over settlements remains one of the most difficult issues in efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which have been frozen since 2014. Annexation of the West Bank would further hinder peace efforts and deal a blow to proponents of a two-state solution.

Facing re-election

Polls show that the race for prime minister will be close. But still, Netanyahu’s Likud Party is expected to have a better chance of forming a ruling coalition than his opponent Benny Gantz of the centrist Blue and White party.

Netanyahu has cast Gantz as a choice that would endanger Israel’s security, as it would result in territorial concessions to the Palestinians.

The US State Department declined to comment on Netanyahu’s statement about the West Bank, and President Donald Trump remained neutral, saying the vote was “gonna be close” and it featured “two good people.”

But the Trump administration has boosted Netanyahu’s electoral campaign with two major policy decisions: the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and last month’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

On Saturday, Netanyahu portrayed these US policy changes as his own achievements, saying he had personally persuaded Trump to take these steps.

Netanyahu’s Legal Woes Grow as Police Seek Fresh Bribery Charges

Authorities allege Netanyahu awarded regulatory favours to Israel’s leading telecommunications company, Bezeq Telecom Israel, in return for more positive coverage of him and his wife on a news website, Walla, which is owned by the company.

Jerusalem: Israeli police on Sunday said they had found enough evidence for bribery and fraud charges to be brought against Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife in a third corruption case against the Israeli prime minister.

Netanyahu has long denied wrongdoing. In a speech to his Likud party in Tel Aviv to celebrate the start of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, he accused the police of instigating what he described as a “tainted process” against him and his wife.

Also Read: New Corruption Cases Entangle Benjamin Netanyahu Aides

Now in his fourth term, Netanyahu dominates Israeli politics. Yet he is politically unusually vulnerable as his right-wing coalition’s majority has shrunk to a precarious single seat.

“It’s clear for everybody to see the transparent, petty timing of the publication of the pre-determined recommendations, the deliberate leaks, the tainted process and the false allegations about me and my wife,” Netanyahu said.

“(The investigation) has been a match-fix. The recommendations aren’t surprising and the timing isn’t surprising.”

The final decision on whether to indict rests with the attorney-general, who is still weighing whether to charge Netanyahu in the other two cases.

These relate to allegations that Netanyahu accepted gifts from businessmen and that he tried to strike a deal with another media mogul for better coverage in return for curbs on a competing newspaper.

Most of Netanyahu‘s coalition partners have said they will wait for a decision by the attorney-general before deciding how to proceed.

Some analysts have said Netanyahu could put pressure on the attorney-general to think twice before indicting him by calling a snap election to seek a stronger popular mandate. The next election is not due until November 2019.

Netanyahu has said he wants to serve out his term, but politicians close to him say that his precarious parliamentary situation means an early election is likely.

Also Read: Israel’s Genocidal Arms Customers

In a joint statement with the Israel Securities Authority, police said they also found sufficient evidence to charge Shaul Elovitch, a family friend of Netanyahu, with bribery.

At the time, Elovitch was Bezeq’s chairman and controlling shareholder. The statement said there was also evidence to charge Bezeq’s then-CEO Stella Handler with fraud.

Elovitch and Handler have denied wrongdoing. They were both briefly detained earlier this year and have resigned from Bezeq.

The police said the main suspicion was that Netanyahu “acted out of a conflict of interest by intervening and making regulatory decisions that favour Shaul Elovitch and Bezeq”.

It alleged that Netanyahu had sought to interfere with the content of Bezeq’s Walla website “in a way that would benefit him”.

Netanyahu, who also served as communications minister from 2015-2017, said in his speech that he had neither received anything from Elovitch, not given him anything.

The police also recommended that Netanyahu and his wife be charged with fraud and breach of trust.

(Reuters)

Israel: Parliament Passes Law Limiting Police Investigation on High-Profile Probes

Opposition lawmakers have said that the bill, tabled by Netanyahu’s rightist Likud party, was designed to dampen public anger over the investigations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem December 24, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Amir Cohen

Jerusalem: Israel‘s parliament ratified on Thursday a law barring police investigators from going public with their findings, in what opposition lawmakers saw as a bid to soften scrutiny of corruption probes against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The so-called Recommendations Bill, approved in the final reading by a vote of 59-to-54, prevents police from announcing whether they have found enough evidence for an indictment before prosecutors decide whether or not to press such charges.

Netanyahu is a suspect in two cases. In one, he is alleged to have meddled in the media industry. The other concerns gifts he received from wealthy businessmen. He denies any wrongdoing.

Opposition lawmakers have said that the bill, tabled by Netanyahu’s rightist Likud party, was designed to dampen public anger over the investigations, which has fuelled weekly demonstrations in Tel Aviv and calls for the premier’s ouster.

Netanyahu defended the bill on December 3 as “intended to prevent publication of police recommendations which would leave a cloud over innocent people, something that happens every day”. In 60% of cases where police recommend criminal charges, prosecutors decided not to indict, Netanyahu noted.

But the prime minister also called for the bill to be amended so it did not apply to the criminal investigations against him.

The final draft stipulated that the law would not be in effect regarding investigations that predate its ratification.

That has done little to mollify the opposition.

“This law came about only because of the investigations against Netanyahu,” Avi Gabbay, head of the centre-left Zionist Union party, told Israel‘s Army Radio.

“We don’t know what investigations might be conducted in the future (against him).”

Israeli media had reported that police could go public with recommendations to indict Netanyahu as soon as early January, and a December 23 TV poll found that 60% to 63% of the public would want him to resign over such recommendations.

US Vetoes UN Choice For Peace Envoy to Libya

Former Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad is no longer under consideration after the US objected to his appointment, showing that divisions over Palestine still run deep at the world body.

The flags of UN observer states the Vatican and Palestine. Credit: UN Photo/Cia Pak.

United Nations: The failed appointment of former Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad as the UN’s peace envoy to Libya has shown that divisions over Palestine still run deep at the world body.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres’ pick as his special representative in Libya, was quickly vetoed by US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley on Friday February 10.

Haley said on Friday that the US was “disappointed” to see a letter indicating Fayyad would be appointed for the role.

By Monday, Fayyad was no longer under consideration.

In Dubai on Monday, Guterres described the turn of events as a “loss for the Libyan peace process,” describing Fayyad as “the right person for the right job at the right moment.”

Guterres also noted the importance of appointment given the ongoing instability in Libya.

“Let’s not forget that Libya is not only relevant in itself, Libya has been a factor of contamination to the peace and stability in a wide area, namely in Africa, in the Sahel and to bring an end to the conflict in Libya is in everybody’s interest.”

However few if any conflicts have remained on the UN’s agenda as long as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Indications that the Palestinian question – as it is referred to in UN Security Council meetings – may become a source of tension between the United Nations and the Trump – Republican administration began before Trump had taken office.

On December 22, the US under then President Barack Obama allowed Security Council Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements to pass by abstaining – the resolution was supported by the 14 other Security Council members, including US allies such as New Zealand, the UK and France.

The resolution stated that “Israel’s establishment of settlements in Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, had no legal validity.”

In an apparent break from protocol for a President-elect, Donald Trump appeared to respond to the vote on December 23 with a Tweet stating: “As to the UN, things will be different after January 20^”.

Haley later described the resolution as “a terrible mistake,” in her confirmation hearing for the role of US ambassador to the UN.

Following the vote Israel passed a law on February 6 retrospectively recognising Jewish settlements built on confiscated Palestinian land in the occupied territories.

Kofi Annan, chair of The Elders and former UN secretary-general, described the law as “highly damaging” to “prospects for peace.”

“Prime Minister Netanyahu should show leadership to overturn this law, paying heed to the objections of Israel’s attorney general, broad segments of Israeli society and members of his own Likud Party,” said Annan.

The US has remained Israel’s closest ally both for strategic reasons as a partner in the Middle East and due to domestic support for Israel. This support comes in part from the US’s Jewish population. While the current administration supports Israel, their support for Judaism is less clear, after the White House failed to refer to Jews or Judaism in its statement issued on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Meanwhile support for Israel also comes from groups such as Christians United for Israel who say on their website that they have over 3 million members. The group’s website homepage also includes a pop-up campaign calling to defund the UN.

The US provides 22% of the UN budget, making it the largest single member state contributor.

There is yet to be any concrete indication from either Trump or Haley that the US intends to reduce US funding to the UN other than through a leaked draft executive order published by some media outlets.

However some Republican lawmakers have been more open in their opposition to the UN’s seeming sympathy towards Palestine, presenting a Bill, which has not yet passed, to withhold US funding to the UN until Resolution 2334 has been repealed.

Palestine has been a non-member observer state at the UN since 2012. In a symbolic gesture, the UN began flying the Palestinian flag in September 2015, alongside the Holy See – Vatican – which is also an observer state.

(IPS)