September 23, 2019: Who will form Israel’s next government?

By Michael Regenstreif

As a student of politics (my BA and MA are in political science), this is a fascinating time for me with the second Israeli election in less than five months about to take place on September 17 (after this issue of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin goes to press but before it comes out), the October 21 federal election campaign here in Canada underway, and a possible election on the horizon in the United Kingdom. As well, of course, the battle in the Democratic Party to see who will take on Donald Trump in the 2020 U.S. presidential election is well underway.

This Israeli election was called because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could not put together a governing coalition of at least 61 of the Knesset’s 120 seats in the weeks following the April 9 election. The stumbling block was Yisrael Beiteinu party leader Avigdor Liberman (a former defence and foreign minister) who insists that exemptions from military service for haredi men studying Torah be ended. With that demand, Yisrael Beiteinu members will not serve in a coalition with the haredi Orthodox parties – whose support is crucial to Netanyahu’s coalition numbers.

The last Smith Research poll published before the election suggests Netanyahu’s Likud Party could win 33 seats and that his potential coalition partners (Yamina, Shas, and United Torah Judaism) could win a total of 24 seats for a possible coalition of 57 seats. If those predictions are accurate, Netanyahu will again not have enough support to govern.

Netanyahu’s rival for the prime minister’s office is Benny Gantz, a former chief of the Israel Defense Forces, who leads the Blue and White Party. That last Smith Research poll suggests Blue and White could win 32 seats, putting them in a neck-and-neck horserace with Likud.

The poll suggests Blue and White’s likely coalition partners (the Democratic Union and Labor-Gesher) could win another 11 seats. The wild cards are the Joint List (an alliance of Arab parties) which is predicted to take 12 seats and Yisrael Beiteinu which is predicted to win eight seats. If the Joint List and Yisrael Beiteinu join Gantz’s potential coalition (and that’s a very big if), he will be in a position to unseat Netanyahu and form a government. Such a coalition would be precedent-setting as Israel’s Arab parties have never before participated in a governing coalition.

Another scenario being discussed is Blue and White forming a power-sharing unity government with Likud. This is a scenario Liberman is said to favour, as it would mean the haredi parties could be sidelined on the opposition benches. However, there has been speculation that both Gantz and Liberman would insist that Netanyahu step down from the Likud leadership. And Netanyahu has indicated that he’s not interested in such a unity government.

In all likelihood, it will be some time before we know what’s to be. It typically takes weeks of wheeling and dealing after an Israeli election to form a governing coalition. But if neither block is able to form a governing coalition, there may be no other choice but a unity government, as it is doubtful the public would stand for a third election in less than a year.

September 2, 2019: The news is now stranger than fiction

By Michael Regenstreif

My column in our August 19 issue discussed the explicitly racist attacks of U.S. President Donald Trump on four rookie members of the U.S. House of Representatives, all of whom are women of colour. In the days and weeks after that issue went to press, there have been some downright bizarre developments to the story.

Two of the congresswomen, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who both support the anti-Israel BDS movement, were scheduled to visit East Jerusalem and the West Bank in August. In July, despite a law allowing Israel to bar BDS supporters from entering the country, Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the United States (who is known to be extremely close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu), announced, “Out of respect for the U.S. Congress, and the great alliance between Israel and America, we would not deny entry to any member of Congress into Israel.”

That changed on August 15 when Trump tweeted, “It would show great weakness if Israel allowed Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib to visit. They hate Israel & all Jewish people, & there is nothing that can be said or done to change their minds.”

Immediately following Trump’s tweet, Israel announced that Omar and Tlaib would not be allowed to visit after all. Although Netanyahu and his ministers claimed the change had nothing to do with Trump’s tweet, few analysts believed that.

The decision was immediately condemned by mainstream American Jewish organizations including AIPAC, Jewish Federations of North America, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the Israel Policy Forum, and J Street as contradicting democratic values.

Barring Omar and Tlaib may well have provided more PR value to the BDS movement than the visit itself would have.

Then the story got even weirder. On August 20, Trump proclaimed, “I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat; I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.” (According to the Pew Research Center, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton received 71 per cent of the Jewish vote in 2016, compared to 24 per cent for Republican candidate Trump. In the 2018 midterm elections, after two years of the Trump administration, 79 per cent of the Jewish vote went to Democratic candidates, compared to just 17 per cent for Republicans.)

Trump invoked the antisemitic trope about the loyalty of Jews – one of the most common expressions of antisemitism throughout history. In the following days, Trump doubled-down and tripled-down on the trope elaborating that Jewish Democratic voters (in other words, Jews who don’t support Trump) are disloyal to the Jewish people and to Israel.

“In my opinion, if you vote for a Democrat you’re being very disloyal to Jewish people, and you’re being very disloyal to Israel. And only weak people would say anything other than that,” he declared on the White House lawn.

And in a tweet, Trump quoted and thanked talk radio conspiracy theorist Wayne Allyn Root for his “very nice words”: “President Trump is the greatest President for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world, not just America, he is the best President for Israel in the history of the world and the Jewish people in Israel love him like he’s the King of Israel. They love him like he is the second coming of God.”

The nightly news – in these Trumpian times – is, indeed, stranger than fiction.