July 22, 2019: We know not to trivialize the Holocaust

By Michael Regenstreif

Last month, U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a left-wing progressive who was first elected in her New York district in 2018, came under attack when she referred to the detention centres used by the United States government to warehouse Central American migrants – including children needlessly separated from their parents – as “concentration camps.”

As horrible as the conditions are at those detention centres – and from all credible reports the conditions are truly horrible – Ocasio-Cortez quickly came under sharp attack from political opponents, scholars, and several American Jewish organizations for her use of a term that conjures comparisons to the camps used by Germany’s Nazi regime in its perpetration of the Holocaust, a genocide in which six million Jews were murdered in an attempt to eradicate European Jewry.

“Concentration camps assured a slave labour supply to help in the Nazi war effort, even as the brutality of life inside the camps helped assure the ultimate goal of ‘extermination through labour.’ Learn about concentration camps,” Yad Vashem – The World Holocaust Remembrance Center, in Jerusalem, tweeted to Ocasio-Cortez.

Even U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, a candidate for the Democratic Party’s 2020 U.S. presidential nomination usually seen as an ally of Ocasio-Cortez, distanced himself from the comparison. While saying, “locking up children and keeping them in deplorable conditions for weeks in places that are not meant for kids … is absolutely unacceptable,” Sanders stressed that he didn’t and wouldn’t “use that terminology.”

We have learned not to trivialize the Holocaust – the worst genocide and the ultimate manifestation of antisemitism in history – with comparisons that do not rise to that horrible standard. That is why objections were raised to Ocasio-Cortez’s use of the term “concentration camps” and why we bristle when Israel is fallaciously accused of behaving like Nazis toward the Palestinians.

And yet, perhaps the most trivial of comparisons to the Holocaust in recent memory came from no less a figure than Rafi Peretz, Israel’s minister of education.

Peretz, who served as chief military rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces from 2010 to 2016, was elected leader of the Jewish Home Party in advance of the last Israeli election after former leader and former education minister Naftali Bennett, and former justice minister Ayelet Shaked, left Jewish Home. In a deal brokered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Jewish Home and Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power), a Kahanist successor to the banned Kach Party, stood together in the April election as the United Right, winning five seats in the short-lived 21st Knesset. A new election is scheduled for September 17 after Netanyahu failed to build a governing coalition.

On July 1, during an Israeli cabinet meeting, Peretz compared intermarriage – when a Jew marries a non-Jew – to “a second Holocaust” and rhetorically said that six million Jews have been lost to intermarriage over the past 70 years.

The comment came after a cabinet briefing on trends in Jewish communities around the world from Dennis Ross, chair of the Jewish People policy Institute.

As Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League tweeted in response to Peretz, “It’s inconceivable to use the term ‘Holocaust’ to describe Jews choosing to marry non-Jews. It trivializes the Shoah. It alienates so many members of our community. This kind of baseless comparison does little other than inflame and offend.”

Surely, the minister of education of the State of Israel should have known better.

June 24, 2019: No predicting Israeli election outcomes

By Michael Regenstreif

Israelis went to the polls in an early election on April 9 – an election did not need to be held until seven months later. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, faced with increasing dissension within his right-wing coalition, a new and credible opposition party, and the possibility of looming criminal indictments in three corruption cases, sensed he would fare better sooner than later in his quest to remain head of Israel’s government.

When the votes were tallied, Netanyahu’s Likud Party had 35 seats, the party’s best showing since Ariel Sharon led Likud to 38 seats in 2003. And although the new Blue and White Party – led by Benny Gantz, a former chief of the Israel Defense Forces – also won 35 seats, Netanyahu was tasked by President Reuven Rivlin with forming a coalition government because the right-wing bloc of parties who indicated their likely support for him formed a majority of the 120 members elected to the Knesset.

Then came the wheeling and dealing necessary to form a government with majority support. Such negotiations typically involve promising control over certain ministries and policies to particular parties, many of which, like the religious parties, are narrowly focused and thus wield influence far greater than their percentage of the vote would indicate. For example, in the April election, Shas and United Torah Judaism, the two religious parties combined, took less than 12 per cent of the vote, but Netanyahu could not have formed a coalition without them – and their presence in the government would ensure continued haredi Orthodox control of religious matters in Israel.

But Netanyahu’s potential coalition also needed the five seats of former defence minister (and former foreign minister) Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu Party – and that’s where the wrench got thrown into the coalition-building spokes. One of Liberman’s main planks is the end of exemptions allowing haredi men studying Torah to avoid military service – which the religious parties insist on maintaining. Many Israeli pundits expected Liberman would back down from his position in the coalition negotiations and become defence minister in the new government. But he called Netanyahu’s bluff and the prime minister’s time, and extended time, to form a government ran out. Israelis will vote again in a do-over election on September 17. Netanyahu’s early-election strategy didn’t work.

Opinion polls taken right after the new election date was announced indicated the possibility of similar results to the April election. Those polls also suggested Liberman’s party might increase its seat-count from five to eight, or even 10.

According to the cliché, a week is a long time in politics, which means there are about a dozen long times to go before the election. A lot can happen over the next three months and there might well be new alliances that come together and older alliances that fall apart (recall that in the 2013 election, Netanyahu’s Likud and Liberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu ran as a joint ticket). Some parties, like the once-mighty Labor, will have new leaders and it remains to be seen what will happen with the New Right Party of once powerful Netanyahu ministers Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked, which fell just short of the electoral threshold for Knesset seats in April. Although they are firmly on the right, any loyalty they might have had to Netanyahu is in question after he dumped them from his provisional cabinet in the wake of the new election call.

So, the results of the September vote are not a foregone conclusion. Will Gantz’s Blue and White – which virtually tied Netanyahu’s Likud in the April vote – take more seats this time and have enough possible coalition support to be tasked to form a government?

There is no doubt that Netanyahu was weakened by his failure to form a government after the last election and should he win again in September it’s very possible that the same stalemate that led to the new election will still be there.

And complicating matters further are that Netanyahu’s pre-indictment hearings on the three corruption charges are scheduled for October 2 and 3, just when he’d be trying to put a coalition together if he is successful on voting day. Those hearings were originally set for July but were rescheduled after Netanyahu’s lawyers argued they needed more time after the April election. Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has already rejected Netanyahu’s request for further delay.

As noted, there are 12 long times to go before the election.

March 4, 2019: Campaign wheeling and dealing in Israel

By Michael Regenstreif

With Israel’s system of proportional representation and its many political parties – many of which are focused on a single issue or represent a specific cultural or religious community, and many of which come and go – it’s virtually impossible for any party to form a majority government without bringing together a coalition.

For example, Benjamin Netanyahu put together a governing coalition with the support of other parties in 2015 – mostly by promising control of certain cabinet ministries to other parties – after his Likud Party received 23.4 per cent of the vote to win 30 of the Knesset’s 120 seats.

Two deals between parties announced late last month could have major effects on the outcome of the April 9 Israeli election, and on the wheeling and dealing between parties that will take place after the votes are counted in order to assemble a governing coalition.

The first deal merges three centrist parties – two of them newly-formed – under prominent military and political figures to create the new Blue and White Party (named for the colours of the Israeli flag). Combining to form what could be the most significant new political force in Israel in many years were Benny Gantz’s Israel Resilience Party (a former general, Gantz was chief of the Israel Defense Forces’ general staff from 2011 to 2015); Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid Party (a former journalist, Lapid served as Israel’s finance minister from 2013 to 2014); and Moshe Ya’alon’s Telem Party (Ya’alon is also a former general and chief of the Israel Defense Forces’ general staff who served as Netanyahu’s minister of defence from 2013 to 2016).

Gabi Ashkenazi, another former general and chief of the Israel Defense Forces’ general staff, is also part of the Blue and White Party’s leadership team.

Under terms of the merger Gantz and Lapid would rotate the prime-minister-ship after two-and-a-half years.

The Jerusalem Post reported that polling immediately after the merger was announced suggested that the Blue and White Party could overtake Netanyahu’s Likud and perhaps win 36 seats to become the leading party in the race to form a governing coalition.

The other deal brings together two parties on the right and extreme right: Jewish Home and Otzma Yehudit. Jewish Home was part of Netanyahu’s 2015 coalition but its two most prominent members – Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked – recently split off to form the New Right Party.

Otzma Yehudit (Jewish power) is an extremist party which advocates the relocation of West Bank Palestinians and Israeli Arabs to Arab countries – in other words, ethnic cleansing. The party is the successor to Meir Kahane’s Kach Party – a party that has been banned from running for the Knesset due to its racist ideology since 1988 and banned outright since 1994.

The electoral threshold for a party to obtain seats in the Knesset is 3.25 per cent of the popular vote – which would mean four seats. Polling has suggested that neither the current version of Jewish Home or Otzma Yehudit would crack the threshold on its own – but jointly they may win four or five seats.

And as the leading parties scramble to assemble a governing coalition after the election, those four or five seats would be crucial for Netanyahu’s chances. Knowing this, it was Netanyahu himself who reportedly brokered the deal by apparently promising two seats at his cabinet table to the joint ticket.

While it’s highly unlikely that a cabinet position would go to one of the Otzma Yehudit candidates, it’s frankly appalling that Netanyahu would broker a deal that would lend political legitimacy to a group that should never have moved beyond the fringe.

And there is still another wild card which could affect the outcome of the election as Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit is widely expected to announce this month whether he will accept police recommendations that Netanyahu be indicted on several corruption charges. Although the prime minister denies the validity of the allegations against him and has said he will not stand down if indicted, it remains to be seen if his support will weaken significantly enough if he is indicted to change the outcome of the election. Some Israeli analysts suggest that it would.