March 4, 2013: Netanyahu is having a difficult time building a coalition

By Michael Regenstreif

My February 4 column centred on speculation and possible scenarios for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he works to put together a governing coalition following the January 22 election. I said then the next few weeks would be most interesting – and, indeed, they have been.

Things may have changed considerably by the time you read this as the initial deadline for forming a coalition is February 28 (a four-week extension could then be granted). But, as I write this on February 21, only one party has signed on so far: Tzipi Livni’s Hatunah Party, which holds six seats in the Knesset.

Netanyahu has announced Livni will be justice minister in the new government and has been tapped to lead peace negotiations with the Palestinians. Livni’s prime issue in the election campaign was the need to revive peace talks leading to a two-state solution, thus preserving Israel’s defining characteristics as both Jewish and democratic.

That Livni will have this role is certain to please Israel’s important allies in Washington and major European capitals – and even here in Ottawa where Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Foreign Minister John Baird, Israel’s staunchest supporters on the international stage, continue to stress the importance of a negotiated two-state solution.

The announcement of Hatunah as the first coalition partner for Netanyahu – whose Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu alliance won 31 seats – was somewhat of a surprise. A month ago, it was widely assumed the first building block of the coalition would be Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid (There is a Future), a new centrist party that captured 19 seats.

One of Lapid’s central planks in the election campaign – as Barbara Crook notes in her My Israel column on page 19 – was that the haredi population assume a fair share of the burden for national service. According to reports in the Israeli media, coalition talks with Lapid, and also with Naftali Bennett’s right wing HaBayit HaYehudi (Jewish Home) party, which won 12 seats, have stalled over this issue. Apparently, Lapid and Bennett – who would seem to agree on few other issues – both feel that Netanyahu’s plan to address the haredi issue does not go far enough.

Some reports have suggested Lapid and Bennett have entered into a pact that they would only join the coalition together – a move aimed at freezing out the religious parties who have been traditional allies of Netanyahu’s Likud in previous coalitions.

Israeli coalition building can make for some fascinating bedfellows. Beyond the haredi issue, Lapid and Bennett do not appear to be natural allies. Will their pact hold as coalition deadlines come closer? Will Netanyahu agree to bend on the haredi issue and meet the demands of Lapid and Bennett? Or will he look to other alternatives to come up with the 61 seats he needs to stay in power?

And, if Netanyahu bends on the haredi issue to clear the way for Lapid and Bennett to join the coalition, it’s hard to imagine Bennett – who categorically rejects a two-state solution with the Palestinians – sitting at the cabinet table with Livni.

A workable scenario for Israel to move forward on many important dossiers would be for Lapid to find a way to join the coalition. Then bring in Labor with its 15 seats and Kadima with its two and Netanyahu’s got a 73-seat coalition of the centre-right to centre-left that is not beholden to the religious parties. Possible personality clashes aside, Lapid, Livni, Labor Party leader Shelly Yachimovich and Kadima leader Shaul Mofaz would seem to be natural allies on most of the important issues facing Israel.

But nothing is ever that simple in Israeli politics. There are strong factions within Netanyahu’s Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu alliance, which would be more much naturally allied to Bennett’s HaBayit HaYehudi on the right.

Something will have to give, one way or another, if Netanyahu is to form a coalition. The alternative is new elections much sooner than anyone wants them. The situation over the next few weeks remains fascinating.

September 29, 2008: Kadima’s Livni must assemble a working coalition

By Michael Regenstreif

As I write, it’s the day after the Kadima Party election in Israel.

As polls had predicted, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni came out on top, but her margin of victory over Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz was much smaller than anyone seemed to expect, just 431 votes. Livni captured 43.1 per cent of the votes cast while Mofaz took 42 per cent. The vote totals of the other candidates were inconsequential.

Livni has now begun the process of trying to assemble a coalition government. If she’s successful, Livni will become Israel’s second female prime minister after Golda Meir and its first in more than 34 years.

If Livni doesn’t manage to put together a working coalition by the end of October, Israelis will go to the polls in an early general election that will see her vie for the office of prime minister against Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu and Labor’s Ehud Barak, both of whom are former prime ministers. Opinion polls in advance of the Kadima vote suggested a general election would be a close race between the centrist Livni and the right-wing Likud leader.

I like much of what I’ve seen, so far, of Livni. She is tough, scandal-free – she’s sometimes referred to as ‘Mrs. Clean’ – and has shown the ability to evolve in her thinking.

Livni’s parents were Irgun fighters prior to Israeli independence and her father was a Knesset member representing Likud. She followed her father into Likud and was first elected to the Knesset in 1999 as a protégé of Ariel Sharon.

And just as Sharon evolved in his thinking about the peace process and territorial compromise during his final years as prime minister, so too did Livni as one of his cabinet ministers.

She followed Sharon out of Likud to help establish Kadima as a third-way alternative to Likud and Labor. As foreign minister, Livni has been Israel’s lead negotiator with the Palestinians in Israel’s search for the two-state solution.

Assuming Livni’s success in putting together a coalition, she will, as noted in the JTA report beginning on page 1, have a heavy agenda of priorities that will demand her attention.

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The Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy, together with Canadian Jewish Congress, the Canada-Israel Committee and the Quebec-Israel Committee, has produced a document called Federal Election 2008: Guide to the Issue for the Community. It lays out what they consider to be the major of issues of concern for the Canadian Jewish community along with suggested questions to ask of candidates and parties.

Reports on the Federation’s Communications and Community Relations Committee’s meetings with the major parties will be published in the October 13 edition of the Bulletin. Unfortunately, that will be too late for anyone who wants to read the articles before voting in the advance polls before the Sukkot election day. Therefore, we’re posting the articles online as soon as possible. In fact, by the time you read this column, the articles should be available ottawajewishbulletin.com.

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We have a JTA brief on page 4 that talks about some people being upset that they’ve received Rosh Hashanah cards from the prime minister. A Conservative Party spokesman denied the party had a prepared list of Canadian Jews and declared they hadn’t purchased one.

I’ve read election column notes and letters-to-the-editor in several Canadian dailies from Jewish people wanting to know how the PMO knew they were Jewish and from non-Jews wanting to know why the PMO thought they were Jewish.

A column in the Ottawa Citizen mentioned a Jewish person in Ottawa who “subscribes to no Jewish publications and doesn’t give to any specifically Jewish causes, so he isn’t sure how the PMO got his name.” The Bulletin has not, and would not, supply or sell a list of subscribers to any political party or office. But I’d like to know why I, with a publicly Jewish media job that entails contact with politicians and their staffs, including Conservative cabinet ministers and MPs, didn’t rate a card.

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The June 16 issue of the Bulletin included an article that described how Soloway JCC member Marion Dewar was recovering the use of her injured hand through the centre’s gentle yoga course. Ms. Dewar, the universally respected social activist and former mayor of Ottawa, died earlier this month at age 80 from injuries suffered in a fall while visiting Toronto. We offer our sincere condolences to the Dewar family.