Israel Watch: Change the System! - Jim Fletcher -
Gridlock isn't confined to Washington DC and Foggy Bottom. It's a human condition.
Even in the Holy Land.
Reading a report on Israel's elections this week left me dizzy. Most polls show a virtual dead-heat between Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party, and challenger Benny Gantz's Blue and White. Yet when voters were asked specifically who is best to lead the country, Netanyahu's numbers were most impressive; in most he had at least a 12-point lead over Gantz. There is also the specter of the Arab voting bloc causing problems and making the race much narrower.
Gantz has pledged that he will not form a government with Arab parties.
So the question must be asked: why does Israel continue with a parliamentary system in which voters pick a party rather than a specific candidate? It is an important distinction because it allows a boatload of parties to paralyze the government, holding it hostage to each of their lists of desired goodies.
Israel went through a seismic change in national government in the 1970s, when Menachem Begin defeated the Labor Party. It was the first time a party (in this case Likud) other than Labor led the country.
One wishes Israel would go to a system in which voters pick an actual, living and breathing candidate. I can't imagine that Netanyahu wouldn't win handily.
Another flaw in their system is the presence of kingmakers like Avidgor Liberman, who can hold the country hostage by virtually deciding which lesser parties can cobble together to prevent a candidate/party (in this case Netanyahu) from forming the required 61-seat majority. Today, a story ran that Liberman claims Netanyahu told the Jordanians he would not annex the Jordan Valley, which would be the opposite of Likud's public statements on the matter.
Liberman hates Netanyahu, so he can carry out personal vendettas.
Netanyahu's corruption trial starts March 17, and that is also looming. During an interview this week with Mark Levin, Netanyahu seemed unusually relaxed. He was his usual charming self, in command of facts and savvy with the media. Despite a pivotal election and crucial trial, this is also the man that has seen combat, lost his brother Yonatan to terrorism, and has maneuvered through a whole host of other problems. He seems unflappable.
Let us pray for Israel this week and in the coming weeks especially, and for the man we admire, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu Wins Election After Rabbi Predicts He will be Israel's Last Prime Minister before Messiah - By David Sidman - www.breakingisraelnews.com
Of Binyamin he said: Beloved of Hashem, He rests securely beside Him; Ever does He protect him, As he rests between His shoulders. - Deuteronomy 33:12
Although he may not have enough support to form a government, which would send Israel into a fourth round of elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party got the most seats in Monday's election edging his rival, Benny Gantz 36- 33.
However, behind the headlines may be a sort of prophecy that has come to fruition. That's because Rabbi Yitzchak Kaduri, one of the most influential Sephardic spiritual leaders of the century who passed away in 2006 at the age of 106, met with Netanyahu in 1997 during his first term as prime minister. Rabbi Kaduri whispered a long message into the politician's ear. Rabbi Shmuel Shmueli, a follower of Rabbi Kaduri, revealed that Kaduri had always maintained that Netanyahu would serve a very long time and after his term in office, the Messiah would arrive. Before his death, Kaduri had said that he expected the Jewish Messiah, to arrive soon and that he had met him a year earlier.
In 2018, Breaking Israel News reported the opinion of Rabbi Levi Sudri, noted the many parallels between the current prime minister and Jonathan, the son of Biblical King Saul. Sudri suggested that Netanyahu is serving the function of Moshiach ben Yosef (Messiah from the house of Joseph) the first half of the two-stage Messianic process.
Moshiach ben Yosef is a practical, mundane process that includes the ingathering of the exiles and building up of the Land of Israel. The second stage, Moshiach Ben David (Messiah from the house of David) is a miraculous process that includes the reestablishment of the Davidic Dynasty and the completion of the Third Temple.
Rabbi Sudri explained that as the reincarnation of Jonathan and the manifestation of Moshiach ben Yosef, Netanyahu is paving the way for the more transcendent Moshiach ben David who will immediately follow.
"It is very clear that we see in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he is fulfilling his destiny as Moshiach ben Yosef, that is to say, the reincarnation of Jonathan," Rabbi Sudri told Breaking Israel News at the time. "The name 'Netanyahu' (� ת� יהו) is composed of the same letters as the name, "Jonathan (יהו� תן)."
This sentiment was repeated by Rabbi Moshe Ben Tov, known for his ability to perceive the past and present of people by gazing at the mezuzah on their door. After attaching a mezuzah in the prime minister's office, Rabbi Ben Tov made a remarkable statement to the prime minister.
"It is very important that your love of Israel continue until the Moshiach comes because you are going stay in office and are going to meet him," Rabbi Ben Tov said to Netanyahu. "You are the one who will give him the keys to this office."
The Undemocratic Alliance Bent On Toppling Netanyahu - By Alex Traiman/JNS.org -
In Israel's third election in less than one year, embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defeated his closest challenger by three Knesset seats (36-33), and his bloc of right-wing allies defeated the opposing left-wing bloc supporting challenger Benny Gantz by a stunning 18 seats (58-40). Yet, similar to the first two election contests, Netanyahu still remains precariously shy of a parliamentary majority.
Coalition negotiations have yet to officially begin, and just three of the remaining 62 Knesset members from outside of Netanyahu's bloc could push Israel's tenured premier over the 61-seat majority threshold. By doing so, they would bring much-needed stability to a convoluted parliamentary political system whose efficacy is now being rightfully questioned.
The parliamentarians who refuse to join the right-wing bloc are united by a singular goal: to dethrone Netanyahu. Yet these 62 opposing members of Parliament are incapable of forming their own governing coalition. In addition to their unwillingness to sit with Netanyahu, they have all repeatedly stated that they are ideologically opposed to sitting with one another.
This opposition includes the Blue and White Party, a mini-coalition of center-right and center-left parties that came together to challenge Netanyahu, the seven-seat far-left Labor-Meretz alliance, the seven-seat secular right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu Party led by Avigdor Lieberman and a 15-seat Joint Arab List.
Since the establishment of the modern State of Israel, no Arab party has ever joined any Israeli government right or left, and the Joint List has expressed no intention of joining a coalition led by either Netanyahu or Gantz. Furthermore, Lieberman has vowed not to sit in any government that includes the anti-Zionist Arab parties.
Excluding the self-stated anti-Zionist Joint List, the opposition totals an underwhelming 47 mandates--well short of a 61-seat majority and a whopping 11 seats smaller than Netanyahu's bloc of 58 seats.
By hook or by crook
For years, Netanyahu's opponents have been trying to replace Israel's longest-serving prime minister by hook or by crook. And since they have failed to remove him at the polls, they now seek to create a parliamentary putsch to remove their political nemesis from office.
Blue and White has announced its intention to advance a parliamentary bill, with the backing of the 62-member opposition, to prohibit a prime minister from serving while under indictment.
Meanwhile, Israeli law explicitly permits a prime minister to remain in office while facing criminal charges under indictment. The law even permits a prime minister to continue in office if convicted, until all legal appeals are exhausted.
In response, Netanyahu stated that Blue and White leader Benny Gantz is attempting to "steal the elections," and that advancing such a bill "undermines the foundations of democracy."
The highly questionable cases against Netanyahu have been openly simmering for the past two years with numerous pieces of police evidence being illegally leaked for public consumption. Netanyahu has maintained his innocence in each of the cases.
More than 2 million Israelis have voted again and again for Netanyahu and his allies, believing that the charges are either contrived or not serious enough to warrant removing the successful leader from office. Each vote has been a democratic referendum on Netanyahu's ability to serve under indictment.
Just prior to the elections, Blue and White pasted large billboards across Israel likening Netanyahu to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, an Islamist dictator who has been incrementally rolling back democratic freedoms in Turkey.
Yet it is Netanyahu who has consistently returned his mandate to govern to the people. And while the public has chosen to stand with Netanyahu even as he is about to face trial on March 17, it is an opposition concocted of disparate agendas that is prepared to ignore the will of the public and twist democratic norms for their own machinations of power.
Meanwhile, the stakes have never been greater for the State of Israel. Iran is racing towards nuclear breakout and regional hegemony across Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Gaza has increasingly stepped up rocket attacks on Israeli population centers. Syria continues to remain a state of disarray, while Egypt and Jordan's leaders struggle to maintain control in the face of growing extremism.
In a released recording, adviser Israel Bachar, who was fired after the leak, reported that fellow Blue and White Party member and MK Omer Yankelevich "says he is stupid and a complete nobody and she says 'he can't be prime minister.' " Bachar also said Gantz "doesn't have the courage to attack Iran" and would be "a threat to the Israeli nation" as prime minister.
Perhaps more important is the rollout of the Trump administration's "Peace to Prosperity" Mideast plan. In the coming weeks, following completion of a careful bilateral mapping process, Israel will be permitted to apply full sovereignty to every settlement and outpost in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria, as well as the strategic Jordan Valley.
Despite tepid approval of the U.S. plan by Gantz, the left-wing Labor-Meretz Party is staunchly opposed to Israel's application of sovereignty over any of the territories, as is the Arab Joint List. Furthermore, Gantz and his advisers have been repeatedly antagonistic to the Trump administration, some comparing the U.S. president to Adolf Hitler.
Both Gantz and party No. 2 Yair Lapid have repeatedly attacked Netanyahu for his close relationship with the president, which they say has cost Israel bipartisan support in Congress. As such, Israelis cannot count on Gantz as prime minister to carry out the application of sovereignty over territories central to Israel's security and biblical narrative.
And while Gantz has significant military experience, he has zero political experience, with the exception of losing three successive election campaigns that have been peppered with numerous rhetorical gaffes.
These are the considerations that Israelis have weighed when going to the polls. And while the overwhelming majority of the Jewish candidates chose to keep the man who has arguably been the most successful prime minister in Israel's history at the helm, it is an undemocratic alliance that will use any tool at their disposal to send Netanyahu packing, even if the means they apply spit directly in the face of Israel's democratically elected outcome.
Below is the Lubavitcher Rebbe instructing a young Netanyahu to expedite the coming of the Messiah.
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