Netanyahu’s coalition government…
…reportedly is in trouble.
Some of it is connected with “the recommendation of the Israeli national police anti-corruption unit that Netanyahu be indicted on charges of corruption and influence-peddling.” There are several possible charges.
Also, in view of recent events in the western part of the US, the following problem facing the Netanyahu administration was of particular interest to me:
Hamas found a method, several months ago, of terrorizing Israelis and threatening to ruin Israel’s agricultural sector by floating incendiary kites and balloons over the Gaza border to land and start fires all over the southern half of Israel. This was especially dangerous over the summer dry season in the country, when little rain falls. As a result, massive fires ravaged forests and crop-lands throughout the south, spurring loud protests and demands for the government to “do something.”
The primary response has been limited, targeted air strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza. These did little or nothing to halt the onslaught of deadly kites and balloons.
Much much more about Netanyahu’s myriad problems at the link.
But if Netanyahu goes, it doesn’t look like his replacement is likely to be to the left of him politically. Au contraire.
Israeli politics is nothing if not complex, however. For example:
In today’s Israel, forecasting the end of Netanyahu’s political career is so outlandish, it attracts attention. After all, we’ve been there and done that: Convinced ourselves that the signs point to a Netanyahu loss only to find out that the Israeli public didn’t see them and voted him into office. The collective memory holds that Netanyahu is perennially written off up until the polls close, at which time it turns out that news of his political demise was premature.
History, on the other hand, has a different version of events. No one can take from Netanyahu either his phenomenal rise from UN ambassador in 1988 to prime minister in 1996 or his lock-hold on power and trifecta of electoral victories since 2009. But Netanyahu is far from invincible: He lost badly to Ehud Barak in 1999, was trounced by Ariel Sharon in the Likud primaries in 2002 and was drubbed by Ehud Olmert and Kadima in the 2006 elections, in which his Likud mustered a measly 12 seats in the Knesset. So it can be done.
The article goes on to list 12 reasons it might indeed happen that Netanyahu is ousted.
The bit about fires is interesting. Hamas has definitely been trying to start fires in Israel. ISIS has claimed some connection to the California wildfires. I don’t believe them.
Israel appears about to set Gaza on fire.
Works for me.
I saw that article too and it appears that Netanyahu is too mild and pacific. Bg time irony alert !
The paragraphs I saw were about Kicking the Palestinians out of Judea and Samaria. That would certainly set the cat amongst the pigeons at the UN.
I was not much interested in Israel until the Entebbe rescue. That took big balls.
After that, I was a Zionist. I read Paul Johnson’s “A History of the Jews” and my wife has a whole library on Jews and Israel. We have talked about going to see it but we are too old and she does not do well on long flights. We went to Brussels in 2015 and I think that will be it for us.
If they decide to wipe Gaza clean, it’s OK with me. Not even the Egyptians want them. I remember Mort Sahl jokes about Gaza in the 1950s.
Whether Netanyahu weathers this latest crisis is of much less importance than Israeli society’s deep divisions which prevent consensus from forming and the constraints the world places upon Israel actually ending the threat.
Ed at 6.37……
Works for me, too.
Eye for an eye, as the saying goes.
MikeK
Bibi lost his elder brother during that action.
I used to follow Israeli politics, but have not paid attention the last 3-4 years. Even when I knew something, I didn’t know anything.
Well, yes, Netanyahu seems to have managed to keep his governing coalition (such as it is) and live another day (politically speaking).
Or week. Or month. Or even year….
(To be sure, elections are the very last thing that Israel needs at the moment…though I suppose that that can be said whenever a government falls before end of term.)
And so (for now, at least—-and excepting those who have been fervently praying, religiously or secularly, for Netanyahu’s exit) mazel tov, mazel tov, mazel tov all around…:
https://www.liveleak.com/view?t=ar90S_1542590986
Your closing quote is from the extreme Left newspaper Haaretz which is basically the NY Times of Israel. The wishful tone should tell you all you need to know about this “news source”.
As a result, massive fires ravaged forests and crop-lands throughout the south, spurring loud protests and demands for the government to “do something.”
Again, the Negev is arid and suitable for animal husbandry. The cultivated woodlands near the Gaza border can be seen here:
http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/AboutIsrael/Maps/Maps/Forest.jpg
I doubt there’s enough of it for ‘massive’ fires. The land use map here
https://mapcruzin.com/free-maps-thematic/israel_land.jpg
shows irrigated farming proximate to the Gaza border. I tend to doubt a lettuce patch fed with drip irrigation pipes is all that flammable.
“I doubt…”
Oh, not to worry.
There’s lots to burn (over ten thousand acres so far, which is not too shabby, I guess, depending on one’s POV): there’s lots of trees, bushes, underbrush, wild grasses and stubble —all of it very nice and dry after months with no rain (that’s how it is in this semi-arid zone)—and there’s agricultural fields (not just lettuce): corn, afalfa, fodder, what-have-you, much of it nice and dry and tailor made for burning.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/252833
https://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinian-fire-kites-destroy-much-of-nature-reserve-along-gaza-border/
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-struggles-to-handle-latest-threat-from-gaza-fire-starting-kites/
There’s also several nature preserves. And animals, too, that get caught up in it.
And there’s the kibbutzim and moshavim that abut Gaza and also the towns further afield (the “art” of incendiary balloons—condoms have been “discovered” by Israel’s creative neighbors to be perfect for the purpose—has been greatly improved by “the neighbors”: some have even reached the middle of the country and the occasional one has reached Jerusalem)
Yep, lots to burn, though less than there was last year (gotta stay positive).
Forty years ago, Nadav Safran classified Israel’s political parties thus:
1. Labor bloc
2. Right bloc
3. Religious bloc
4. Center bloc
5. Far left bloc
Since that time, a far right bloc has come and gone, a Russian bloc has come and gone, and the center bloc has reconstituted itself into an omnibus party of squish-heads.
The various strands of labor zionism had been the mode in the country at least since the foundation of the Mandate in 1920 and the Labor Party had constitued the core of the Yishuv executive from the time of its formation in 1930 and the core of every ministry formed between 1948 and 1977. Prior to 1977, the Labor Party and it’s federated affiliates and allies generally collared around 45% of the vote in Israeli elections. From 1977 to 2000, they generally collared around 30% of the vote. In the years since 2000, their level of support has generally bounced around 14.5% of the vote. In the last 18 years, the religious bloc has been performing better, polling around 17.5% of the vote. The center parties to which Safran was referring are at this time in the pedigree of the Green left in Israel. A reconstituted center began to emerge 15 years ago but has yet to find it’s home in a political party that wasn’t personalistic and evanescent. So far, it appears to draw about 21% of the electorate give or take. The far left bloc (a collection of Arab partisans and Commies) is now good for about 9% of the vote. Netanyahu’s right bloc has been polling around 23% of the vote in the last 20 years. (The squish-heads generally poll about 4%).
Netanyahu as an individual may depart public life. It does not appear that the other dispensations in Israeli politics are yet in a position to displace Likud.
There’s lots to burn (over ten thousand acres so far, which is not too shabby,
If that’s accurate, the sum of them has been < 1/10th the size of the Camp Fire in northern California. There's massive and then there's 'massive'.
MikeK
Bibi lost his elder brother during that action.
Oh, I know. One thing Israel has, out of necessity of course, is universal military experience, which we once had. Women are required to serve but I understand the business of women in combat has been toned down.
The military experience was one thing that kept our politics sane after 1917 until Lyndon Johnson wrecked our military in Vietnam and gave us the Sixties and the pathology that followed.
We will be living with the consequences of Johnson for 100 years.
The military experience was one thing that kept our politics sane after 1917 until Lyndon Johnson wrecked our military in Vietnam and gave us the Sixties and the pathology that followed.
Johnson did a lousy job, but it’s rather de trop to attribute the whole tapestry of social and cultural breakdown to his desk. Political institutions are not that influential and the president is always encountering counter-force