So far so good for Netanyahu in Israeli election
“So far so good” means exit polls:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu planned to declare victory in Israel’s election on Monday, a spokesman for his party said, after television exit polls showed him just a seat short of a governing majority in parliament.
A win for Netanyahu, after inconclusive ballots in April and September, would be testimony to the political durability of Israel’s longest-serving leader, who fought the latest campaign under the shadow of a looming corruption trial…
“A giant victory for Israel,” Netanyahu, 70, tweeted after the projections were released.
His main challenger, former armed forces chief Benny Gantz of the centrist Blue and White party, stopped short of conceding defeat in his own posting on Twitter, telling supporters he would “continue to fight for the right path, for you.”
The Russians are reasserting themselves in Idlib today and thereby the IRGC, Hezb, and lastly the SAA such as it is. Concommitantly, Turkey’s offensive in Idlib quiets down. Meanwhile, taking notice of the Turks’ recent successes, anti-Assad forces just north of the Golan in Deraa are rising against the SAA after a long pause in hostilities there (a pause negotiated by the Russkies). Assad’s problems are becoming much more worrisome for all those allies of his.
The IDF struck and blew up an automobile on the Syrian side of the Golan today as it carried away a sniper who had taken shots at Israelis. No idea who that was sniping, but it’s probably not one of the anti-Assadists there. Israel has work to do on Iranians in Syria yet. Sure would be nice to see an Israeli-Turko detente right about now. Not that it’s happening, though.
It appears he came up two seats short. What needs to happen is for a couple of Avigdor Lieberman’s associates to say ‘f*ck this’ and tell him he either stops obstructing the formation of a ministry or they’re walking.
Art Deco – it’s more likely that the defections will come from the Party Formerly Known As Labor. Netanyahu is likely to nix any deal with Liberman – this whole chain of stalemated elections is the result of Liberman’s envious backstabbing betrayal of Netanyahu. Bibi and many other Likudniks want Liberman to suffer in the opposition for a while.
As in the States, the divisions are social as well as political – a long-simmering disagreement about the relationship between Jewish and Israeli identity.
And as in the States, the folks on the “liberal/progressive” side are virtue-signalling bien-pensants being led by a hard core of Marxists, while the Likud side is made up of religious or tradition-respecting people, paralleling the silent majority of Americans who don’t want the radical political/social/sexual agenda in their kids’ schools.
The anti-religious rhetoric from both Liberman and the “Blue-n-White” party was over the top, with dark warnings about a religious Taliban if Bibi gets elected… I guess we will stone immodest women with matzo balls…
3 elections, 3 “victories” in less than year, and still not certain that Bibi can form a functioning majority gov’t.
Welcome to proportional representation with multiple dedicated parties.
Worse than Slovakia, where the Christian Dems failed again, at 4.6, to pass the 5% threshold. In Israel the threshold is only 3%. At least the Slovak winners are strongly anti-corruption; 3 of 6 credibly claim that, 2 other prior opposition parties claim it but I doubt it, and only the main 1 (of 3) prior gov’t parties got in, and they also claim to be anti-corruption. Despite huge evidence that they have been, and are, corrupt.
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2020-02-29/slovak-opposition-takes-lead-as-voters-rout-ruling-party-partial-results
The Coalition Agreements, after the elections, is where so much of gov’t corruption gets agreed to: the majority leader gives his minor party supporters most of what their first priority is, so as to get their support on his first priority, with all of the 2,3,4,5 party coalition partners getting some
corruption cashpork.Despite Hillary’s Clinton Bribery Foundation, I think the US system has a lower percentage of gov’t cash being corrupt than most other democracies. I think needing to convince a coalition of factions inside your party is better than forming a coalition of (fractious) parties after an election.
A nation is both the people and the territory. The US balances those two better than other large countries like Canada, Mexico, or India, or any Euro country.