Israel General Discussion: Dawn of the Post-Netanyahu Era

[Hnv1]

We have a new government. A motley crew of parties from Right to the Islamic party, with PM Naftali Bennett and Co-PM Yair Lapid. The new leader of the opposition is one...Benjamin Netanyahu.

Let the games begin.

[Hnv1]

What's Hebrew for 'So it begins'?

I don't think we have a direct translation that captures the pragmatics of the phrase. The younger people use the #התחלנו but that's lighthearted. word to word would be וכך זה מתחיל. One could say שחר של יום חדש but that would be positive in connotation and without the anxious anticipation.

[Hnv1]

So he could still return in the future, like Trump?

Theoretically, he could return tomorrow with a constructive motion of no-confidence. We have a parliamentary system. But he does not have a majority in the house, and if the budget bill passes it will be quite hard to see the house dissolve before 2023

[Hnv1]

Is the new coalition going to pass a law drafting the Haredim (back in 2013, Lapid and Bennett both campaigned on this pretty hard, and their support for such a law is what originally established their personal friendship; the 2015 government abolished the law and it never went into effect), or is that off the table as too radioactive given the narrowness of their majority (I can imagine this might jeopardize Arab support for them)?

Yes. But not that draft law. B&W demanded a new laxer draft law in their coalition deal and as Gantz is basically the mouth of the IDF that means the military is fed up with it.

No one is going to draft them, only now they understand it and understand now damaging these attempts are. Haredi would be exempted from service at the age of 21 instead of 26 with a family, so the goal is to integrate them in the work force not draft them.

[Hnv1]

Israeli politics for the first in many years are again more coalition and consensus-driven. The drift towards the quasi presidential system of Bibi era ended, and the return to the cabinet system of old is interesting. e.g., the Foreign Office Bibi so much hates is working again after a decade.

The coalition is working well in the different ministries but is finding it hard to pass legislation in the house. They did manage to pass the Extended Norwiegen (meaning all ministers can now resign from the house and be replaced by regular MKs), and the split law (which means 4 defectors of Likud can now leave the party and join the coalition at a later time, I can spot perhaps 3 potential defectors tops though atm).

The crunch time is going to be the budget. I think the coalition will buy the votes of the JL here as they may enjoy winning on occasion, but would rather not see Bibi back in power. Lieberman is actually a sound Chancellor.

[Hnv1]

Herzog is being sworn-in as President today.

People I know who worked with him think he will act as super Foreign Minister, and politically active, as he's trying to build himself for a future run for PM office as the elder statesman. The staff he picked also indicates this.
Herzog will be 67 when he leaves office and could be seen as an experienced and balanced leader by then. I would put my money on him, he's a very sharp fella.

President Navon left office and returned to the knesset, but Peres and Rabin blocked his path within Labour which is a shame as polling showed Labour led by him would have gained over 60 seats in 1984. I think Herzog could well pull it off as the field in 7 years would have mediocre charecters like Yossi Cohen, Aviv Kochavi, Lapid, and some of the Likud stooges.

[Hnv1]

Israeli Supreme Court upholds Nation-State law.

The High Court of Justice upheld the Nation-State Law on Thursday, as the justices voted 10-1 to reject 15 petitions against the law. They had been asked to determine if the law was fit to be a part of Israel’s future constitution, given its content.

In explaining the verdict, the High Court said it was not within its purview to order the law be canceled or be involved in its content as a basic law. Regarding the intent of the law, the court said it is to establish the Jewish character of the state without diminishing its democratic nature.

The law is “another component of Israel’s emerging constitution that is intended to anchor the components of the identity of the state as a Jewish state, without diminishing from the components of the state’s democratic identity that are anchored in the other Basic Laws and constitutional principles that institute the legal system in Israel,” the court said in its opinion.
Justice George Karra, the lone dissenter, said some parts of the law challenge Israel’s democratic nature. The law ignores Arab and Druze citizens of Israel and harms the principle of equality, which is not explicitly established in the law, he wrote in the minority opinion.

Not a fan of the Jewish (or democracy) but the basic law is all declarative wind with no substantial content. There is nothing new there, only reiteration of the common law of Israel.

Anyhow, it's not a law, it is a part of the constitution, and a liberal court cannot exercise judicial review on it without performing some gross normative contradiction. The court left a small crack for some review only for basic laws that go against the very fabric of Israel as a "both Jewish and Democratic" state.

The decision is 100% right legally (I may dissent on the obiter there)

[Hnv1]

Please move your discussions to this thread and keep this thread for the regular political tidbits:
https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=456420.0


The state budget bill is going to be a massive showdown. Abbas can't control the MKs for Ra'am and the coalition is losing votes in the house (yesterday decriminalization fell again, and Likud will pay for it in the polls).
The chancellery are planning quite a reformative bill and the socialists nimble wits are already starting gasp, I expect the bill will be heavily diluted to win the support of the JL.
Current major issues of conflict: Health budget; the formation of the new super Regulator; congestion tax; some changes in the pension structure; the Tel Aviv Metro project funding; and the agricultural reforms.
The farmers with their usual lobby are trying to keep Israel in the 1950s yet again by keeping the protectionism policies. The chancellery is offering direct subsidizing in exchange for opening the markets, B&W and Labour are backing the farmers naturally. If this doesn't pass I think YB should topple the government. 

Meanwhile, Sa'ar is quietly pushing for reforms in the judicial system. the main battle will begin soon as he tries to split the role of the AG into two. This move has very wide support in the public, but the super government of the ministry of justice will fight it to the death. As a lawyer from the left, I say it is time to finally break up this undemocratic and useless power grip of the justice department, even at the price of constitutional crisis.

[Hnv1]

I opened a new thread for this sort of discussion to be housed there. not here. Please stop overcrowding this thread

[Hnv1]

The government voted for the budget bill which will not go to the floor of the Knesset and the finance committee for a tug war. There will be quite a lot of extorting MKs (especially from Ra'am), but it looks like it will pass. I think they kept a reserve to buy off Ta'al's votes.
The SC might stick their nose into some arrangements in the Framework Act (the budget bill in Israel since 1985 comes accompanied by a framework bill that includes a wide variety of reforms that are pushed together with the budget). And the greedy farmers are planning to run rampant for a while. But this is a good budget.

If the budget passes it becomes virtually impossible to topple the government until late 2023

[Hnv1]

Not uninteresting:

The Likud MKs voted on who would be the opposition's delegate to the judicial appointment committee and Bibi's candidate - Keren Barak - lost to Katz's candidate Orly Levy 11-18.
That actually draws the line between the Bibists and the Likudniks of the party.
The leadership primaries that will be held in 2022 might result in some splintter

[Hnv1]

Not uninteresting:

The Likud MKs voted on who would be the opposition's delegate to the judicial appointment committee and Bibi's candidate - Keren Barak - lost to Katz's candidate Orly Levy 11-18.
That actually draws the line between the Bibists and the Likudniks of the party.
The leadership primaries that will be held in 2022 might result in some splintter

Not uninteresting #2:
Eilat special mayoral elections were held yesterday and surprisingly Sa'ar's guy took over 40% and won against Bibi's candidate.
low turnout...municipal elections...etc.
Eilat is a strong Likud stronghold, and it's the sort of place that needs Likud to be the ruling party. The longest Likud remains out power the more mayors and such look for a new power tit to suck on.

[Hnv1]

Interesting:

Miri Regev in an interview says that the next Likud leader should be a Sephardi male\female (i.e., her) and if not than a new "Sephardi Likud" should form.

Interesting as it is pretty much what I anticipated for the second realignment we are saying and the third Israeli Party system. (that I think I published here a year ago?)

[Hnv1]

Said Al-Kharoumy MK (Ra'am) aged 49 passed away last night from a surprise heart attack He was the only Negev Bedouin MK, and abstained in the confidence vote for the new government.

He will be replaced (and I suspect to his party chairman's and Lapid\Bennett's relief) with Iman Khatib-Yasin, who was already an MK for a brief period between round 2 2019 and the 2020 elections. She will again be the only religious Muslim woman in the Knesset wearing a hijab. I suspect she will be more docile than Al-Kharoumy with the imminent budget bill.

[Hnv1]

attaching my analysis of the vote in the Kibbutz movement from the other thread

The breakdown for the Kibbutz movement:

• The general Kibbutz movement with over 242 Kibbutz that has their own precincts had a total of 92,618 voters (equal to 2.5 seats in the house) broken down into:
  
  Labour 25.6%
  Yesh Attid 23%
  Meretz 18.8%
  B&W 13.4%
  Others 19.1%***
  
  The traditional left (Labour+Meretz) is losing its hold with less than 50% of the votes (2019-2020 had far less but that was due to jumbo B&W sucking in the votes). This long term trend is expected to continue
• The Kibbutz Haartzi - Hashomer Hatzair, the bastion of old MAPAM, and identified with Meretz, with 84 Kibbutzim and 33,844 voters:
  
  Meretz 28.9%
  Yesh Attid 21.9%
  Labour 21.1%
  B&W 12%
  Others 16%
  
  Meretz is still dominant, though 11 points less than 2013, and 35 points less than 1999. Yesh Attid is surprisingly strong. Considering Meretz allocate 17% of the party convention seats to these Kibbutzim, and they account for less than 5% of Meretz voters I'd say it's time to rethink this arrangement.
  
• The Communal Current, i.e., all the Kibbutzim of all three movements that kept a degree of cooperative living, well one would expect they would tilt further to the left. But with 54 Kibbutzim and 21,036 votes:
  
  Labour 28%
  Meretz 22.3%
  Yesh Attid 21.3%
  B&W 13.3%
  Others  15.01%
  
  6 points gap to the left (sum of Labour+Meretz), but the communal movement built fewer extensions, so once you account for this factor you find no significant difference with the non-cooperative K=kibbutzim.
  

70 years after the split, 52 years after the merger of Labour, and 40 years after the respective kibbutz movements united, we still have minor differences between the Unified movement and the Union movement.
Unified Kibbutz movement identified with Achdot Haavoda and was Marxist but hawkish. The Union identified with MAPAI and wasn't Marxist. Unified Kibbutzim tilt slightly to the left with more support to Labour, union Kibbutzim tilt more to the right.

• The United Movement with 62 Kibbutzim:
  
  Labour 29.6%
  Yesh Attid 23.3%
  B&W 14.2%
  Meretz 12.75%
  Others 20.1%
  
• The Union with 87 kibbutzim:
  
  Labour 27.2%
  Yesh Attid 24.2%
  B&W 14.45%
  Meretz 13.1%
  others 21%
  

***(note that most of the others are the result of extensions that brought new population into the Kibbutzim after the '90s)
**** The religious Kibbutz movement was excluded here

[Hnv1]

Interesting:

Miri Regev in an interview says that the next Likud leader should be a Sephardi male\female (i.e., her) and if not than a new "Sephardi Likud" should form.

Interesting as it is pretty much what I anticipated for the second realignment we are saying and the third Israeli Party system. (that I think I published here a year ago?)

I don't think I've read it, and I'd be fascinated to. My impression was that the salience of the Ashkenazi/Sephardi split was generally declining over time, with a very large proportion of people now having ancestry from both groups, but it sounds like you don't think this is the case. (And obviously the premier Revisionist party having always had an Ashkenazi leader, but a primarily Sephardic electorate, isn't a state of affairs that can continue forever).

My vague impression is that the first Israeli party system (1948-1977) constituted the dominance of the forces that had won Israel's independence, and the second (1977-arguably 2005, definitely done by 2019) was polarized on issues of relations with the Palestinians. The third (maybe 2019-??) seems primarily polarized on religion-and-state issues, particularly the relationship of the Haredim with the rest of society.

I'd be interested in hearing your take. It distinctly seems to me like Tkuma and Likud are more Sephardic than Yamina and Tikva Chadasha, which are more Ashkenazic, but this is a vague impression more than anything else.

I'll have to breakdown my reply here:

1. There was a general feeling that the Ashkenazi\Sephardi was withering away in the past two decades. But the last 3 years taught us that is not the case. It was impossible to mistake the very strong Sephardi character of the pro-Bibi camp of Likud and Shas, as opposed to the very Ashkenazi nature of the current coalition.
To be more precise, there's a split between the Sephardi themselves. It seems those living in the periphery towns are staunch Bibists. While those closer to the economic singularity of Tel Aviv aren't. What made the difference in round II 2019, and 2021 was Gantz and then Sa'ar doing relatively well with the Sephardi middle class and upper class of Rishon and the "College Belt" south of Tel Aviv. While the periphery radicalized to the populist right.

The mixed heritage story turned out to be a myth with new census data showing the number of mixed people is substantially lower than thought, they are simply more concentrated in the big cities of Tel Aviv, Haifa, Ramat Gan, etc. But the periphery remained Sephardi through and through

It's not though, as a foreigner might believe, purely an economic conflict. It's now more of a culture war leading to para. 2 here

2. I identified the first political system as molded according to the structure of pre-independence Israel. The Socialist Zionist movement, the revisionist, the religious, and the general zionists. Starting from the 60's all four movements experienced change:
The Socialist Zionist movement unified into one party de facto with the Alignment.
The Revisionists morphed from being a party of intellectuals and liberals to a more populist party with Sephardi nature.
The general zionist movement evaporated. some of it became a core element of the new Likud, the other section joined Labour and the parties to its left. It's quite shocking how such a strong movement coming up to the '50s left not distinct traces in Israeli politics and culture.
The religious movement which was uniform in 48, split between the national religious and the Haredi elements going into the '60s

1973 war happened, a new middle class was forming, and then 77 happened. After a decade of an intense culture war in the '80s, our second political system was cast in 1992 election on the lines of attitudes to the Palestinian issue. Meretz was an unthinkable alliance in the '70s but was natural for 92. MAFDAL moving to the solid right only made sense. and the Haredi became kingmakers without solid identification.

But as the '60s had the origins of 77 within them, the second system had the origins of 2019 in them.  Following the second Intifada, the undercurrents of Jewish nationalism and populism that always haunted the Sephardi population became increasingly dominant. with no real Palestinian issue on the agenda and general uniformity between the left and the right on the issue the focal point of the political system moved elsewhere.
The Religious Zionist elite which had more in common sociologically with Meretz than Liikud was starting to show disdain to that alliance, while on the sidelines the new Haredi Nationalists became antithetic to the liberal state.
The Haredi parties found themselves with all the old great rabbis dead and a Haredi public which identified with the right completely and wouldn't agree to sit with the secular left.
And so many more phenomena.

This leads us to the third political system being born right now. The left-right divide is on the fabric of the state.
Likud, the Haredi parties, and the Haredi nationalists (Smotric and Ben Gvir) became unified with their hate for the liberal democracy. They simply despise the state and are looking for a Jewish ethnostate with no secular supreme courts and nonsense. Jewish identity is the issue.
On the other hand, the coalition parties although with differences generally want to defer to the liberal democratic model and the rule of law.
And this divide is very distinctively Ashkenazi-Sephardi (with minor exceptions to each)

As every party system had to create new parties I believe we will see a second realignment very soon

[Hnv1]

Has the budget standoff come to a head yet? I'm surprised there hasn't been more coverage here.

The Knesset is not in session atm. It will soon reconvene and with it the disputes.

Labour, Meretz, and B&W are all pushing to keep the agricultural reform out of the budget bill, and Meretz and LAbour are trying to prevent raising the retirement age for women.

The general consensus is that the budget will still pass as everyone wants a budget to pass.

[Hnv1]

Avi Dichter, former head of the Shin Bet, announces his intention to run against Bibi. Granted he is a bit of a clown with his political career stuck in first gear, but it heralds to first open challenge to Bibi within Likud.

Edelstein, Katz, Barkat, and Hangebi are all campaigning but hadn't announced their intentions yet.

[Hnv1]

My vague impression is that the first Israeli party system (1948-1977) constituted the dominance of the forces that had won Israel's independence, and the second (1977-arguably 2005, definitely done by 2019) was polarized on issues of relations with the Palestinians. The third (maybe 2019-??) seems primarily polarized on religion-and-state issues, particularly the relationship of the Haredim with the rest of society.

I'd say the peace process was more 1990-2007, the late 70s and 80s was mostly economic issues no?

The late '70s and the '80s had no "real" ideological divide. both big parties offered a pretty similar agenda and governed in the same way. It was more of a blind struggle for power.
1988 was the first election the Palestinian issue was of importance, and in 1992 it was the key point.

[Hnv1]

Interesting:

Miri Regev in an interview says that the next Likud leader should be a Sephardi male\female (i.e., her) and if not than a new "Sephardi Likud" should form.

Interesting as it is pretty much what I anticipated for the second realignment we are saying and the third Israeli Party system. (that I think I published here a year ago?)

I don't think I've read it, and I'd be fascinated to. My impression was that the salience of the Ashkenazi/Sephardi split was generally declining over time, with a very large proportion of people now having ancestry from both groups, but it sounds like you don't think this is the case. (And obviously the premier Revisionist party having always had an Ashkenazi leader, but a primarily Sephardic electorate, isn't a state of affairs that can continue forever).

My vague impression is that the first Israeli party system (1948-1977) constituted the dominance of the forces that had won Israel's independence, and the second (1977-arguably 2005, definitely done by 2019) was polarized on issues of relations with the Palestinians. The third (maybe 2019-??) seems primarily polarized on religion-and-state issues, particularly the relationship of the Haredim with the rest of society.

I'd be interested in hearing your take. It distinctly seems to me like Tkuma and Likud are more Sephardic than Yamina and Tikva Chadasha, which are more Ashkenazic, but this is a vague impression more than anything else.

I'll have to breakdown my reply here:

1. There was a general feeling that the Ashkenazi\Sephardi was withering away in the past two decades. But the last 3 years taught us that is not the case. It was impossible to mistake the very strong Sephardi character of the pro-Bibi camp of Likud and Shas, as opposed to the very Ashkenazi nature of the current coalition.
To be more precise, there's a split between the Sephardi themselves. It seems those living in the periphery towns are staunch Bibists. While those closer to the economic singularity of Tel Aviv aren't. What made the difference in round II 2019, and 2021 was Gantz and then Sa'ar doing relatively well with the Sephardi middle class and upper class of Rishon and the "College Belt" south of Tel Aviv. While the periphery radicalized to the populist right.

The mixed heritage story turned out to be a myth with new census data showing the number of mixed people is substantially lower than thought, they are simply more concentrated in the big cities of Tel Aviv, Haifa, Ramat Gan, etc. But the periphery remained Sephardi through and through

It's not though, as a foreigner might believe, purely an economic conflict. It's now more of a culture war leading to para. 2 here

2. I identified the first political system as molded according to the structure of pre-independence Israel. The Socialist Zionist movement, the revisionist, the religious, and the general zionists. Starting from the 60's all four movements experienced change:
The Socialist Zionist movement unified into one party de facto with the Alignment.
The Revisionists morphed from being a party of intellectuals and liberals to a more populist party with Sephardi nature.
The general zionist movement evaporated. some of it became a core element of the new Likud, the other section joined Labour and the parties to its left. It's quite shocking how such a strong movement coming up to the '50s left not distinct traces in Israeli politics and culture.
The religious movement which was uniform in 48, split between the national religious and the Haredi elements going into the '60s

1973 war happened, a new middle class was forming, and then 77 happened. After a decade of an intense culture war in the '80s, our second political system was cast in 1992 election on the lines of attitudes to the Palestinian issue. Meretz was an unthinkable alliance in the '70s but was natural for 92. MAFDAL moving to the solid right only made sense. and the Haredi became kingmakers without solid identification.

But as the '60s had the origins of 77 within them, the second system had the origins of 2019 in them.  Following the second Intifada, the undercurrents of Jewish nationalism and populism that always haunted the Sephardi population became increasingly dominant. with no real Palestinian issue on the agenda and general uniformity between the left and the right on the issue the focal point of the political system moved elsewhere.
The Religious Zionist elite which had more in common sociologically with Meretz than Liikud was starting to show disdain to that alliance, while on the sidelines the new Haredi Nationalists became antithetic to the liberal state.
The Haredi parties found themselves with all the old great rabbis dead and a Haredi public which identified with the right completely and wouldn't agree to sit with the secular left.
And so many more phenomena.

This leads us to the third political system being born right now. The left-right divide is on the fabric of the state.
Likud, the Haredi parties, and the Haredi nationalists (Smotric and Ben Gvir) became unified with their hate for the liberal democracy. They simply despise the state and are looking for a Jewish ethnostate with no secular supreme courts and nonsense. Jewish identity is the issue.
On the other hand, the coalition parties although with differences generally want to defer to the liberal democratic model and the rule of law.
And this divide is very distinctively Ashkenazi-Sephardi (with minor exceptions to each)

As every party system had to create new parties I believe we will see a second realignment very soon

Where do Sa'ar and Lieberman come into this?

Also, is there much of a difference in the Yamina and RZP voter bases ethnically and socioeconomically other than the obvious stuff?

Sa'ar and Liberman are the right wing element of the liberal democracy wing. I can't see Yamina, New Hope, YB, and B&W going into the future without some mergers.

Yamina is the growing religious lite movement, the rich Jewish immigrants (the Raanana and Jerusalem Anglo-Saxons), and the moderate religious people with economic ties to the secular sector.

RZP is a rag-tag coalition of The Haredi Nationalists (mainly Ashkenaz) of their different bizarre factions, the Khanists who are mostly poor Sephardi led by Ashkenaz hate mongers, the fringe of the Haredi society (mostly from Shas). United by hate to Arabs, women, gays, secular democracy, the world.

[Hnv1]

First reading of the budget bill and ancillary legislation today. all will pass, on Sunday they will move to different house committees before the second and third reading in October\November.

Due to Labour and Meretz's intervention the poulterers were excluded from the agricultural reform and the new super-regulator had his wings clipped.

miscalculation by both as they will lose voters to YA next round.

[Hnv1]

First reading of the budget bill and ancillary legislation today. all will pass, on Sunday they will move to different house committees before the second and third reading in October\November.

Due to Labour and Meretz's intervention the poulterers were excluded from the agricultural reform and the new super-regulator had his wings clipped.

miscalculation by both as they will lose voters to YA next round.

Why won't they just pass the budget now instead of waiting for October-November?

As with any bill to budget needs to be discussed and approved by the house committees before it is prepared for second and third reading (mandated by the Basic Law). The budget is a massive bill with six chunky ancillary legislations, and parliament needs to over see it (there is a procedure to fast track legislation but it can’t be used with the budget).

This is just parliamentary democracy at play. Now the opposition can influence the process in the two big committees.

Btw the budget passed first reading yesterday with big achievements for the naive left. Bennett and Kara though will make them pay once the government is secured

[Hnv1]

Bennett's wager to go head-on third shot vaccines instead of lockdown is cautiously looking wise.

A bit of a bizarre situation is unfolding in the house. The opposition boycotted the vote on the house committee's composition, and the committee work so far claiming their proportional quota is too low (which is both true and false to a degree). As of today, they cannot take their allocated positions in the house committees anymore.
That means the budget bill will be discussed without the opposition's presence.

[Hnv1]

Wouldn't the time to come out with such an allegation be when the person in question is...erm...alive?

No, not necessarily

I just wonder the worth of such a public allegation if there's little to no way to prove its veracity.

Giving context to rumours about her, dealing with trauma or an uncomfortable past, encouraging potential other victims to speak out, illustrating what women had to deal with in the workplaces in the past and present, just for example

Yes - in some ways it's better to raise now rather than when he was dying.

I believe the allegations fwiw - whilst I would have voted for him, Peres was a huge asshole back in the 80s.  Rabin hated him for good reason.

I believe the allegations I just find any reason to judge people by norms that were not in force when the conduct happened. This was just what powerful men did back then and Peres hardly sounds the worst of them.
We have enough people who were outright criminals even in their time (Gandhi Zeevi)

[Hnv1]

Yuli Edelstein makes it official. He's running against Netanyahu for leadership of Likud.

Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s No. 2 in Likud, Yuli Edelstein, officially announced in an interview with Channel 12 on Monday evening that he will run against Netanyahu for the Likud leadership whenever a primary will be held.

Edelstein already told The Jerusalem Post in June that he was ready to challenge Netanyahu. But this was the first time he said it before the cameras.

No date has been set for the next Likud primary, and most of the candidates want to wait to set a date until after the Knesset votes on bills aimed at preventing Netanyahu from running again. But Edelstein said he wanted the race held “as soon as possible.”

“We will always stay in the opposition with Netanyahu,” Edelstein said. “Netanyahu has already tried four times, how can we succeed with him the fifth time? With Netanyahu we will never return to power.”

Edelstein placed himself politically to Netanyahu’s Right, noting that he was part of the group of Likud rebels that opposed withdrawing from the Gaza Strip, while Netanyahu voted in favor of the disengagement.

He's not going to win. Likud will need another GE loss before they either rid of Netanyahu\split