Letter to The Jerusalem Post: Shocked by Yaakov Katz's Op-Ed

Editor's Notes: Politicizing a health crisis

From the first few lines of Yaakov Katz's op-ed in Friday's paper, I was sure he'd mention the old standby "Don't change horses mid-stream," but instead he attacked the Likud and not Blue and White. Maybe Katz doesn't quite understand the seriousness of the coronavirus crisis that is endangering the State of Israel, and most of the world.

Compared to most countries, Israel is doing an extraordinarily good job in keeping things under control, bringing back stranded citizens and caring for the ill. This isn't a time to change governments, even if Blue and White had received many more Knesset seats than Likud. We all know that not only didn't they receive as many as Likud, but Gantz had promised not to add the Joint List to his coalition. The only ones playing politics in this time of national and international crisis are the supporters of Benny Gantz.

If Gantz and crew really cared about the State of Israel at this point they would have immediately gone to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and offered to join an Emergency National Unity Government in any capacity needed for the sake of the citizens and residents. But they haven't. They and their followers are the ones playing politics, caring only for their personal egos and ambitions. 

Batya Medad
Shiloh

Gantz-Arab Gov't, Not a Purim Joke

Benny Gantz making his big announcement
(yes, we still watch an old-fashioned tv set)

Things are looking worse and worse for Israel as Benny Gantz seems to be crossing his original "red line" in terms of counting on the extreme Left anti-Israel Arab party aka the Joint List to shore up his coalition. I don't know what deal/promises the backers/funders/organizers of Blue & White demanded of its so-called leadership, but Gabi Ashkenazi isn't letting principles get in his path to power.

MK Gabi Ashkenazi, one of the four leaders of the Blue and White party, expressed his opposition to the establishment of a minority government with the support of the predominantly Arab Joint List party in closed talks between the four leaders, Channel 13 News reported Monday.
However, if such a move is promoted, Ashkenazi does not intend to vote against it and prevent the establishment of such a government, the report said.

Some of Blue & White's Telem MKs are also having trouble accepting such a coalition, and their leader,  Moshe Bogie Yaalon wants them to resign, rather than stick to their principles.

Here in the Jewish Calendar, the Jewish World, it's Purim. Purim celebrates the story of how a Jewish woman, in disguise, ended up reversing an evil decree against the Jewish People.

Gd willing, we will see some Blue and White MKs act as true leaders and not followers. I just hope that that very male party has the strength, daring, cunning and strong principles of the very female Queen Esther.

Israeli Elections Again, Really?

Rather confusing political times here in Israel. Round three of Israeli Elections is getting even less press time and interest than the "redo" a few months ago.

On the whole, life is going on as usual, although we've been in lame duck or caretaker mode for about a year. Periodically there's some hysterical item in the news about how someone is suffering because without an "official" government certain budgets can't be updated, or something like that. I certainly don't doubt that the situation is affecting people, but we have MKs and Ministers etc.

Binyamin "Bibi" Netanyahu is still the Prime Minister and still makes government policy decisions. Wannabe PM Benny Gantz seems even less impressive as time goes on. And his backup squad can only be described as pathetic.

Netanyahu is just a few months younger than I am. Honestly, I don't know from where he gets his energy. I'm happily lazily retired. So far he seems able to go on forever, but when the time comes for him to retire, there are quite a few potential replacements from the political Right. The Right, as we'll refer to it-- meaning Likud -- see themselves as responsible for governing all Israelis, regardless of nationality, politics and religious observance. The Blue & White Party plus those further to the Left campaign hatred, and that is bad for the State of Israel.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a great fan of Bibi, Likud and Yemina, but as I've written previously, sometimes you have to hold your nose. The Israeli political system requires compromise and working as a team. It's the real world.

In a few weeks we'll be having elections yet again here in Israel. I vote Häagen-Dazs. I just hope to find a way to get some here in Shiloh. Gd willing, third time will be the charm. I can't think of the right joke to pin onto a fourth election.

Third Try Israeli Elections, I Vote Häagen-Dazs

Here in Israel, we've recently had two national Knesset Elections with the same unsuccessful results. The Israeli political system requires a coalition government if no political party gets a majority of the one hundred and twenty Knesset seats.

In 2019, neither the Bibi-Likud Bloc nor the Anti-Bibi Blue and White Bloc succeeded in negotiating deals that would bring them to that magic sixty-one-plus, 61+. So we're scheduled for a third round of elections in a few weeks.

Most of the public is rather nauseated, sick of all these useless elections. There's a saying in Hebrew if you meet someone a second time within a short period. I've written about it before, Knesset Elections Ad Nauseum.

פעם שלישית גלידה
Pa'am shlishit glida
Third time ice cream

My guess is that the winning bloc will be the one whose supporters are less jaded and bored. Whichever side can galvanize its voters to show up and vote has the best chance to win, meaning get enough MKs to form a ruling coalition. Polls are showing Likud behind, which suits Bibi's favorite "gevalt-we're losing" campaign strategy.

Right now the small satellite parties of the Right and Left are negotiating to run to form two larger parties, one pro-Bibi and one anti-Bibi, in order not to waste votes for parties that don't pass the minimum.

Elections are scheduled for March, 2020, the Jewish Month of Adar, 5780. Adar is traditionally a month of surprises, so there's no way of predicting results or what the results will result in...

ונהפוך הוא
Vinahaphoch huAnd everything will be reversed

So, beware of pundits. Gd has something up His sleeve for sure. That's the most accurate prediction one can make.

I'm a Häagen-Dazs fan. The ice cream brand was founded by good pro-Israel Jews, Rose and Reuben Mattus, who supported Jewish Rights in all of the Land of Israel. This is diametrically opposed to Ben & Jerry's which supports Leftist causes, including endangering Israel by being pro-Palestine.

Let's have a Häagen-Dazs party! How can we go wrong with good ice cream?

Likud Primaries Tomorrow, Not Good

Generally before Likud primaries, my phone doesn't stop ringing, and the messages come in like a tsunami flooding the shores. This time, until today/tonight, nothing.

A few hours ago, I even started reading the SMSs I had been ignoring, because I wanted to check if I was really a member of the party. I couldn't find anything from Bibi or Saar. Then I got two phone calls, one a recording of Bibi and the other a Gidon Sa'ar activist who hung up when I refused to commit to supporting him.

In the February Likud Primaries, less than a year ago, I voted in Jerusalem. Tomorrow I plan on voting here in Shiloh. I hope I don't have a problem. If so, they'll have to transport me to and from Jerusalem. In this weather I have no plans, nor desire to travel.

You may be curious about my choice. Who should get my vote tomorrow?

I'm very upset with Gidon Sa'ar for trying to replace Bibi Netanyahu at this crucial time in history.

Maybe Gidon Sa'ar is a good, honest man with the capabilities to be Israel's Prime Minister as leader of the Likud Party. I seriously don't like his timing.

I think Gidon Sa'ar would have done better to support Netanyahu against the Blue & White Party, which was patched together to demolish the Likud, not just be anti-Bibi. The instigators/backers/conspirators who are behind the establishment of Blue & White have changed the face of Israeli politics and government. They've headed their party with a man who has no political Knesset experience, wasn't a Knesset Member, wasn't a Government Minister. Especially since the Prime Minister needs to form and control a coalition of MKs of various parties, the "American style" of voting for the "head executive" is a recipe for disaster.

With all of my complaints about Binyamin Bibi Netanyahu, and I do have many, I think that this is the time to support him. Sa'ar should have shown party loyalty, rather than supporting the basic Blue & White campaign platform that "Bibi has to go."

If Sa'ar had made a point of saying that he came out of his temporary "retirement" to support the party leader, he would have shown more leadership and sense of responsibility. Don't forget that in Israel we don't vote for a Prime Minister. We vote for a political party, and the party that gets the most Knesset seats gets first crack in trying to form a ruling coalition.

IMHO and a half a century carefully following Israeli politics, I think that Gidon Sa'ar made a mistake. Win or lose, he didn't do the right thing, and win or lose it will come back to haunt him.

Let's just pray for the State of Israel. Gd willing, we'll survive this electoral mess.

The Prayer for the State of Israel

Bibi's Not Perfect, But He's Not Corrupt

What the Left, International Left to be exact, couldn't achieve in legal elections, they are doing by inventing crimes. My complaints about Prime Minister Binyamin Bibi Netanyahu are that he hasn't used his legal official position as PM to fully annex all the Land we liberated in the 1967 Six Days War, and he tries to please the world rather than act as a proud Jew. Bibi's attempts to be Centrist weaken the State of Israel. I want him to be a David not a Saul*. But these trumped up charges against Bibi are a coup, just like he claims.

I have no doubt that the funding, backing mentoring for Gantz's Blue and White Party can be traced to the same international Leftist conspirators who brought Obama to the US Presidency and funded the "anyone but Bibi" groups, V15 etc ad nausuem. Now, that's really illegal, but the judicial here and almost everywhere are terribly politically Left leaning.

This anti-Netanyahu coup is not only dangerous for the State of Israel, but it's dangerous for the world. There's no objective "truth and justice. " They've colored everything, spent the last century effectively taking over universities and media all over the world.

Someday it will just be chapter in World History, but it's hard to live through it knowing what we know.

Gd is The True Judge and can override everything. Shabbat is soon, and we certainly need a rest from the mundane world. Thank Gd for creating Shabbat.

שבת שלום ומבורך

Shabbat Shalom u'Mevorach

May You Have A Peaceful and Blessed Sabbath

*King Saul was from the Tribe of Benjamin, and his weakness as a leader caused Gd to choose David to be King and establish a dynasty.

Coalition News? Haven't a Clue, But Don't Like What I Hear

Maybe by the time you read this there will be a coalition.

Benny Gantz and crew are busy trying to tack together a ruling coalition leaving out the MKs voted for by most Jewish voters in the State of Israel. Yes, please think of it like that. Blue & White doesn't want chareidim, the "ultra-Orthodox/religious Jews. He's not crazy about my crowd either.

The Blue & White leaders use the term "unity government," but they're not talking real unity. They don't want to serve with the fastest growing (reproducing) Jewish community in Israel and in the world  chareidim, the "ultra-Orthodox/religious Jews. For some strange reason they prefer Arabs to very religious Jews.

Basically, the Gantz crowd wants to go back to the days before 1977, before Menachem Begin's becoming Prime Minister. For those twenty-nine years of Leftist Labor rule, the idea that Labor would ever be in the Opposition seemed preposterous.

Remember that it was during those twenty-nine years, certainly the first decade, when Yemenite and other non-Ashkenaz new immigrant infants and children were kidnapped and given to Holocaust survivors and other infertile European Jews for adoption. It was during that time when religious new immigrant children were sent to strictly secular boarding schools for "better education."

Blue & White doesn't want unity with Jews.

On the other hand, Bibi Netanyahu has been Israel's Prime Minister for over a decade, and he failed just as I predicted before he was re-elected. Instead of being a strong leader, Bibi restricts himself to what he considers the "Center." Instead of aiming/leading forward, Bibi's focused on the Center, and it's like trying to cut a tough steak with a butter knife.

That's why Israel hasn't won a war. Our Prime Minister is a "centrist."

Likud may be out of power for a few years. Gd willing the country will survive, even though the anti-chareidi utterings of the wannabes sounds too much like the sinat chinam, baseless hatred that caused our exile over two thousand 2,000 years ago.

Gd willing, if there's a Leftist aka Liberal government, it won't last long enough to do too much damage.

Quiet on The Coalition Building Front, Good or Bad?

Israel has been in the Election and Government coalition building mode for close to a year already. We've had two national Knesset Elections, and still Bibi's steering a "temporary," lame duck government.

After the first 2019 Elections, Binyamin Bibi Netanyahu, the sitting prime minister and #1 in Likud, was entrusted with forming a ruling coalition, because he appeared to be the only party leader with a chance. He failed. And Benny Gantz, head of the Blue & White Party didn't do what the wily and experienced Bibi would have tried. Gantz didn't work behind the scenes to craft a coalition and surprise the country with it at the Knesset vote to disband and call a second 2019 Knesset Elections.

2019 Knesset Elections Redo also ended with a tie. There are basically four blocs of Knesset Members:

• Right 
• Left 
• Hareidi (ultra-religious)
• Arab

Likud leads the Right, though it prefers calling itself Center, and Blue & White leads the Left, though it prefers calling itself Center. Please don't get too confused, because they define Center differently. "Center" is one of those code words that politicians think make them popular with citizens of all stripes, like parve food in a kosher kitchen which can be served with both meat or dairy.

Center doesn't work with me. I don't vote for anyone whose ideology is "get me elected." I must know what the person plans to do for the country, their vision, red lines etc.

Simply put, the Likud can work with the Hareidi, while Blue & White campaigned to delegitimize chareidim from Israeli society and government. Blue & White promised a chareidi-free government. Their stated reason is the lack of patriotism of the chareidi public and their relatively low IDF army service. They'd like the support of the Arabs instead, but truth be told, Arabs are even less patriotic and less apt to serve in the army. Hmmm... does that make sense?

The best way for one of the big parties to make a coalition is to get deserters from the other side. Or are we going to have elections yet again?

Israel's Coalition Woes, Bibi Passes The Baton

Since the Jewish Holiday Season, a three week plus marathon of celebrations, prayers, food and fasting, are finally over I'm back to blogging about Israeli politics.

Prime Minister Binyamin "Bibi" Netanyahu has celebrated his 70th birthday by announcing to the even more elderly President Reuven Rivlin that he just can't get the young Knesset party leaders to work together and form a coalition with him. Yes, Bibi gave up, at least for now.

Since Yvette Avigdor Lieberman has morphed from Right to spoiler-anarchist, there's no 61+ majority of MKs on either side of the political spectrum.

Even though Likud's Netanyahu and Blue & White's multi-headed leadership are all claiming to be hoping for a "unity" government, they are defining it differently. This may be a generation gap. Those of us that includes Bibi who remember the "national unity government" that Levi Eshkol crafted as Prime Minister during the security dangers/threats leading up to the 1967 Six Days War understand the term to mean "making a coalition with people/parties for the good of the State of Israel, even if you have major disagreements with them." Inviting Revisionist Herut Head Menachem Begin to join the coalition went against Labor's principles, but for the sake of the State of Israel, PM Eshkol invited Begin to join the National Unity Government.

Bibi's offers to Blue & White are similar to Eshkol's way back when, but unfortunately the Blue & White leadership, Gantz, Lapid and Ya'alon aren't in tune. They claim to want a broad coalition aka national unity government but insist that chareidim be banned from it. The truth is that they want a narrow Left-Center coalition which would even include Arabs, but not the more Torah observant Jews.

Of course, now that Bibi has given up and the ball is in Blue & White's court, there may be serious changes. The MKs who had pledged allegiance to Bibi may already be negotiating with Gantz and partners.

These coalition negotiations will definitely be interesting. And Gd willing it will be good for the State of Israel and the Jewish People.

May this be the dawn of a new age in Israeli politics/government

Is Bibi the Perpetual "Lame Duck?"

Things still don't look very good for the announcement of a new ruling coalition here in Israel. It seems that both of the two largest parties, the newbie "Blue & White" and the veteran Likud have too many non-negotiable conditions to work together. And unless one of the smaller parties "breaks rank" and makes a deal with the "other side," we'll be back at the blue box in a few months. Considering that there can't be any major change in the population I don't see how results will differ from the two stalemates of 2019 or 5779, depending on the type of calendar you follow.

Apparently Blue and White cancelled their meeting with Likud. So, either they have a surprise up their sleeve, or this is some poker trick.

What do you think?

I think that most Israelis are pretty disgusted.