đŸ‘‰Another change post-elections is the United Torah Judaism party (UTJ) declining
to support Netanyahu, removing seven seats from the Likud coalition.1
IT SHOULD BE NOTED these political machinations occur during the
legislated process whereby Israel’s president, Issac Herzog, consults with all
parties to decide which group has the best chance of forming a stable majority
in parliament; the recent Israeli elections were inconclusive, leaving no party
with enough seats to form a majority. Netanyahu’s Likud party lost nine seats in
the general election leaving it with fifty-three—the most of any other party
but well shy of the 61 necessary to form a majority in the 120-seat parliament.
Anyway you look at it, Netanyahu has lost the confidence of a considerable
portion of the Jewish Israeli vote. Corruption scandals and questions over what
Netanyahu knew about the October 7/23 attacks dog the PM. Eisenkot’s coalition
had 48 elected parliamentarians, and with the addition of 19 “Arab” party
members it has 67 seats.
But, Herzog’s consultations continue, with a decision coming next week from
the Israeli president as to which coalition forms the next government.2
THE SURPRISE SHOWING of the two Palestinian Israeli parties (nearly
doubling their previous seat numbers from 10 to 19) was because this time there was a
much larger turnout of Palestinian Israelis voting. How they can work with
Eisenkot’s coalition after Netanyahu is ousted is
a good question. Israeli politics has gone so far to the right and the tenets of
Zionism are so mainstream, I personally don’t see much legislation the Palestinian-Israeli parties will be
able to swallow. But it is a change, a positive one. Let’s wait and see. Let's see if any of their members gains a cabinet post. At the very least, different voices will be heard from the government in the poisionous echo chamber known as the Israeli Knesset.
CHEERS, JAKE. _____________________________________
* His policies on Gaza, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria
between 75-80% of Israels think he is doing a fine job. If only he wasn’t such crook
and dissembler! That’s the problem. But genocide? Ethnic cleansing? Hey, what’s wrong with that?
1.The UTJ’s withdrawal from Netanyahu’s coalition was
triggered because his government was deciding whether to conscript the nearly
1.4 million ultra-orthodox Jews, who have been exempt from military service
since 1948. (In 2024, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled their blanket immunity
from mandatory military service was illegal.) As an aside, the nearly 2.1-million Palestinian Israeli citizens are also exempt from military service.
2. Before everyone starts doing a happy dance over the prospect of Benjamin
Netanyahu being ousted as Prime Minister, don’t count the wily political veteran
out just yet. As well, a Gadi Eisenkot government, should he succeed in holding
his alliance together in the following weeks and months, will not usher in a
sea change in Israeli politics. Eisenkot, after all, is a former general and IDF
Chief of Staff (2015-2019) and the author of the “Dahiya Doctrine” that calls
for rapid, over-whelming and disproportionate force against civilian
infrastructure and urban centres in combatting non-state actors like Hezbollah
and Hamas. We’ve seen what his doctrine has done in Gaza and southern Lebanon
recently, as well as in the West Bank. What the two Palestinian-Israeli parties
in Eisenkot’s coalition will have to figure out is how to work with such Zionists.
 |
| "You'd better believe it's time for a change, mother fucker!" |
No comments:
Post a Comment