Cogito Ergo Non Serviam

Netanyahu Makes Deal Moving Israel Further to Right

Since the last Israeli election, the nation has been led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who commands just 61 of the 120 votes in the Knesset. A year ago, when he assembled the current coalition, he said, "Sixty-one is a good number. Sixty-one plus is a better number,"signalling that he would be seeking ways to add to his majority. This week, he accomplished that by added Avigdor Liberman's Beiteinu Israel party and its six votes. The price was Mr. Lieberman's appointment as Defense Minister and a move even further to the right. The unlikely prospect of some kind of peace in the region has grown more distant.

It isn't a done deal yet, but Israeli Defense Minister Moshe "Bogie" Ya'alon resigned this morning, not only from the cabinet but also from the Likud Party -- and consequently from the Knesset. "I have lately found myself in difficult moral and professional controversies with the Prime Minister, a number of other ministers, and some members of Knesset," Ya'alon said at a press conference after his announcement. "To my great sorrow, they have taken over Israel, and the Likud movement, dangerous and extremist elements, that upend the house and threaten it. This is not the Likud movement that I joined."

Mr. Netanyahu misdirected the pundits, press and people by talks with the center-left Zionist Union party, which has 24 seats and is led by Isaac Herzog. A deal with them would have made the Netanyahu government almost unassailable in the Knesset with a very comfortable majority. For the last few days, the speculation on just what the deal would look like was the talk of the chatterati.

Reuters recounts, "But in a surprise move, Lieberman, who declined to join the government straight after the 2015 election, convened a news conference on Wednesday to say he was now ready to negotiate an agreement that would bring his party's six lawmakers into the coalition.

"Soon, Lieberman's car was pulling up to the prime minister's office, where the two - who have a history of testy relations - launched talks expected to be wrapped up before the weekend. Netanyahu met Lieberman's demand to be named defense minister, political sources said.

Herzog swiftly curtailed his own negotiations and said that bringing Lieberman in would result in government policies 'on the brink of madness.' Herzog's future is now uncertain.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked of Jewish Home, said, "Avigdor Lieberman is part of the nationalist camp, and I think the coalition, together with him, with 67 legislators will hold together until 2019," when Israel's next election is due. If Mr. Netanyahu remains in office until July of that year, he will be Israel's longest-serving PM.

CNN notes that outgoing Defense Minister Ya'alon has, in recent weeks, "encouraged military generals to speak out about moral issues and the rules of engagement, even if they did not have the support of politicians."

Meanwhile, Mr. Lieberman, who was persona non grate in Washington while Foreign Minister, has questioned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' commitment to peace and the loyalty of Israel's Arab minority, has proposed bombing the Aswan Dam in the event of war with Egypt, and has proposed exchanging Jewish settlements in the West Bank for Arab-Israeli towns within Israel in any final settlement of the territorial issues Israel and its neighbors face.

While this journal agrees with very little the Palestinian Liberation Organization has to say, Wasel Abu Youssef, a member of the executive committee of the PLO, was entirely accurate in saying, "It's already an extremist government and now it will get even more extreme. This government will block any horizon for peace." Preventing peace is how the leaders of both sides have stayed in power as long as they have.

When it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, it is not possible to be excessive in one's cynicism.

© Copyright 2016 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.



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