So the new Knesset has been sworn in, the question is how long will it last?
President Peres has appointed Bibi Netanyahu as Prime Minister elect, it is now his responsibility to form a government with him as Prime Minister.
According to Israel's constitution they have six weeks to do so before the Knesset is dissolved and there is another general election. Bibi has been making noises to the effect that he would like his partners to be Labour and Kadima.
It appears that he is to be disappointed http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3676446,00.html , Livni, to her credit, has announced that she will not form a government with Likud and Bibi at the helm.
She is right to refuse to do this and here are my reasons:
If there is to be a government consisting of the Likud, Labour and Kedima it should be led by the largest single party in the Knesset (not to mention of those three) Kedima and Bibi should be the one to compromise on the leadership of the country.
The reason that Peres made Netanyahu Prime Minister elect is down to the fact that he conceded Bibi's argument that the Knesset was so rightist that only the Likud had the capability to form a government from the disparate elements in it.
Technically this is true, including the Likud, there are
The problem for Bibi is that by making this argument he has implicitly frozen both the leftist parties out of any possible coalition that he forms, this is because Livni could have formed a government with her at the helm had Bibi agreed to be a part of it but subordinate to her.
The people went to the ballot box, the people elected Kadima the largest party, if not large enough to form a coalition government around it, then it can not be in the government at all.
If Bibi thinks that 'only' a rightwing party can form a government then he will have to go to those very rightwing elements that he knows are so rightwing that they will unite the country, the world, in condemnation of Israel. These parties amount to 64 seats out of 120, this doesn't include Shas the Sephardic party who stands on a religious platform.
It is Bibi's nightmare to form a government with these radicals, barely committed to democracy and actively anti any peace process. Were he to form a government with any of these parties his government would be constantly on a knife edge, with any of these parties prepared to withdraw from the coalition if he moved in any way towards a peace process or withdrew any settlements.
My hope is that he fails to form a government and the Israeli people go back to the polls and do it again! There was over 60% voter turnout at the recent election the reason was fear, fear of a government led by Bibi. This surge of voters managed to tip the scale in favour of Livni, what ultimately ruined it for the Left was the split vote between Labour and Kedima which should be one party.
This was not the only reason (put both of them together and you still fall short of the 61 seats necessary to form a government) Kedima promised peace and instead embarked upon war in Lebanon and Gaza, the former diasterously and the latter pointlessly, Israel Beiteinu took people's anger and directed it, focused it towards Israeli Arabs.
We need a new election!
Friday, 27 February 2009
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
Elections?
I don't understand how Israel can claim to have a political system at all!
What they have is certainly democratic, so democratic that it ensures everyone no matter how idiotic or racist or bigoted or just plain old offensive their policies are they are guranteed a seat in the Knesset!
Who won in this election?
Oops no one knows,
who's going to form the next government?
Oops impossible to tell!
With Kedima on about 30 seats and the Likud on about 28 seats Tzipi Livni has come out on top, well whoppee, she has only won about 25% of the seats in the Knesset anyway and the Right wing block have got themselves 65 seats, enough to form a majority government.
What an uplifting thought that is, a goverment coalition with Bibi as the most left wing element!
So now what?
Barak managed to get himself an abysmal 14 or so seats which is pretty useless for a left wing coalition to be able to take effect. So here is what is going to happen:
Bibi is going to play brinkmanship for a week or two insisting that he is in fact the new Prime Minister of Israel and eventually when he has been offered enough power he will form a government of national unity alongside Livni's Kedima, Great!
So who really wins and what really is the outcome?
Well all the same people will still be in government, their positions will change yeah but the faces won't. Bibi is against a two state solution and Livni is in favour of one that doesn't leave much room for manoeuvre but it leaves alot of room for static and thats what Bibi's supporters really want. They are petrified of change, they are petrified of what something unfamiliar might bring, Bibi is attractive not because of what he promises but presicely because he promises so little.
And so another government of so called national unity is born where everybody gets to be in charge and no one has any real power to do anything.
Barak is no fool he was right (if supremely arrogant) when he blamed Israel's political system for these constant crises. It's about time something was done to ensure that the party that wins the election is the party that is the government rather than the party that goes hat in hand to all of the smaller less relevent parties pleading with them to come into the government.
What they have is certainly democratic, so democratic that it ensures everyone no matter how idiotic or racist or bigoted or just plain old offensive their policies are they are guranteed a seat in the Knesset!
Who won in this election?
Oops no one knows,
who's going to form the next government?
Oops impossible to tell!
With Kedima on about 30 seats and the Likud on about 28 seats Tzipi Livni has come out on top, well whoppee, she has only won about 25% of the seats in the Knesset anyway and the Right wing block have got themselves 65 seats, enough to form a majority government.
What an uplifting thought that is, a goverment coalition with Bibi as the most left wing element!
So now what?
Barak managed to get himself an abysmal 14 or so seats which is pretty useless for a left wing coalition to be able to take effect. So here is what is going to happen:
Bibi is going to play brinkmanship for a week or two insisting that he is in fact the new Prime Minister of Israel and eventually when he has been offered enough power he will form a government of national unity alongside Livni's Kedima, Great!
So who really wins and what really is the outcome?
Well all the same people will still be in government, their positions will change yeah but the faces won't. Bibi is against a two state solution and Livni is in favour of one that doesn't leave much room for manoeuvre but it leaves alot of room for static and thats what Bibi's supporters really want. They are petrified of change, they are petrified of what something unfamiliar might bring, Bibi is attractive not because of what he promises but presicely because he promises so little.
And so another government of so called national unity is born where everybody gets to be in charge and no one has any real power to do anything.
Barak is no fool he was right (if supremely arrogant) when he blamed Israel's political system for these constant crises. It's about time something was done to ensure that the party that wins the election is the party that is the government rather than the party that goes hat in hand to all of the smaller less relevent parties pleading with them to come into the government.
Wednesday, 4 February 2009
Impartial?
Here is an interview given by doctor Mads Gilbert a Norwegian doctor volunteering in Gaza when Israel was bombing it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWXyb2YxiVI
It doesn't look good! An impartial observer from a neutral country, a blood stained doctor telling the world that Israel is murdering women and children.
Here is the same doctor giving an interview to the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet
http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/2001/09/30/284907.html
For those of us who can't read Norwegian here is an article published today on Y Net outlining what it is he is saying:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3666579,00.html
In a nutshell the mad doctor is arguing that the 9/11 attacks are justified because the Americans are bombing innoent people around the world (needless to say when the attacks happened no one was at war with anyone!)
I can't understand why a twat like him would get such huge press attention from the mainstream media, don't they bother vetting who they allow on the air?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWXyb2YxiVI
It doesn't look good! An impartial observer from a neutral country, a blood stained doctor telling the world that Israel is murdering women and children.
Here is the same doctor giving an interview to the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet
http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/2001/09/30/284907.html
For those of us who can't read Norwegian here is an article published today on Y Net outlining what it is he is saying:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3666579,00.html
In a nutshell the mad doctor is arguing that the 9/11 attacks are justified because the Americans are bombing innoent people around the world (needless to say when the attacks happened no one was at war with anyone!)
I can't understand why a twat like him would get such huge press attention from the mainstream media, don't they bother vetting who they allow on the air?
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