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Israel’s Foreign Minister Snubs Netanyahu Coalition Invite

Israel’s Foreign Minister Snubs Netanyahu Coalition Invite

By Ofira Koopmans, dpa (TNS)

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced Monday that he will not join Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, dealing a blow to the incumbent’s emerging coalition in the 11th hour of negotiations.

“We are going to serve the people from the opposition,” he said of his six-seat hardline right-wing Israel Beiteinu party.

Defying predictions, Netanyahu’s right-wing, nationalist Likud won 30 seats in the March 17 election, paving the way for him to serve a fourth term in office as premier.

The incumbent must present his government by Wednesday midnight.

Lieberman’s ultra-nationalist Beiteinu has long been considered a natural ally for Netanyahu’s Likud party in coalition negotiations, but Lieberman’s rejection means Netanyahu may be reduced to a slim majority of 61 seats in Israel’s 120-seat parliament, the Knesset.

Lieberman told reporters in Jerusalem that he will also resign from his post as foreign minister.

Netanyahu’s Likud party signed its first two coalition agreements Wednesday last week, with Kulanu and United Torah Judaism (UTJ). Lieberman cited promises made in those agreements as grounds for not joining the coalition.

The coalition Netanyahu was building with two ultra Orthodox parties, another right-wing party and the center-right Kulanu party of finance minister-designate Moshe Kahlon “is not to our taste, to say the least,” Lieberman said.

“This government has no intention of uprooting Hamas,” he said of the Islamist Palestinian movement in de facto control of the Gaza Strip, mentioning one reason of his dissatisfaction.

The next Netanyahu government would not be a nationalist one, “but the personification of opportunism,” he charged.

According to recent local media reports, Lieberman holds a grudge against Netanyahu, blaming him for an ongoing police investigation into allegations of corruption by senior members of his party.

The Likud is also negotiating with another ultra-Orthodox party, Shas (seven seats) and with the pro-settler, right-wing Jewish Home (eight seats).

Netanyahu still has a good chance of presenting his fourth government by the Wednesday midnight deadline. But if he fails, President Reuven Rivlin can appoint another lawmaker to the task of forming a government. That would then likely be Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog.

As part of the agreement signed last week with UTJ, a social reform program introduced with much fanfare during the previous government, will be canceled.

The program had included criminal sanctions for ultra-Orthodox Torah students who refuse to report for compulsory military service. It had also included a cancellation of other privileges and financial benefits for the ultra-Orthodox population in Israel.

(c)2015 Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (Hamburg, Germany), Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint session of the U.S. Congress at the Capitol on March 3, 2015 in Washington, D.C. (Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/TNS)

Late Night Roundup: Bibi Goes ‘Full Settler’

Late Night Roundup: Bibi Goes ‘Full Settler’

Jon Stewart highlighted the election victory by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and how it was built by going “full settler” with racist campaign rhetoric and opposition to any peace process.

Larry Wilmore looked at the story of megachurch preacher Creflo Dollar, who is openly asking his followers for $65 million so he can buy a luxury private jet. And so Larry is promoting a new Twitter hashtag campaign: #OnTheNoseName.

David Letterman showed an exclusive look at Mitt Romney’s training routine, for his upcoming charity boxing match (yes, really) with Evander Holyfield.

And in a wonderfully absurdist performance, Will Ferrell appeared with Jimmy Fallon, wearing a “Little Debbie” costume and proclaiming himself to be the new spokesperson for the snack cake brand.

Endorse This: ‘Celebrity’ Republicans For Bibi

Endorse This: ‘Celebrity’ Republicans For Bibi

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Today’s big election in Israel got some exciting news in the home stretch, with a late endorsement from America’s ultimate conservative (and evangelical Christian) second-string celebrity: Chuck Norris.

Click above to watch Norris endorse Benjamin Netanyahu — which even got a shout-out from the prime minister’s own Twitter account — then share this video!

Video via Chuck Norris.

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Election Race Tightens In Israel As Polls Show Netanyahu’s Party Trailing

Election Race Tightens In Israel As Polls Show Netanyahu’s Party Trailing

By Joel Greenberg, McClatchy Foreign Staff (TNS)

JERUSALEM — With less than a week remaining before Israel’s elections, the race appears tighter than it has at any time since the start of the campaign, throwing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the defensive.

Three public opinion polls published Tuesday and Wednesday show Netanyau’s conservative Likud party lagging by margins of three to four parliamentary seats behind the center-left Zionist Union alliance.

That gives Labor party leader Isaac Herzog, who formed the Zionist Union alliance with former justice minister Tzipi Livni, a fighting chance of unseating Netanyahu, who is seeking an unprecedented fourth term in office.

Analysts caution, however, that the key to Herzog’s success will be his ability to cobble together a parliamentary coalition from an unwieldy collection of smaller parties, some of which have openly rejected partnerships with one another. That test will come after the March 17 balloting.

Herzog on Tuesday said he was up to the challenge. “I’ve proven that I know how to bring distant people together, that I know how to make connections, and that I have the required political skills,” he said.

With both Likud and the Zionist Union projected to win no more than 25 seats each in Israel’s 120-member Parliament, Netanyahu and Herzog will compete to enlist enough smaller parties to form a majority in the legislature. In Israel’s political system, the leader with the greatest chance of putting together a viable coalition traditionally gets the nod from the president to form a government.

While Netanyahu is seen to have a numerical edge in forming a coalition with rightist, center-right and ultra-Orthodox parties who are his natural allies, a stronger showing by the Zionist Union may give Herzog a first crack at forming a government, drawing smaller parties to him.

Recent polls suggest that momentum has shifted toward the Zionist Union, reflecting what analysts say is a desire for change among many voters, even as polls show that more Israelis consider Netanyahu more qualified than Herzog to be prime minister.

Rafi Smith, a prominent pollster, said that Likud has been losing voters to other rightist and right-of-center parties, while the Zionist Union has maintained its strength throughout the campaign.

“The Zionist Union is drawing votes while the Likud is leaking votes,” Smith said. Still, he added, negative feelings toward Netanyahu had not been translated into “positive enthusiasm” for Herzog, which would catapult him into a commanding lead.

Lacking the charisma and dynamism of other politicians, Herzog, 54, a lawyer and former Cabinet minister, has worked hard to make himself a more convincing candidate to ordinary Israelis.

A scion of a prominent family, he is the son of Chaim Herzog, Israel’s sixth president, the grandson of Israel’s first Ashkenazi chief rabbi, and the nephew of Abba Eban, who as ambassador to the United Nations was considered the country’s most eloquent orator.

The release of the latest poll numbers have set off alarms in the Likud.

Yisrael Katz, a party leader and a minister in Netanyahu’s outgoing Cabinet, acknowledged Wednesday in an interview on Army Radio that “there is definitely a real concern, to be frank,” about the slide in support. A text message to Likud supporters warned that the party was in real danger of losing the election.

Netanyahu has ramped up the pace of his campaign appearances in recent days, visiting Jerusalem’s raucous Mahane Yehuda market, a traditional Likud bastion, and exhorting backers at party meetings to get out the vote.

The prime minister also has sharpened his rhetoric in an effort to draw conservative voters drifting to other rightist parties. In a Likud campaign message, he promised that “there will be no withdrawals” from the occupied West Bank and “no concessions” to the Palestinians. He later lashed out at what he called “a huge effort, worldwide, to topple the Likud government,” an apparent reference to support by foreign contributors for the campaign to unseat him.

Herzog retorted on Israel Radio that a rattled Netanyahu “is feeling pressured and shooting in all directions, making false accusations.”

“I will replace him,” he said, “and I will form the next government.”
___

Greenberg is a McClatchy special correspondent.

Photo: World Economic Forum via Flickr