Monthly Archives: February 2009

Two national unity governments for two peoples

February 22, 2009 By in America, Annapolis Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Much of the international community’s hope for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians currently rests on the formation of two national unity governments, one in Israel and one in the Palestinian territories.

Both the Israelis [represented by the Likud and Kadima parties] and the Palestinians [represented by Fatah and Hamas] are currently absorbed in near-identical processes to unite their two largest ideological blocs. On the Palestinian side, one of the blocs is represented by a terrorist organization that refuses to recognize Israel, disavow violence, or respect previous signed agreements. Its charter calls for the destruction of Israel, and the most it is willing to countenance is a long term truce, not a two-state solution. Hamas’ inclusion in a Palestinian unity government the world can engage with is by no means a foregone conclusion, nor is Israel’s engagement with such a Palestinian national unity government should it arise. Continue reading →

Some thoughts on the situation

February 16, 2009 By in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , 1 Comment

One week after the elections and what we have right now is a political stalemate without a clear outcome.

Right now we don’t have a government – neither Bibi nor Livni have enough MKs to form a government, since Avigdor Lieberman has not recommended either and who knows what he’ll do come Wednesday at Beit Hanassi. Both Bibi and Livni are trying to entice Lieberman into their camps with promises of ministries and freedom to vote on pertinent issues such as conversions and civil unions. Both Bibi and Livni have promised to topple Hamas once they’re in power – like Lieberman wants. Lieberman would prefer a Likud-led government, but he has problems with the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, which will fight him on state-religion issues and changing the electoral system. Shas’ leader has also called Liberman the Devil. Lieberman didn’t like that at all. The Likud is trying to square that circle now: how to give Lieberman what he wants on civil-religious issues while not radically changing the nature of the country’s religious establishment. Everyone in the big parties wants a Likud-Kadima-Israel Beitenu coalition government of 70 MKs . The fight now is over who heads that government, Bibi or Livni. Even after the elections it’s still Bibi or Livni. Continue reading →

No Minister Lieberman

February 12, 2009 By in Uncategorized Tags: , Leave a comment

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Israel Beitenu’s Avigdor Lieberman is the coalition Kingmaker, but can he translate this electoral power into an important ministry for himself? Lieberman’s decision on whom to recommend to President Peres to form a coalition: Bibi Netanyahu or Tzipi Livni, will decide who becomes Prime Minister, as they both need his party’s 13 mandates to boost their chances of swaying Peres, so his asking price is very high. Continue reading →

Livni, Netanyahu both declare victory

February 11, 2009 By in Uncategorized Leave a comment

LIVEBLOGGING FROM KADIMA ELECTION PARTY AT THE DAVID INTERCONTINENTAL

This is so typically Israeli. Nothing is ever clear cut. Don’t know if I was just at a victory party or a farce?

Who won?

According to exit polls, Livni’s Kadima won 29 or 30 mandates, beating Netanyahu’s Likud by 2 mandates. That’s still not enough to form a government as the right wing bloc is too large.

But that didn’t stop Livni from declaring victory in her speech.

So now what happens?

President Peres has to decide who he gives a chance to form a government.

We’re in for a very interesting period.

Kadima’s winning strategy

February 11, 2009 By in Uncategorized Leave a comment

The winning Kadima election campaign was divided into two sections: the organizational and the public relations effort.

The organizational team was subdivided into two teams: the months leading up to the election, headed by Immigrant Absorption Minister Eli Aflalo; and the Election Day team headed by Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter. Aflalo was tasked with printing 5 million Kadima voting cards, appointing Kadima officials at the regional and city headquarters as well as monitors at the polling booths, and procuring 10,000 umbrellas with the Kadima logo printed on them [evidently Livni didn't get one as she was caught in the rain during the day]. Aflalo’s team also produced and distributed fliers, posters, voting cards and other material to the Kadima functionaries across the country. The party had some 10,000 people at polling booths and Kadima offices across the country. Trying to squeeze every last possible voter in the allotted time, Dichter sent out instructions to make sure that all 10,000 Kadima people had voted. Aflalo’s mistake was that he put some of these monitors at polling booths far away from the neighborhoods they were registered at, so Dichter’s people worked that problem, and even made sure that the private security guards stationed at Kadima stations had voted. Continue reading →

Kadima wants Lieberman

February 11, 2009 By in Uncategorized Tags: , , , Leave a comment

LIVEBLOGGING FROM THE KADIMA ELECTION GATHERING

A Kadima official told The Jerusalem Post late Tuesday night that Israel Beitenu was more of a natural partner than the Likud, and that Avigdor Lieberman’s party was “not really in the right wing bloc.”

“They are not on the right on the issue of a two-state solution. They support that solution but they want a land swap in it. They are not on the right on state-religion issues and they are not on the right on the issue of changing the system of government. Lieberman is pragmatic and he can definitely be in the coalition,” the top Kadima official said. The official added that Kadima would like to form as broad a coalition as possible, but would settle for a Kadima-Labor-Israel Beitenu-UTJ coalition, which would give it about 63 Knesset seats. Continue reading →

Livni wins, but Kadima may yet lose election

February 10, 2009 By in Israel, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The outer wall at Kadima HQ on Gissin Street in Petah Tikva’s industrial neighborhood is still adorned with a very large poster of the party’s founder Ariel Sharon, but that could change soon. Inside the bustling building on Tuesday, a large Sharon poster hung across the main office room where dozens of party activists were working the phones on Election Day, checking in with their counterparts in the field at polling booths countrywide. Across the wall is an election poster showing Sharon on the one side, and Kadima leader Tzipi Livni on the other. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been wiped out of Kadima’s literature and PR material. The party that started with Sharon’s ‘big bang’ and struggled ever since through a barrage of sex scandals, corruption investigations, failed and unfinished wars, has come out the other side stronger that it was when Olmert took charge of the party in 2006. Continue reading →

The Undecided People’s Party

February 10, 2009 By in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Just a few hours to go before the polls open for Israel’s general election, our fifth in a decade. There are many people who won’t vote, a very small number who will spoil their vote, and a vast amount of people who will only decide who to vote for as they enter the polling booth, and even then not do so with a clear conscience. Choosing the lesser evil is not as thrilling as voting for someone or something you truly believe in. These people, about 30 percent of the electorate, are good, honest folk, who do want to throw away their right to vote just because, at this late stage, they still don’t know who to vote for. I hope they go out to vote and don’t stay home just because they can’t make up their minds. It’s like you know you should buy something with the gift voucher you’ve been given, and you don’t want it to go to waste – it’s only valid on one day every 2 and a half years [technically 4 but hey whose counting?] – but you’re not sure what to get with it. Continue reading →

An Israeli Prime Minister’s To-Do list

February 9, 2009 By in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , 2 Comments

The job that frontrunners Tzipi Livni and Binyamin Netanyahu are vying for today has to be the most difficult, high pressurized job on the planet. Ahead of Israel’s fifth general elections in ten years, one wonders what kind of person would actually want to be Israeli Prime Minister.

The person in that job carries on his or her shoulders the fate of a good part of the Jewish people — no more, no less. It’s a job in which miscalculations, even honest, well meaning ones, can lead to the loss of many of lives. It means having to withstand huge pressures from abroad, and relentless machinations and complaints from within. It means trying to rule unruly Jews — something that even tested the patience of a Moses. Continue reading →

Floating voters stay at home

February 8, 2009 By in Uncategorized Tags: , , Leave a comment

On Tuesday, Israelis will go to their fifth general elections within a decade, and it seems the more Israelis go to elections, the less they’re interested in them. In the first elections in 1949, 86.9% of eligible voters cast their ballots. In 2001 that number dropped to 62%.

See the entire voter turnout list here.

Added to those who won’t vote, there are still hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have yet to decide whom they’ll vote for come February 10, and given the vast array of parties (34) advocating everything from divorced fathers’ rights to marijuana legalization – as well as the lack of a single debate featuring the leading candidates – the choice may be far from easy. Continue reading →

Dangerous to be a journalist

February 4, 2009 By in Uncategorized Tags: , , Leave a comment

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) on Wednesday issued its report on the killings of journalists in 2008 with a warning that 2009 could be the deadliest year yet for journalists. A wave of killings in the first days of the new year have undermined hopes that the falling death toll recorded in 2008 was the first sign of a change in the pattern of killings which have risen dramatically in recent years.

“The welcome relief brought about by the decline in the killings of journalists in 2008 has been short lived;” said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary at a press conference in Brussels to launch the report entitled ‘ Perilous Assignments: Journalists and media personnel killed in 2008′. “Ten colleagues died in January alone and from all regions of the world either in targeted killing or as a direct result of their work.”

To view the report click here.

The IFJ recorded 109 deaths of journalists and media staff in 2008, marking a decrease from the 2007 all time record of 175 deaths. Continue reading →

Livin’ it up with Livni

February 4, 2009 By in Uncategorized Tags: , , Leave a comment

Literally trying to shake her ‘ice-queen’ image by appealing to young voters, Foreign Minister and Prime Ministerial Candidate from Kadima Tzipi Livni boogied and shimmied her way through hundreds of people at the trendy Haoman 17 nightclub in south Tel-Aviv late Tuesday night.

Wearing tight jeans, a white T-shirt and jacket, Livni, 51, entered the packed nightclub, waded through the crowd and made her way to the DJ station, where she made a quick speech, put on headphones and dedicated Mashina’s “Ein Makom Acher” [no other place] to those gathered, saying they would be the ones to bring change to the country. The party started early, at 9PM; usually, not even the bar staff are at Haoman 17 before 11PM. Livni arrived at 22:30 moved through the club, played a short DJ set, danced on stage and left. Continue reading →

Tourism in the footsteps of the Ten Lost Tribes

February 1, 2009 By in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Here is the final Bnei Menashe feature that ran Friday in The Jerusalem Post Magazine section, summing up my trip to North East India:

How did a few thousand exiled Jews from ancient Judea and Samaria traverse on foot across the entire Middle East, Europe and Asia to end up 2,700 years later in isolated border regions and backwater villages dotted around the globe from northeast India to Nigeria? How long did it take them to make the arduous journey, and what were their disparate routes? Did they stick together through thick and thin, or did they split up, succumbing to the merciless weight of exile in foreign lands? How many of them dropped off along the way, perished or settled down and assimilated with the local tribes across the oceans, mountains and deserts? Continue reading →

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