So, Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with a full agreement to be signed after Israel Independence Day. Which means that Netanyahu will be PM until November 2021, and not October 2021 if the agreement took effect now. Already Bibi is one step ahead.
As always in these matters, there are winners and losers.
The losers are the people of Israel, they have or will have a government that they did not vote for.
The last election as the two before were between the Likud and Blue and White including the Lapid and Ya’alon factions. Today’s Blue and White is just Gantz’s original faction support with two defections from Ya’alon’s Telem faction. Other defectors from their home-base include Amir Peretz and Itzik Shmueli, and the much-traveled Orly Levy-Abekasis, who swaps parties with stunning regularity.
And together with the good citizens of Israel, democracy in Israel is also a loser.
Who wins? Well, Bibi for a start. He has been thrown a lifeline by the man who referred to him as divisive and dangerous to Israel and vowed never to sit in a government with him. Netanyahu, derided his new partner, as weak, slow, and entirely lacking in the skills necessary to lead the country. And yet, in the very best practice of policies, the two are bosom buddies. So much for the word of a would-be politician, who might just end up as a has-been in the coming months. Bibi, the master manipulator is not going to give up his seat without one hell of a fight. And now, thanks to Gantz he has all the time in the world.
Who else? Well, Litzman and Deri and their respective coherts are winners. They don’t care about left-wing or right-wing, they care about the secular and non-Jewish citizens of Israel. Their one single driver is money. As Yair Lapid used to say some years ago “show us the money”. In the case of Litzman and Deri and their gangs, toss enough money at them and like the whores they are, they will dance at any wedding.
That the proposed new government will have at first 32 and then 36 ministers and deputy ministers and cost the country ridiculous sums of money that could be spent on hospitals, education, welfare and dozens of other projects, is not of interest to Litzman and Deri, men of zero principles, nobodies who thanks to Bibi have risen far above their stations in life.
The decimated Labour party and its supports are also losers with the defections of Amir Peretz and Itzik Shmueli. Remember, not so long ago, Peretz shaved off his trademark mustache; he wanted everyone to read his lips - he would not sit in a government with Netanyahu as prime minister. Does he think people are idiots, have short memories?
But hey, Peretz wants to be president of Israel when Reuven Rivlin’s term expires in a couple of years. And to achieve that aim, this turncoat needs to butter-up to Bibi. Just wants to make you puke! As for Shmueli, he has shown where real his interests lay.
The two former Telem boys, now the Derech Erez faction and Gesher’s Levy-Abekasis will, its reported, be rewarded for their duplicity.
There was for me, one laugh this morning. According to an article in the Times of Israel, Miri Regev is slated to become the new minister of internal security, i.e. responsible for the police amongst other public services. What a scream. Knowing her abhorrence of Israel's non-Jewish population, you have to feel sympathy for them and what, if the appointment is confirmed in the coming weeks, will be Regev’s attudie to them. Also, have got to feel sorry for the senior police who will have to work with her.
Another article I read this morning, an opinion written by Garry Kasparov and published by CNN includes the lines: “All autocrats and would-be autocrats have the narcissistic superpower of thinking only of themselves. While normal people are worried about the cost in human lives or the economic impact of a crisis, an autocrat races to exploit it to his personal advantage. This ability to focus only on power, to consider actions that shock everyone else, is how would-be autocrats become actual autocrats.“
The lines were written about Donald J. Trump but could so easily have been written about Benjamin Netanyahu.
David Horovitz, the editor of the Times of Israel wrote in his analysis of the MOU collation terms “Set against such cynicism, Channel 12 political analyst Amit Segal noted late Monday that Netanyahu has now unprecedentedly “picked up a pen and signed off” on a date for the cessation of his prime ministership, having promised in an interview with the same channel three weeks ago that, if Gantz sealed a deal with him, he would “hand over power on the date that we agree — no tricks.”
Horovitz concluded his analysis with the words “we shall see”.
We certainly will.