Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on March 19, 2020

Sebastian Scheiner | AP

Sebastian Scheiner | AP

In this Saturday, March 7, 2020, file photo, Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz delivers a statement in Tel Aviv, Israel. Israel's President Reuven Rivlin on Sunday, March 15 said he has decided to give Gantz the first opportunity to form a new government following an inconclusive national election this month. Rivlin's office announced his decision late Sunday after consulting with leaders of all of the parties elected to parliament.

Binyamin Netanyahu, or Bibi as everyone calls him, is the longest-serving prime minister in Israels history and is still in office although he has failed to win three elections in a row. In June, September and again early this month, Israeli voters split their votes in ways that made it almost impossible to put together a new government.

Bibi declared a victory, but he has already failed to form a coalition with a majority in the 120-member Knesset (parliament). He failed despite promising to annex all the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Even the unstinting support of U.S. President Donald Trump, whose vision for a permanent peace settlement reads like a checklist of the territorial demands of the Israeli far right, didnt do the trick.

The major obstacle to forming a majority coalition is the fact that Bibi goes on trial later this month on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Even if he is found guilty, he could technically stay in office until his last appeal is exhausted, a process that could take years.

This prospect is understandably unattractive to the leading opposition party, Benny Ganzs Blue and White Party. Ganz will only consider a power-sharing left-right coalition with Bibis Likud party (which would command a majority) if Ganz gets to be prime minister for the first two years. Then Netanyahu could take his turn if he is absolved by the courts; otherwise not.

This deal is equally unattractive to Bibi. The safest place for him to be at the moment is in the prime ministers office. Stalemate. A fourth election looms because Bibi can go on calling them, and meanwhile the Israeli state drifts aimlessly: no legislation, not even a proper budget. What is to be done?

So a few days ago Benny Ganz broke the rules of Israeli politics by asking for the support of the Joint List, the umbrella organisation of all of Israels Arab political parties.

The Joint List wouldnt actually be in the coalition government, but the votes of its fifteen Knesset members would put the Jewish opposition parties over the top and make Benny prime minister. Presumably they would expect some concessions in return, which alarms those Jewish Israelis who see their Arab fellow-citizens as traitors and potential terrorists, but talks between the parties started Wednesday.

This groundbreaking deal may never be consummated the odds are against it but it is nevertheless a turning point. For the first time, the real Israel of today is showing through the cracks in its hidebound politics.

Five years ago, President Reuven Rivlin Ruvi to his friends made a startling speech in which he pointed out that barely half the children now in Israeli primary schools will grow up to be Zionists. Right down to the end of the 20th century a large majority of the population was secular Zionists, mostly of Eastern European origin, and everybody else was minorities, but that time is gone.

Only 38 percent of the children in primary school today are secular Zionists. Another 15 percent are national-religious observant Jews who nevertheless share the Zionist vision. But a quarter of the children are Haredim: ultra-Orthodox Jews who do not recognize the legitimacy of the Jewish state, regarding it as a rebellion against God, and another quarter are Arab and mostly Muslim. Few people in the latter two groups will even serve in the army.

These four very different tribes, as Ruvi calls them, have to share Israel, like it or not. Moreover, the one-state Israel that implies, extending from the Jordan Valley to the Mediterranean, will have to include all the Arabs in the occupied territories as well. Learning to live together, given all the bitter history, may be well-nigh impossible, but there are no other options.

This certainly not a vision that Benny Ganz shares. His willingness to admit Israeli Arabs to the countrys coalition politics is grudging at best. This is not the government we wanted, he said.

And yet, it might be the government that Israel needs.

Gwynne Dyers new book is Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy (and Work).

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Bibi, Benny and Ruvi: the future of Israel - Bangor Daily News

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