Media Summary
The Times publishes a review of Benjamin Netanyahu’s autobiography, saying “Netanyahu’s career, as this book makes insistently clear, is a lesson in success. In one sense — certainly in his own mind — that is because Netanyahu the son of Israel
The Times publishes a review of Benjamin Netanyahu’s autobiography, saying “Netanyahu’s career, as this book makes insistently clear, is a lesson in success. In one sense — certainly in his own mind — that is because Netanyahu the son of Israel, Netanyahu the politician and Netanyahu the family man is an astonishingly unitary individual. There are no divisions in his life. Born in 1949, a year after Israel’s founding, he has nurtured a single-minded belief that his interests and its interests are the same. As described in Bibi: My Story and in interviews and press conferences, only his wisdom has made Israel secure, only he rescued its economy in the early 2000s, only he was inspired to establish it as one of the world’s most technologically advanced nations.”
Reuters reports that a US legal scholar who has advised several Israeli leaders opposes judicial reforms sought by members of Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu’s incoming hard-right government, warning the country’s democratic credentials could suffer. A focus of the proposed overhaul is the Israeli Supreme Court, whose independence from the fractious Knesset parliament and occasional interventions in legislation Harvard University professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz has cited in his pro-Israel advocacy.
Reuters also reports that Israel’s incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed up enough parties for a coalition with a parliamentary majority on Thursday but requested more time to present the new government, citing a need to agree on roles for his designated partners. Netanyahu was tasked with forming a government after his conservative Likud and likely religious-nationalist partners triumphed in a Nov. 1 election. That mandate is due to expire on Sunday.
Reuters further reports on our main story on the clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, as a months-long wave of violence continued. The Israeli military said its soldiers had operated around the city of Jenin, which has been at the epicentre of many of the recent clashes, looking to arrest suspected militants.
Reuters also reports on Bezalel Smotrich, head of the far-right Religious Zionism party, saying “Israel’s incoming finance minister has said his economic strategy will be infused with religious beliefs laid out in the Torah, predicting that this would help the country prosper”. Smotrich said that “as finance minister he would delve deep into the inner workings of the economy. However, taking a step back, he said the Torah – the first five books of the Hebrew Bible – taught that obeying God brought prosperity”.
KAN Radio reports that Prime Minister designate Benjamin Netanyahu has asked President Herzog for a fourteen-day extension to his mandate to form a government. Netanyahu wrote to the President to inform him that there remained issues about how to divide cabinet and Knesset positions that have not yet been agreed on. Shas and United Torah Judaism still do not have a detailed appendix of positions, only a letter. Netanyahu wrote further that all the factions have demanded that complete coalition agreements be signed as a condition for dividing the positions in the government.
Yediot Ahronot adds that this was not supposed to be a complicated negotiations process with Netanyahu’s “natural partners,” as the Haredi bloc had previously remained fairly loyal to Netanyahu for five consecutive elections. Ironically, the largely-homogenous coalition is having difficulty agreeing on ideological matters, such as the override clause. While all of the coalition partners, including some members inside the Likud, have demanded the override clause become one with a 61-MK majority, Netanyahu, has since balked at criticisms of the proposal. Other challenges remain about the sovereignty question for Judea and Samaria, and the so-called “Deri law” requiring a legislative change for Aryeh Deri to serve despite his criminal conviction.
Yediot Ahronot reports that Netanyahu continued his talks with Likud faction MKs yesterday prior to assigning portfolios to members of his party. Netanyahu did not tell any of his party colleagues what positions they were expected to receive but heard their demands and cases for positions around the cabinet table. Netanyahu still holds quite a number of positions to share out to his faction members, including defence, foreign affairs, justice, transport, education, and the economy, as well as the Knesset speakership and more.
Further discussing Netanyahu’s difficulties, Channel 12 News adds that “Netanyahu thought that making Avi Maoz a deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Office would earn him some industrial quiet. Netanyahu thought Maoz would owe him for the promotion and would agree to maintain a low profile to retain his position. But Maoz is the opposite of the type of people Netanyahu has become accustomed to inside the Likud and his previous governments. Maoz’s goal is not only to educate schoolchildren. It is to educate the Israeli public. He wants to have influence over the discourse and to create a counterbalance to the legitimacy that the LGBT community has achieved. His goal is to get his Noam Party’s views into every Israeli home, and to get them there through the front door.”
On judicial reforms, Channel 12 News argues: “The proposed changes are intended to eliminate the influence of the judicial system and to lead to politicians choosing the judges, without any need to consider the positions of the jurists. In other words, the court will become just another arm of the government and the Knesset. For years MKs have been running away from regulating the power struggles between the branches of government like the plague. But this is not another reform: the combination of the plans, certainly if they are all approved in their extreme version, is actually a change in the system of government based on checks and balances”.
Maariv reports that “the opposition has begun to wake up and is forming a plan to sow turmoil in the coalition. Two senior opposition officials, Yesh Atid chairman Boaz Toporovsky and the highly experienced National Unity Party figure Zeev Elkin, are working together on a “plan for all-out war.” Maariv also reports opposition figures as having said, “The moment that Mickey Levy steps down from the rostrum and the next speaker takes the reins, the opposition will start stalling for time at every opportunity. We’ll make life tough for them.” Channel 12 News also reports that “Yesh Atid activists, on Lapid’s orders, will hit the bridges this weekend for their first demonstration since the election. It’s unusual for an incumbent prime minister to call on his supporters to take to the streets, demonstrating proactively against what is shaping up to be a government led by its radical fringes.”
KAN Radio reports that “Yisrael Diskin, bereaved brother and leader of the campaign by the families of the victims of the Mt. Meron disaster, said that an associate of MK Meir Porush had offered the families a payment so that they would not demand a commission of inquiry. Porush is set to become the minister of Jerusalem and Mt. Meron affairs in the next government.” KAN Radio subsequently released a recording on-air, during which a person is heard telling Diskin: “If all the families come and say that all these commissions of inquiry are unnecessary, I can arrange a donation of five or ten million dollars”.