Remember when last week IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari drew fire when he said the IDF can destroy Hamas militarily and kill the terrorists and dismantle the organization but it cant get rid of an idea, the ideology that is Hamas? 

Netanyahu is a loser. Netanyahu blinked first. Netanyahu miscalculated, multiple times. Netanyahu is slipping.  We beat Netanyahu. 

The Kohelet Forum is a right wing think tank that was basically behind the judicial reform. For ten years or so, from what I have read, they have been working the plan for judicial reform. Yariv Levin and Simcha Rothman have based their reform on the recommendations of Kohelet. 

Gadi Eizenkot, candidate for Knesset on the party list of Hamachane Hayehudi, related to the talk about demands to revoke the Disengagement law and resettle Gaza and the Northern Shomron towns with Jewish communities.

Over the past day and a half or so, ever since the violence erupted, or at least escalated, into riots around Israel and rockets from Gaza into Israeli cities, I have seen a confounding phenomenon that I am not sure I understand.

This evening MK Orly Levi Abuksis, currently a member of the unified list of parties Labor-Gesher-Meretz, upset a lot of people on the Left when she announced that she will not help Gantz form a government that includes reliance on the Joint Arab List.

People on the Left are upset, saying she has no right to do this, she is stealing their vote, this is not what they voted for her for, etc.

They have a right to be upset at her, just like every person has the right to be upset at any politician that lets him or her down - that does not live up to expectations, no matter how realistic those expectations were.

That being said, Orly Levi Abuksis did not steal anyone's vote. Perhaps had she made a specific promise on a given issue and went back on that with no reasonable explanation, perhaps she could be accused of stealing a vote. No matter who you might have voted for, it is extremely unlikely that you agree with that politician 100% on every issue. Whenever that politician does something you do not particularly agree with, you might accuse the politician of stealing your vote. That is not how it works - at least not in the political system of Israel. Perhaps if the politician made a specific promise that he or she reneged on, or if the politician did the opposite of what was "pledged" in the party platform, without a reasonable explanation, then you might argue your vote was stolen. In this case, Abuksis never made a pledge to sit with the Arab parties. Her deciding not to is not stealing the votes of her voters, and it is definitely not stealing the votes of people who did not vote for her and just don't like her decision. As a matter of fact, no government in the history of Israel has brought the Arab parties into the governing coalition, so unless she promised otherwise, which she did not, it is fair to assume that her default was to continue not sitting with them. No matter what other Left or social policies she might have spoken about and whatever other promises she might have made, it is fair to assume that her default was not bringing the Arabs into government, just like it was everyone else's default.

I get the disappointment. I get the feeling that she could help Gantz get rid of Bibi, at least temporarily, and she is not taking advantage of the opportunity. And that is fair. Going so far as to say she is stealing your vote by not doing something she never promised to do and nobody else before has ever done it, that is not fair. She does not deserve to be kicked out of politics because of it, though maybe she does for other reasons - I do not know. On this specific issue, Abuksis is not being unreasonable.

The news media are excited about a new poll that indicates that if Gantz, Yaalon, Lapid and the rest of the Left would all join forces and run together as a united party, they would defeat Netanyahu and the Likud. The poll shows they would obtain 34 seats compared to Likud's 27 seats.

Forgetting for a moment that polls are almost useless in Israel, as they are almost always way off, and only might be good for showing trends rather than predicting results, what I find interesting about this poll is the proposition of unity among the Left to defeat Netanyahu.

The problem I see with it, besides for the unlikelihood of it happening due to ego and other issues is that even if the Left does unite and gets 34 seats and surpasses the Likud... with what other parties will they make a coalition? 34 seats might make you the biggest party but without other parties to sit in a coalition with, they still cannot form a government. I am sure Shas and UTJ would find a way to justify going on, despite all their talk about not sitting with Lapid or Gantz or others who talk about Reform Kotel and drafting Haredim and chilul shabbos, but that still does not get them a coalition.. the other parties are all mostly to the Right and would not naturally be options, though perhaps another 1 or 2 small parties might succeed and sit with them.

So, unity might be great but I still do not see, not from the recent polls, how it gives them enough to form a government

the following ad, anonymously sponsored, has gone up around the country..



The ad calls for the politicians/parties on the Left to unite in order to win, or to not lose votes.

While the public, for now, does not know who is behind it, I suspect some clues might give us some direction..

1. Benny Gantz is pictured front and center - right in the middle. He is, for now, Netanyahu's main challenger.

2. Ehud Barak isn't even running, and while rumors have spread about the possibility of him joining a political party, it has not happened yet and there is no real indication that it will. He has spent the lats year or so very publicly calling for Netanyahu's downfall.

3. Lapid, Gantz, Yaalon and Ashkenazi have all been called Left by Netanyahu and others on the Right, though the reality about them is either different or ambiguous. Lapid is somewhere in the center but at least lapid's position can be debatable, as he has been in politics and his positions are known. Gantz has remained silent and nobody knows which way he leans or what his positions are no anything. Ashkenazi isn't even in politics, though he has been rumored to be considering joining the fray - though his positions are not known and one of the rumors had him possibly joining the Likud. Yaalon is a former Likudnik, though possibly more towards the Center, ie left end, of the party than the Right edge. Yet all of these people have been labeled as Left by Netanyahu, Likud and others following suit on the Right.

In my opinion we will eventually find out that this ad is someone on the Right, maybe even from the Likud or someone close to Netanyahu, throwing shade at these wannabes.

Another interesting thing about this ad is that in the signs that went up in Bnei Braq, the image of Tzippi Livni was left out. Livni's face was left out because Bnei Braq will not approve public ads bearing he images of women.

In response to this, Livni has put out a call as if she is a representative of all the women - Bnei Braq was not removing her but the faces of all women. As if she has been fighting the fight of all women and represents them. She's right that Bnei Braq erases all women from public spaces, as is done in many other places around Israel and even abroad, but Tzippi Livni is not representative of that and women who vote for her to fight this fight will most likely be sorely disappointed when she does not, as she has not.

The Knesset has done some work limiting the influence in Israel of foreign left-leaning organizations, mostly in the form of the funding allowed to receive from such organization.

MK Yoav Kish (Likud) has come up with another limitation on the influence of such organizations, and he has proposed it as an amendment to the guidelines of the Knesset Ethics Committee.

Kish has proposed to disallow the ability for MKs to accept flights to locations abroad when those flights are paid for by organizations that work against Israel.

Kish's goal is to prevent MKs like Ahmed Tibi and Hana Zoabi from having their flights paid for so they can travel to foreign countries and participate in protests and rallies against Israel. Taking away the funding for their trips would, theoretically, prevent them from participating n these events.
source: Actualic

Not relevant to this but interesting nonetheless, according to his Wikipedia page, Yoav Kish is a direct descendant of Rav Shmuel Salant.

The question will always be what organization is considered as being anti-Israel. A list of such organizations is prepared by the Strategic Affairs Ministry, and that is what would be used for this determination as well.

According to a report on INN, a group of left-wingers' are planning on joining the Likud in order to influence the direction of the party to lean more leftward, despite not having any intention of actually voting for the party in future general elections.

a. they will never get enough people to join the Likud to do anything significant.
b. even if they tried, the Likud could technically reject their membership, citing the clear lack of identification with, and actual opposition to, Likud policy. Labor just did that when Amir Chetzroni tried to join their party. Likud did it when Hatzel joined. It happens all the time, and would surely happen if the Likud leadership caught wind of an attempt at a hostile takeover.
c. Moshe Feiglin tried this from the other side, going more right-wing. After 15 years of trying, see where it got him and how he changed the Likud. He gave up.
d. it should be fun to watch

"somebody" placed a golden statue of Bibi Netanyahu in Kikar Rabin this morning. Eventually the statue was knocked down by the public before it was removed.

This picture of the statue of Bibi being knocked down reminds me sadly of the statue of Saddam Hussein being knocked down in Iraq. The comparison stops there though, as the statue of Saddam being knocked down marked the end of his reign of terror over the people of Iraq. In Israel, the leftists behind this are going to have to realize Bibi isn't going anywhere soon (for better or worse) and this statue is the closest they will get to knocking him down for a long time to come...

what a sad situation.

The offices of Btzelem went up in flames.

Immediately the most credible assumption was that ring-wing terrorists torched the place. Netanyahu and Bennet were clearly responsible for the incitement that led to it, and the media threw fuel on to the fire with their recent expose against the Leftist organizations.

No proof was needed. No indication was needed. Just a bare assumption that everyone bought.

It is sad that the Right is vilified so badly that such an accusation can be considered reasonable.
It is sad that the Right might be deserving, somewhat, of such an accusation that it can be believed so easily.
It is sad that the Left jumps to conclusions and accusations immediately, without first waiting for the details.
It is funny the way the internet "broke" in Israel today with everyone scoffing at this situation after the police decided the fire was caused by an electrical short.

a lot of people on the Right in Israel think that the media is naturally biased against them, and actively works against the Right and for the Left.

The media and the Left regularly deny any such bias.

It looks like the media meant it (even if they do actually have a bias that they do not see, they really think they do not), but the Left did not. the Left really thinks the media works for them.

The other day Ilana Dayan and the Uvda program exposed a couple of Leftists who work to prevent Jews buying land from Palestinians. Thye were recorded talking about an incident they were involved in in which they exposed a Palestinian who was selling land to a Jew and because they exposed him the Palestinian had been killed.

This expose caused a bit of a firestorm, as they claim to work for human rights and here they were bragging about the Palestinian they caused to be murdered... For a rare couple of days the Left came under fire.

Representatives of the Left fired back accusing Uvda and Dayan of unfair treatment, of brandishing this on the entire Left when it was just a couple of people (an accusation the Left doesn't mind ignoring when they brandish the entire Right as terrorists because of their few bad apples), of joining the crusade against the Left, of adding fuel to the fire against the human rights organizations, etc.

Ilana Dayan has now given the Left a reminder. Maybe it is not a reminder, but more of a notice they weren't actually aware of. Ilana Dayan said "we do not work for you". She was actually saying it to everybody - Dayan said "to the Right, to the Center and to the Left - we have news for you:  we do not work for you.."

Now, the Right never thought the media worked for them. The message was clearly for the Left, who did think the media worked for them and owes them some extra leeway not given to the Right.

So, it actually took a rare expose against the Left, and a bit of a tongue lashing for the country to know that the media does not work for the Left.

One expose doesn't prove a lack of bias, but it is at least a good start.

Yediot Achronot went all out, probably way beyond the norms of journalist reporting, during the recent elections, in their anti-Bibi campaign.

Yediot targeted anything and everything that they thought might make Bibi look bad in the eyes of the people. Whether it had to do with his politics or his personal life, or even not his own life but his wife's!

It seems the end of the election season has not brought an end to the yellow-reporting up the Yediot newspaper. I'd suggest that as long as it is anti-right, it is fair game in Yediot.

The following distasteful item ran in the gossip column today:




That is, Ayelet Shaked and her husband went to a hotel to celebrate her appointment as Minister of Justice, and her 39th birthday. To the disappointment of the other guests, when Shaked was at the pool she was careful to keep her clothes on.

I am surprised a leading newspaper would write such a distasteful comment, let alone about one of the most senior politicians in the country.

It goes right in line with what Yosef Partitzky said the other day, when he looked for something nice to say about Shaked and the only thing he could think of was to say that "This is the first time in Israel that the justice minister can star on the calendars that hang in garages" and then explained further that "...she is very beautiful – like many of the Reich's women."

It seems that as much as they are critical of people on the right and in the religious and Haredi communities about their stance regarding women, they do just fine on their own and far outdo anybody else in being demeaning and disparaging and insulting to women.

People on the Left have done a lot of complaining over the past couple of days about what they call Netanyahu's hate campaign that he waged in the final week of the election.

I would really just give them time to get over their loss. They are disappointed. They worked hard, but they lost. Defeat is hard to take. I can understand they are bitter, and if we just give them a few days, a week, things will get back to the normal level of complaining and hate rather than this elevated level we are currently at.

This morning I heard Tzippi Lini interviewed on the radio. She was talking about Netanyahu's hate campaign and how much damage he has done with it. The radio talk show host actually called her on it and pointed out that Hamachane Hatzioni and all the other organizations on the Left were campaigning all along also with messages of hate and anger and negativity, so it is not right to just blame or accuse Netanyahu of this.

Livni's answer was amazing. She was even willing to admit that their campaign was filled with negativity and hate (she was only speaking for her own campaign and not for the other associated organizations that ran their own campaigns).

Livni found a way, without even blinking to explain how their hate campaign was really different than Netanyahu's. Her hate campaign was ok because it is true. Netanyahu really is bad, she said, and did all these bad thigns to Israel. So it was ok to run a negative, hate-filled, campaign against him. Only Netanyahu has no right to get nasty.

And we can go back to others as well. Lapid ran a campaign that went back to being anti-haredi. Whenever possible he warned the country that Netanyahu will pay off the Haredim. The Haredim will reverse all his gains? The Haredim will steal your hard-earned money again. Even on election day, Yesh Atid sent out text messages to their contact list stating that people should get the vote out in higher numbers to counter the Haredim.

I don't like what Netanyahu said, but when everyone else is saying the same thing abotu everyone else, any one person's statement ebcomes less important.

They don't even see their own hypocrisy.

wow. they are really scratching the bottom of the barrel.

The latest attack on Sara Netanyahu is that she recycled bottles from the Prime Ministers residence and pocketed the money.
source: Walla News

Even if it is true (and I am not saying it is), and even if it is wrong, that is really scraping the bottom of the barrel, as an attack on a prime minister.

with all the election talk, parties splitting, parties uniting, blocs forming, candidates going this way or that, one thing in particular is confounding me...

When the pundits are counting up the blocs to see who has the edge, they keep leaving the swing parties in the middle and adding them to each bloc to show who has a possible chance at forming a government.

Somehow, Avigdor Lieberman's party, Yisrael Beyteynu, keeps getting mentioned as one of those swing parties that can go either way. And that makes me scratch my head.

Didn't the Left hate Avigdor Lieberman until recently and consider him an extremist? He used to support transferring the Arabs out of Israel. He was the guy they pointed at and called an extremist. They investigated him for 17 years, and ramped it up every time he seemed to be about to break through some ceiling. And now they are courting him? He is considered a possible coalition partner for the Left?

It just makes me scratch my head.

This initiative is just too funny. The news is reporting that there is an initiative among the "Center" and "Left" of politics to, assuming they don't form a bloc together, at least campaign with a unified message of anybody but Netanyahu and committing to not sit in a theoretical future Netanyahu government.

Fair enough. What's funny about it is that if you actually read the articles you'll discover that the initiative was initiated by Meretz while Livni and Lapid have yet to announce any position on the matter. Yitzchak Hezog, head of Labor, even refused to say he wouldn't sit with Netanyahu.

So, 1 party that won't sit with Netanyahu anyway, except perhaps in a situation of national emergency government, has a brilliant campaign plan of announcing that they won't sit with Netanyahu. I think they should also get the Arab parties to join as well. That might really make the campaign a smashing success.

According to this report on Mynet, more and more Haredim are turning to extreme leftist organizations to help them arrange exemptions from IDF service.

Since the Tal Law has been revoked all the thousands of yeshiva bochurim and avreichim have been in limbo. The deferral system does not work as it used to, and no new system is yet in place. With nobody in their natural camp to turn to for assistance, some have begun turning to secular leftists and anarchists for assistance in getting exemptions from army service. And the have been more than happy to help.

The extreme leftists and anarchists say they do not agree with the Haredim on some issues, but getting out of army service is something they agree on.

The leftists don't go to yeshiva, but find other ways of getting out of the army. They use ideology such as pacifism as a tool, or getting categorized as inappropriate for army service in order to get out of it...

It does not say in the article what they do to get out of the army service. The old method used to be acting crazy or mentally unstable, or acting as if one had a particular affinity for killing. People generally avoid these methods nowadays because it always leaves a mark on one's public record that he has been deemed as mentally unstable or dangerous. They must other methods employing more of an ideological bent towards pacifism.

The truth is that it is about time. Some politicians have picked on the Haredim and their avoidance of the army service, while ignoring the others who also get out of army service. Such as the Arabs and the leftists. I know you have to start somewhere, but there has been no attempt, to date, to really make the shivyon bnetel issue really about equal service - no attempts at all to solve the issue for the Arab community or the leftists, which makes it seem as more than "you have to start somewhere" and more targeted at the haredim.

Granted, a solution needs to be found about the haredim and army service, but it should not be called "equality" when it really isn't.

So, with the haredim being targeted, it is not surprising that they are finding ways that society considers more acceptable. At the end of the day, they don't really care what the reason given is, they just want out of the army service. If they cannot do it using "Torah learning" as the reason, they will do it other ways.

I have said for years that the yeshiva guys who really want out would be smarter to use other reasons for getting out rather than the Torah issue. And it works better as part of our society as well. First of all because of the dictum of not to use the Torah as an ax to chop with, but also because when using the methods of the leftists, the politicians will not be able to differentiate any longer.

The only thing is, that the leftists might eventually regret helping the haredim use their methods. Now that the haredim are piggy-backing off the leftists, there is a good chance that will be the next group the politicians come for to close those loopholes. The leftists, by partnering with the haredim, are putting their own avoidance at risk.

this is interesting because it is unusual. A Haredi woman from Elad, Michal Tchernovsky, spoke at a conference of leftists. She spoke about how sitting together in the opposition is an opportunity for the Haredi community and the community of leftists to come closer together. She herslef is a leftist, and she says so publicly.