We never did anything major during the "Nine Days", and generally not even during the "Three Weeks". Not major purchases, not trips or major events. It was always considered something that would bring "bad luck" of sorts. I remember when someone close to the family bought a car during the Three Weeks - family members pleaded with her to wait, but she bought the car. That car was in a number of accidents, besides for often breaking down. While it might have just been a lousy car and she a lousy driver, family members always blamed it her having bought it during the Three Weeks.

Yitzchak Herzog won the presidency with overwhelming support among the Knesset members. Herzog has been campaigning for years for this position, so he had a  massive head-start, with many political deals and arrangements over the years, giving Miriam Peretz not much of a chance. He handily defeated her, winning 87 of the 120 votes.

Mazel Tov to President of Israel Yitzchak Herzog.

It looks like the elections for President of the State of Israel is going to come down to the two candidates of Miriam Peretz and Yitzchak Herzog. Nobody else seems to be successfully running. Yehuda Glick just dropped out and Yehoram Gaon did not get enough signatures to be officially nominated.

Ruby Rivlin is finishing his term as President of Israel. The Knesset today announced that elections for President will take place on June 2, 2021. Just over 3 weeks from now.

whoa!

We are full of the unprecedented. These are surely most unusual times.

The way it works is that the President decides which candidate should be given the mandate, that candidate tries to forma  government in 28 days, and almost always then asks for the allowed 14 day extension. if the candidate is unsuccessful after the 14 days, the President then hands the mandate over to another candidate for 28 days, with the possibility of a 14 day extension if necessary. If still no government coalition is formed after all that, the President can give the mandate to the Knesset for the MKs to decide, or he can call for new elections.

MK Benny Gantz officially requested from the President an extension to his mandate to try to form a governing coalition. The extension is almost standard procedure, and it is almost always requested and is always granted. It it basically a formality.

Yet President Rivlin said no to Gantz. He said under the current circumstances, we do not have time to waste, unless it is clear that this time will actually bring a government.

Rivlin then also said that he would not pass the mandate from Gantz to Netanyahu, but would pass it tot he Knesset for 14 days, and if there is still no government it would then go to elections.

I have no idea how elections will happen under this Corona, and partial lockdown, environment, but that is besides the point.

Rivlin set two precedents today. He said no to an extension request, and he said he won't pass it over to Netanyahu.

Rivlin might still be upset at Netanyahu for circumventing him by dissolving the Knesset two elections ago and going to elections, or for other reasons. With Netanyahu now at 59, due to Orly Levi Abuksis crossing lines to the Right and saying she now supports Netanyahu for PM, this is very strange, as he has a reasonable chance at forming a government.

That being said, elections seems to be handing the premiership to Netanyahu. As of right now, there is nobody to run against him. With Kachol Lavan dismantled and the Left in disarray, the only way Netanyahu can lose this is if the public gets really upset at Netanyahu's handling of the COVID-19 situation, and if some of the UTJ voters refuse to vote UTJ for their part in Corona (I have heard people from Bnei Braq upset at the party reps for basically being silent in the face of their crisis). Even then it would have to be a major rebellion of voters for Netanyahu to lose an election now.

There is also the possibility that in return for Netanyahu playing Gantz for the fiddle and wasting his time and stringing him along, Gantz might fulfill his threat and bring some anti-Bibi laws to vote and prevent Netanyahu from being able to form a government, elections or not.

Whatever happens next, Ruby Rivlin is already President Precedent.

Amir Benayoun is under fire for his latest music.

After the terror attack in Jerusalem, Benayoun recorded the following song, called "Jewish blood":



That didn't get him in trouble, though. After that he recorded the following song called "Ahmed loves Israel", about Arab terrorism after taking advantage of the State and receiving all the benefits of our State:



Some, including Professor Kremnitzer, are claiming that Benayoun's song is incitement to racism and to attacks on Arabs.

Benayoun flipped out during an interview in which he was thusly accused. He called the interviewer a hypocrite and said by the same argument she is using against him, she is a murderer because she is inciting people to attack him..:


In response to the accusations and attacks, Benayoun went and recorded the following song, called "Enemy of the State" about how we turned into a murderer:


the response was fast in coming, with the Director fo the President's House canceling Benayoun's upcoming performance that was set to take place next week in front of the President.because his words, though coming from emotion and pain, "do not help calm things down, to put it mildly", and does not fit in line with the work of the President to lower tensions.

Benayoun responded by saying he respects the presidency and loves Rivlin and is happy he is the President of Israel, while Minister Uri Orbach said if Benayoun's performance is canceled, he will reject his invitation tot he event.

I am impressed with Benayoun's ability to be inspired and produce a song so quickly after an event, with regularity. Considering that he did not call for murder or to attack Arabs, but just spoke of what had happened and what the atmosphere is, I am surprised he is being treated the way he is. It seems people cannot talk about arabs in Israel anymore and what they do without it being called incitement.

MKs Danon and Lipman Respond to Rivlin's Victory

 

Congratulations Ruby Rivlin, 10th president of Israel.

Serve and represent Israel with honor and dignity.

It is no secret that I have had many doubts about the necessity of the institution of the presidency (and I still have them) - I considered perhaps not participating in the vote at all... I considered that a president from the Likud would be just like the Likud - apologetic, and in real-time would look for legitimacy by moving to the Left... I tried to advance the candidacy of the person who gave up of himself more than anybody else - Jonathan Pollard, but he did not want it...

  -- MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud Beyteynu)

I don't like what just happened in the presidential race.

I personally think the entire position, and thereby the election for it, should be canceled. As long as it is not, I don't support any candidate, though not because I am protesting the position but because we common-folk don't get to vote anybody. It is a vote only for MKs, and they don't vote based on qualifications, but on political deals.

Regardless of that, I don't like the way this goes down. Someone does not like one of the leading candidates, so an investigation is opened. Maybe he did what he is accused of, and maybe he did not. We won't know until much later, but in the meantime his candidacy is killed.

If whomever gave the police the information has been sitting on it for years, the police should not act on it until after the elections. The police should not be the ones to decide who has the right to run and who does not. If he would have already been under an ongoing investigation, that would be a different story - if he was under investigation and chose to run anyway, he would have taken the risk of the investigation going any which way..

but to open an investigation just a few days before the election? That is just not right.

It seems that PM Netanyahu is considering making changes to the Presidential system in Israel - specifically regarding how the President is elected.

Currently the President is elected by a vote among Knesset members. The elected President serves a 7 year term, and cannot run for a second term.

With President Shimon Peres approaching the end of his term, elections are nearing. There are many candidates vying for the position, with more  people regularly announcing candidacy.

According to reports, Netanyahu wants to change the law to move the vote from the Knesset and to the people. Doing this so close to the end of Peres's term can be a problem, so Netanyahu is considering to also adjust the law to extend Peres's term for an additional year, considering the circumstances.

For his part, Shimon Peres says he is leaving office in June, at the end of his term, and is not interested in an extension. I am sure, though, it would not be too hard to convince him to stay on for another year, if that's how things would play out.
source: Walla News

Moving the voting for president out of the Knesset and to the general public is a fairly good idea, I think. The current system politicizes a position that is supposedly meant to be apolitical. There is a lot of horsetrading going on to shore up support, and support is often divided between right and left. Candidates also only have to persuade a limited number of people, people who might owe him favors or to whom he might owe favors (before or after). Moving it to the people will make the position far more representative, and might even make it slightly less political. A candidate will really have to run on his achievements and good name.

Moving the elections to the people will also eventually require making election day into a vacation day. Elections for Knesset are a vacation day. Municipal elections are on the path to being made into a vacation day. It only makes sense to also do so for presidential elections.

The truth is though, in my opinion. that once changes are being made to the presidential system, we'd all be better off if they would just shut the doors on the entire thing. Get rid of the Presidents office and position. Cancel the whole thingIt is an extremely superfluous position. We really do not need two heads of state, with all the various expenses and budgets they require.

A frightening story, for anybody who eats food made by someone other than himself or herself, has been in the news the past couple of days.

There was a suspicion that in the meal catered in the President's House on Yom HaAtzmaut for soldiers the meat was all non-kosher meat.

The suspicion is that the caterer, a company called Pri Haaretz, had a problem with their meat spoiling, leaving them with no food to serve at the upcoming event. Supposedly, the caterer went to Abu Ghosh that morning and purchased non-kosher meat which was then prepared and served at the event in the President's House.

The incident was initially reported by Maariv newspaper on Friday. In light of the report, the Rabbanut fraud division opened an investigation.

Pri Haaretz has denied the claims, saying everything was supervised, there was even a mashgiach on site at the President's House throughout the event, and all is kosher.

After the investigation, Rav Rafi Yohai, head of the fraud division in the Rabbanut, has said that the investigation discovered security cameras in which a chef of Pri Haaretz is seen buying meat in Abu Ghosh. Rav Yohai said that when the mashgiach was presented with the situation, he was shocked as he had initially said that all the meat they use comes from the same place. he obviously was not aware that they brought meat in secretly from somewhere else.

As a result of the investigation, the Rabbanut has pulled the hechsher from the caterer, and is now considering what further steps can be taken. Legal counsel of the President's House also issued a harsh statement against Pri Haretz and says they are looking at what actions they can take against Pri Haaretz.

There are two perspectives running through my mind:

1. If the mashgiach is not checking every box of meat and controlling the meat coming in and going out, the situation is ripe for fraud. And this, many say, is one of the things seriously wrong with the Rabbanut kashrut. There is too much room in their system for allowing fraud and deception.
2. The opposite - mistakes and fraud happen under every kashrus organization under the sun. It is a fact of life. At least in the Rabbanut there is transparency. When something like this happens, everyone knows about it, the results are public and people are made aware of the issues. That transparency means that the Rabbanut will work to seal the breach and make sure it does not happen again.  When it happens under the watch of private kashrus organizations, one has no idea that anythign happened, they answer to nobody and report to nobody, and who is ever to know if the breach was fixed.

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In a shocking turn of events, PM Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly been raising the possibility of promoting and supporting Stanley Fisher, currently president of the Bank of Israel, as the next President of Israel when Shimon Peres will finish his term in 2014.

This is a blow to Speaker of the Knesset Ruby Rivlin who ran against Peres last time and was looking for widespread support for his future candidacy in the upcoming selection for president. Netanyahu promoting an alternate candidate is a big blow.

I do not think Fisher is the right man for the job, at this time. As great as he is as an economist, and perhaps in his demeanor and wisdom, he simply has not been part of Israel for long enough. Can he really know Israel well enough in the short time he has been here that he could represent Israel at that level? Personally, and I like Fisher a lot, I doubt it, and I do not consider it a good move.

Everyone is up in arms that former President Moshe Katzav has rented, on the government and taxpayer dime, offices in the most lucrative of office buildings, and a luxury car. All this while he is under investigation for sexual misconduct and possibly rape.

The truth is that the whole thing is wholly insensitive of Katzav. Considering the free fall the economy is heading into, the way it is in the world economy and the increasing amount of people being laid off and pension funds disappearing and the like, he perhaps could have been more sensitive to the financial standing of the country and rented more modest offices, and hired a more modest car.

but I understand him. He was attacked, and I am sure he thinks he is innocent. He was already declared guilty in the media, and therefore he is lambasted for fighting for his innocence. he probably feels he has been given a raw deal, and therefore he wants to squeeze out every penny, or shall I say agura, that the law says is coming to him.

But the greater issue, the one more upsetting to people, is not the high price tag of his rentals, but the fact that the State has to pay for an office for him at all.

And to that I say too bad. It is coming to him. He is a former president of Israel. No matter what he did, nothing has been proven yet, and from the way it has been dragging on, it looks like nothing there is going to be easy to prove. He lost his job because of the suspicion, but former presidents are, by law, entitled to certain benefits. He deserves those benefits just like any other former president does.

Are those benefits too high? I think so. And I think the law should be changed to lessen the benefits to former presidents, to former MKs and all those others who eat off the public dime. But as long as the law says this is what they get, I see nothing wrong with Moshe Katzav taking what is coming to him.