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When Ben Gvir pulled his party out, Smotritch decided to punish them by resigning from his ministerial position, thus kicking out MK Kroizer from the Knesset, and then Smotritch would take his position back. Taking back the ministerial position would not put Kroizer back in as MK - the Norwegian Law can only be applied once per MK (per Knesset), and Smotritch would have to resign from the Knesset, which he would not do for Kroizer even if he could.. 

They ended up not playing this game because Ben Gvir wanted to keep his guy in despite not being part of the coalition. He negotiated with Smotritch and they worked out a deal by which Smotritch would not resign, thus leaving Kroizer in. Kroizer would commit to voting with the coalition. On any vote he plans to vote against the coalition he would give 48 hours notice, enabling Smotritch to decide whether or not to resign and kick Kroizer out. And additionally Almog Cohen would be left in place as he was not following Otzma decisions anyway and was voting with the coalition even when Otzma decided not to.

Games. 

Others can play games too. 

It is being reported that Minister Yitzchak Goldknopf (of UTJ) is considering resigning from his ministerial position, go back to the Knesset, then take back his ministerial position while keeping his Knesset seat. This would kick his "Norwegian MK", Yitzchak Pindrus from Degel Hatorah, out of the Knesset but Goldknopf is more concerned with getting himself more power in his fight over the Draft Law and taking back his Knesset seat will give him back his Knesset vote.

To that end, his aide, Motti Bebchik, has been checking within UTJ what the ramifications of such a move would be. Bebchik reportedly checked in With Uri Maklev to see if Goldknopf resigns and does this shtick if Maklev (from Degel) would retaliate and also resign his [deputy] ministerial position to kick out Moshe Roth (from Agudath Israel) from the Knesset being his Norwegian MK. And if they do this, Meir Porush (from Agudath Israel) might also resign to kick out his Norwegian MK Yaakov Asher (from Degel Hatorah).

And Degel has warned that if Goldknopf resigns and pulls this shtick leading to the removal of two Degel MKs, they may vote against approving him as minister when he tries to take back his ministerial position. 

  -- MK Limor Sun Har Melech (Otzma Yehudit)

She's right, but...

but even with Smotritch they wont prevent the deal from happening - the Opposition has given a security blanket to the government for this deal to happen. Unless Bibi backs down out of fear for his coalition post-deal, the deal is going through. Netanyahu warned Ben Gvir that he is working on paying Smotritch off to not leave with a nice incentive package of benefits. Netanyahu cant really back down at this point - it means going against Trump and this time everyone will see at this stage that Netanyahu is playing politics on the backs of the hostages - something everyone already knows from the past year+ but now it being more obvious and will surely lead to massive protests and pressure on Netanyahu, and that is without even mentioning Netanyahu is afraid to oppose Trump who wants this deal to happen - there, I mentioned it. But, if they truly believe the deal is as dangerous as they are saying they should resign even if it wont prevent the deal from going through, at least so they wont be part of it (and no, voting against does not absolve them of responsibility - they are part of all government decisions as long as they are members of the government) As I said, Netanyahu should push this deal through and call elections on his terms.

That being said, while Netanyahu is kind of stuck and is letting Ben Gvir make a fool of him. He should have fired Ben Gvir last time Ben Gvir voted against a budget vote a couple weeks back, but he didn't, and so far he hasn't after this vote yesterday that went down to the wire and required Netanyahu himself to leave his hospital bed and shlep down from the hospital to vote, and Netanyahu is too weak to fire him because he is afraid of losing his coalition.

The coalition is large enough now that he can technically afford to kick out Ben Gvir, but then he will barely have a majority again and will be at other people's whims without Ben Gvir to bail him out. Keeping Ben Gvir in the coalition makes Netanyahu look weak but it keeps his coalition alive, even if they arent voting in tune with the coalition.

UTJ is more complicated. They too should be fired but won't be. the politicians always quip that UTJ is one party but acts like 7 parties. Each MK represents a different community and each MK acts and behaves like he is his own party and nobody is beholden to any party decisions. When the coalition needs something, the head of the coalition needs to go to each MK from UTJ to make a separate deal rather than just talk it out and deal with the one head of the party. This played out precisely yesterday. The Degel faction voted with the coalition. Goldknopf voted against, and Netanyahu worked out a deal with Eichler and Porush and Tessler and Rot to have enough abstentions instead of votes against so the budget vote could succeed. Masterful on Netanyahu's part to work that all out, but dysfunctional of UTJ.

How can UTJ continue to function properly and efficiently and reliably when none of the MKs follow the instructions of the head of UTJ? How can the head of UTJ make decisions without working it out with the members factions and MKS - did he expect them to be beholden to the Gerrer Rebbe's decision, when the entire essence of the party is that it is made up of different factions each beholden only to his own rebbe? What good is being head of the party if he has no control over the MKs within? In any other party they would sanction the MKs who did not follow the decisions of the party (like Otzma might do for ALmog Cohen who voted with the coalition instead of with Otzma), but he cant punish Degel and he cant sanction the others either. At the same time, how can the head of the coalition work out anything with a party that can't be relied on?

Eichler and Porush were so proud yesterday of going behind Goldknopf's back and working out the deal with Netanyahu, in exchange for a promise of the Draft Law being presented next week. I don't know if the Draft Law will be presented next week or not, but Netanyahu has promised this in the past several times and has not delivered, so I am not sure why they are accepting this promise now, especially Eichler who is fairly militant on this issue.

That being said, if Netanyahu does not follow through with the presentation of the Draft Law next week, Eichler will have egg all over his face. I wonder what he will do then.

MK Yitzchak Korizer (Otzma Yehudit, while serving his reserve duty in combat in South Lebanon, opened a "Parliamentary Office"

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People got upset at this saying he is comparing the Supreme Court to Hamas and Hezbollah. Others, like Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, came to his defense saying that isnt what he meant, blah blah blah. 

That part of it, whether he compared the Supreme Court to Hamas or not, does not even interest me.

What I find interesting is that he thinks that after we defeat Hamas and Hezbollah he will then move on to deal with the Supreme Court. After the war with Hamas and Hezbollah will be finished, however that will be determined and defined, I expect there will be (in whatever order) massive protests, new elections, resignations, investigations, a lot of fighting over responsibility and what that means. Nobody is going back to judicial reform so quickly. Maybe eventually, maybe some other meal in the future, but it won't be the dessert served after the war. 

  -- MK Almog Cohen (Otzma Yehudit), explaining why he went out to the protestors outside the Knesset protesting on behalf of the hostages in Gaza

  -- MK Limor Son Har-Melech (Otzma Yehudit)

will PM Bibi continue moving ahead with a peace deal knowing he could lose his government over it? Peace with Saudi Arabia is not something to scoff at. Is she authorized to make such threats of toppling a government? Will Bibi call her bluff? Will Ben Gvir actually bring down the government? So far he has said about many things that he would and while sometimes Bibi caved, sometimes Ben Gvir found reasons working from within is more important as he is successfully making positive changes... it could get interesting...

Mazel tov

Shas recently decided it wanted to push off the elections for the Chief Rabbinate so it prepared a law to enable that. The law passed its first reading yesterday and Otzma did not vote for it. Otzma criticized Shas for changing the rules of the game in the middle of the game. Elections are underway, candidates have announced and have been campaigning and now is not the time to make changes. Shas claims they have to push it off to keep the elections kosher. While I do not understand it, the issue is the proximity of the Chief Rabbinate elections to the upcoming municipal elections and somehow one affects the other with mayors possibly supporting rabbinic candidates when they themselves might not be re-elected. 

So, Otzma did not support the bill presented by Shas to postpone the Chief Rabbinate elections. Shas then accused Otzma of having "interests" and those interests being behind their opposition. What are their interests? Minister Amichai Eliyahu is the son of Rav Shmuel Eliyahu and according to Shas, Otzma is making this trouble because they want Rav Shmuel Eliyahu to be appointed Chief Rabbi. Shas says they tried to push his candidacy and tried to make a deal in exchange for supporting postponing the bill. Shas accused Otzma of being willing to forgo election purity if they would have been able to get some positions for their people.

source: Kikar

The funny part is that the Chief Rabbinate elections require no purity or anything at all. they are not even actually elections, more like selections, with Shas almost completely controlling the entire process. Whether Otzma wanted Rav Eliyahu appointed or not, is that any worse than Shas trying to decide between supporting Aryeh Deri's brother or Rav Yizchak Yosef's brother? Is only Otzma not allowed to prefer a family member (if they actually did)?

We are watching with interest. 

The main characters in this little incident are Shas and Otzma Yehudit, Deri and Ben Gvir. Basically agreements are being broken all around, with Ben Gvir mostly being on the losing end. Shas is pushing off the elections for Chief Rabbi, and Otzma is upset about that. Otzma (via Minister Amichai Eliyahu) let it out on the Governor of the Bank of Israel today calling him names and saying he should be tossed out for "working against the government", and Otzma caught an earful from pretty much everyone else in the government. Otzma, according to the coalition agreements, is supposed to have the government representative in the selection committee for justices, and it looks like the coalition will snub them and appoint someone from Shas instead - because he is easier to work with.

The verbal attacks and accusations are flying in every direction each calling the other anything from leftists to motivated by self-interests to failed ministers and failed party, weak links, etc.

This is not going to end well. All we can do is sit by the side and watch with interest. Will this lead to an implosion or will Bibi work his magic after everyone gets everything off their chests and calm everyone down and pay them off with more money for their ministries and projects to be quiet?

Every day seems to have at least one, if nor more, person saying something crazy as if he/she is just looking for a way to upset millions of people, today's craziness was by Gafni, but I am going to leave that stupidity alone.. and choose a pair of statements made by MK Tzvika Fogel (Otzma Yehudit) that seem to contradict each other...

  -- MK Tzvika Fogel (Otzma Yehudit) said those two contradictory statements  today, leaving me perplexed as to what their position really is...

Had this law pass already, all those Otzma people (including an Otzma MK) and others who were out this morning interfering with the IDF razing of an illegal settlement would be arrested and in jail for 3 years.

#justsaying

First we will start with the tweet by MK Almog Cohen (Otzma Yehudit) that narrowly missed the TotD award:

היתד הזה לא נאמן למדינת ישראל.

— אלמוג כהן Almog cohen (@almog_cohen08) January 4, 2023

in response to a "scathing" editorial by the Yated Neeman, the newspaper of Haredi Jewry affiliated with the Degel Hatorah faction of UTJ, criticizng Itamar Ben Gvir for going up to Har Habayit, fellow member of Otzma Yehudit MK Almog Cohen tweeted a play on words saying The Yated is not faithful (neeman) to the State of Israel

nice but Ben Gvir's response to the editorial and more specifically to MK Moshe Gafni's (UTJ) tweet to him was better 

Ben Gvir tweeted in response to Gafni:

Rav Gafni, I greatly value and appreciate you but think that it is less appropriate for a party that does not want to be in the government in order to not bear responsibility for the State to preach to me. Har Habayit is not just a religious issue (and our rabbonim have decided it is a mitzva to go up!), but it is also a symbol of sovereignty and governance, and the enemy judges us on our actions there. On our watch Israel will not give in to Hamas.

 

Specifically referring to the portion of the interview in which they discussed the Otzma Yehudit policy they want to push in the next government should they be a part of it that will have anyone deemed unfaithful to the State of Israel banished from Israel - Wasserlauf explains that anyone who throws rocks or molotov cocktails at IDF soldiers or does other things to harm the State of Israel and supports murderers of babies will be banished.

So I like that he has already worked out that the way the deportation will work is that they will take the same people who planned the banishment of Jews from their homes in Gush Katif back in 2005 with fully staffed professionals who worked out all the details. Those same people who did such a good and professional job evicting thousands of Jews from their homes and deporting them to other part s of the country should be able to put together a plan to banish and deport people who are disloyal to the State of Israel.

Now that is witty. I like that.

What I think is unimpressive and what I dont like is that with all this time that he had until now, all he can come up with is a headline - we will deport the unfaithful - but has no actual plans. When asked for even the most basic details of his grandiose plan, such as how it will work, how they will determine who is unfaithful, where to deport to, how to deport, he has no answers and says they will have to work that out but right now they just want to talk about the concept.

Sorry, but that is unimpressive. If this is something they actually want to do, they need to be ready to present a plan, even knowing it will have to be adjusted and amended later. If all it is even in their own heads is a headline, this is something that is never going to happen and something they never intend on even trying to push forward.