According to the headlines P.M. wannabe the present Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid doesn’t like the “Leftist” label.

Speaking at a meeting of his Yesh Atid party Monday, Lapid said that he had very clear ideas about Israel’s relations with the PA, and that his views should not come as a surprise to anyone. “Whoever thinks that a diplomatic solution will not entail two states for two peoples is mistaken. Any idea of a bi-national state, whether on the left or the right, would mean the end of Zionism, and I am a Zionist,” Lapid said.

With that, he added that “I do not plan on falling into the classic trap of the left, which at the beginning of negotiations reveals immediately what it plans to give away – a situation that turns what is supposed to be the end of the negotiation process into the beginning. You don’t come to negotiations with just an olive branch in your hand,” Lapid added. “We are looking for a fair divorce from the Palestinians.” (Arutz Sheva).

I don’t think that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would accept it for himself too.  Livni once was comfortably in the more right-wing Likud with Bibi.  Only Shimon Peres isn’t shy about calling himself Left.

The big problem with what all of them, Lapid, Livni, Peres and Netanyahu preach, whether they call themselves, Right, Left or Center is that it’s all the same.  They all believe two dangerous things can and should be done: (1) negotiate with the Arabs for peace; (2) give the Arabs a state they’ll call “Palestine.”

Both of those things will seriously endanger the very existence of the State of Israel.  At the event memorializing Emanuel (Manny) Winston, Caroline Glick and other speakers spoke about the terrible mistakes the State of Israel has been making.  One of them is that we, the State of Israel, demand security rather than sovereignty.  With true sovereignty comes security. The late Manny Winston understood it.  And unfortunately the Arabs do, too.

True peace is not the result of negotiations.  True peace is something that evolves when neither side aims to destroy the other one.  It takes time.  Whenever people claim that if we don’t hurry we’ll miss the “window of opportunity” they are not referring to true peace.

What they, the Left-no matter which label they use for themselves, propose is like a cake or bread quickly baked with too high heat.  On the surface, at least for the first few minutes it may look fully baked, but it will quickly fall, collapse, all wet and soft inside.

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I don’t know if anyone’s happy with the new government, at least not in the Likud and Yisrael Beitenu parties.  There weren’t too many ministerial pickings left over after Bibi handed out the goodies to Livni, Lapid and Bennett.

There’s something that really bothers me about this coalition.  I felt it in my kishkes, and I had trouble saying what it really is…

There’s something inherently undemocratic in a government coalition which aims to change the lives of a large and growing sector of the country/society while refusing them the rights to join the coalition and help draft the laws to make the changes just and possible.

Yes, I’m referring to the forcing of Haredim to be drafted into the IDF.

Now please get me right.  I am not in favor of their (Haredi) universal policy idealizing a life a just learning Torah.  I don’t see it as Jewish.  It’s not.  It’s more like the Christian monasteries and nunneries with the crucial difference that the Haredim marry and are encourage to have lots of children.  It’s also a Christian, not Jewish, belief that “men of the cloth” shouldn’t bear arms, serve in armies etc.

But I don’t think its just nor moral for some sectors of society to try to legislate major changes in the lives of others.  It unfortunately smacks of the early days of the State of Israel when religious immigrant children were sent to secular Aliyat Hanoar schools and worse.

The making of changes must be done gradually and with the cooperation of the affected sector of society.  That means the the only fair, just and democratic way to increase the draft of Haredim must be done with their cooperation.  In recent years more Hareidim have joined the army, and more Hareidim are studying key secular subjects and professions and working.  This will take time.

Blocking Hareidim from the government coalition means that the government will seem like (or actually be) a dictatorship, rather than a democracy.

Netanyahu, Lapid, Bennett and Livni are making a big immoral and undemocratic mistake.

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A “mantra” is supposed to be more like meaningless sounds to repeat as we tune out:

1. Hinduism A sacred verbal formula repeated in prayer, meditation, or incantation, such as an invocation of a god, a magic spell, or a syllable or portion of scripture containing mystical potentialities. 2. A commonly repeated word or phrase.

I sometimes refer to the phrase “two state solution” as a nightmare mostly because too many politicians, diplomats, academics and of course the media keep touting it as a “solution to the conflict between the Jews and the Arabs” without truly thinking about what it means and how it would affect the lives of Israelis and the security of the State of Israel.

The State of Israel and the Arabs aren’t two toddlers fighting over some blocks which can be harmlessly shared.

There are many Arab states, large and affluent, stable, unstable and most do not practice western-style values and democracy.  UNESCO identifies 21 Arab states, while Wikipedia lists 23 Arab states. In addition the Arab League is a regional organization of these states that was formed in 1945. It currently has 22 members.

The touted “moderate” Arabs promoted by the west, i.e., the United States, Europe and international organizations, such as the United Nations, aren’t moderate by international standards.  The so-called Palestinians don’t even get along with each other, and it’s dangerously unrealistic to think that they are capable of governing a state. We keep hearing these fantasies which claim that there’s a safe and just way to divide up Judea and Samaria between Jews and Arabs, which is preposterous.  I grew up in the 1960′s, and I remember what went on in divided Germany, especially Berlin.  These things just don’t work.  And please remember that the raison d’être of the so called Palestinians is the destruction of the State of Israel.

From a Palestinian Media Watch report:

The PA promises its people that in the future, the State of Israel will be completely erased and replaced by a State of Palestine. A Fatah member of Palestinian parliament, Najat Abu Bakr, told PA TV that the PA supports and adopts the “stages plan.” To the world, the PA claims that the Palestinians seek the West Bank and Gaza Strip, when in fact the goal is all of Israel: “It doesn’t mean that we don’t want the 1948 borders, but in our current political program we say we want a state on the 1967 borders.” [PA TV (Fatah), Aug. 25, 2008]Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki reiterated this position on Al-Jazeera TV:

“It is impossible to realize the inspiring idea or the great goal in one stroke… Israel will come to an end… If I say that I want to remove it from existence, this will be great, great, [but] it is hard. This is not a [stated] policy. You can’t say it to the world. You can say it to yourself.” [Al-Jazeera TV, Sept. 23, 2011]

This is very worrying, especially since Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has bought into the lie and has now appointed extreme Leftist Tzipi Livni to negotiate with the Arabs.

Already the Israeli Supreme Court and the Defense Ministry take “Arab rights” as more important than Jewish security.

The Head of Central Command in the IDF, Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon, gave orders at week’s end to dismantle the fences protecting two Jewish communities, following the High Court’s ruling in the matter. The High Court found that the fences that surround and protect the communities of Ofra and Adam, in the Binyamin region, need to be dismantled because they prevent access to some Arabs’ agricultural plots. The fences were allegedly built without the necessary approvals. (Arutz Sheva).

This is a dangerous policy.  And that’s why I would have had preferred new elections and no coalition here in Israel.

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With Tzipi Livni a possibility to head Israel’s negotiating team in talks with the Palestinian Authority, it is important to review her stance on the future status of Jerusalem – and to investigate what really is holding up all chances of a successful peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

In late 2008, Livni was elected to replace Ehud Olmert as head of the Kadima Party. She then proceeded to fail in her attempt to form a new government under her leadership – and the reason for this was her consent to grant Arab control to parts of holy city. This, together with the economic decrees against the “disadvantaged population,” led the Shas Party to refuse to join her government.

As foreign minister in 2008, Livni promised P.A. chief Mahmoud Abbas that Israel would cede it the entire Atarot airport complex in northern Yerushalayim in the framework of a peace agreement. She repeatedly stated that though she believes strongly in historic Jewish rights to the entire Land of Israel, she also believes in the “right of our children to live in peace” – to which end she was willing to make far-reaching territorial concessions even in Yerushalayim.

Is there any chance of reaching an agreement with the PLO that does not include some form of dividing Jerusalem with Muslims? The answer appears to be negative. Former Israeli ambassador to Canada Alan Baker, of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, has written an important and thorough historic study of the issue, concluding that the current P.A. mindset “clearly render[s] hopeless any possibility of peacefully governing Jerusalem.”

Specifically, Baker writes, standing in the way of an agreement is the Moslems’ refusal to recognize the Jewish people’s religious and historic rights to Yerushalayim, even without accepting these as absolute and exclusively binding.

Just a few months ago, Abbas referred to “the alleged [Jewish] Temple” in Jerusalem, and vowed that “there will be no peace, security, or stability unless [all Israelis are] evacuated from our holy city and the eternal capital of our state.”

“This statement,” Baker wrote, “basically denying any Jewish linkage or right to Jerusalem, uttered by the head of the Palestinian Authority who is considered in the international community to be moderate and reasonable, serves as an example of the tremendous political, historical, psychological, legal, and religious challenge that the issue of Jerusalem poses to the Middle East negotiating process.”

Any agreement regarding Jerusalem, he continued, must be “predicated on absolute acknowledgement of, respect for, and acceptance by each side of the historic and religious rights of the other in Jerusalem. Continued mistrust, attempts to dislodge, undermine or destabilize the other side vis-à-vis its own constituency or the international community, and attempts to delegitimize the integrity or historical rights of the other side would clearly render hopeless any possibility of peacefully governing Jerusalem.”

It is not only Abbas who negates Jewish rights in Jerusalem. A P.A. survey in 2011 found that nearly three-quarters of the respondents – 72 percent – support the denial of thousands of years of Jewish history in Jerusalem.

We must remember, too, that Abbas has said no Jews would be allowed to live anywhere in a Palestinian state.

From Israel’s side, 77 percent told Dahaf public opinion pollsters in December that “Israel could not rely on the Palestinians to ensure freedom of worship” even in the framework of a peace agreement. Interestingly, it is not well-known that non-Muslims are prohibited from entering both Mecca and the center of Medina. Undoubtedly, if this fact were to be exposed more widely, it would dramatically increase the number of Israelis who realize the division of Jerusalem means the end of their visits to the Western Wall – for there is no reason to believe that if Jews may not visit Mecca or Medina, they would be able to visit the Temple Mount or anywhere else in the Old City under Muslim rule.

Ambassador Baker notes in his article that even when Israel supported various internationalization schemes in Jerusalem, this was basically to ensure universal freedom of worship in all holy places, not to give up sovereignty. The Arab sides did not accept even this.

Regarding the Arab refusal to accept the 1947 Partition resolution, historian Shlomo Avineri has written that unlike in the Jewish community, there was no debate within the Arab community: There, “an absolutist position – ‘we have all the rights, the Jews don’t have any right’ – continued to be the foundation of their response…”

I know someone whose tax dealings would make my CPA father very nervous; that friend says that his accountant uses “creative bookkeeping.”  That phrase ”creative bookkeeping” keeps popping into my head when I read all of the articles about how Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu can make a government coalition with various incompatible political parties.

Many of the same people also claim that the same Arabs who want to totally destroy us, men, women and children, (as Haman from the Purim Holiday’s Megillat Scroll of Esther unabashedly had planned) also claim they can be placated with the gift of land and then make peace with us.  You really need a creative, unrealistic imagination to believe that.  To put it simply, it would go against the laws of nature.  Maybe they want to keep a grown tiger as a pet, thinking it’s a tabby on steroids…

Last night, I popped into the living room and checked what was on the news.  I saw the news clip official meeting of the Prime Minister with President Shimon Peres.  Netanyahu had just formally requested another two weeks to form his coalition.

The big question would be: Is it possible for Bibi to form a viable and stable coalition?

The pundits claim it can be done.  Times of Israel’s Yoel Goldman shows that Netanyahu does not need the thirty-one seats Lapid and Bennett could give him:

If Labor, with its 15 Knesset seats were to unexpectedly join Likud-Beytenu (31), Netanyahu could then turn to Shas (11) and United Torah Judaism (7) to complete a 70-seat Knesset majority.

Bennett and Lapid, two newbies, inexperienced first-time MK’s and party leaders have been “negotiating” under the premise that Bibi will buckle and give into their demands.  One of their demands is that the hareidi, aka ultra-Orthodox parties be kept out of the coalition.  Being so adamantly “anti” any sector is Israeli society is a bad sign for ambitious politicians who dream of being Prime Minister some day.  Actually it reminds me of Yitzchak Rabin, who as Prime Minister said he was the Prime Minister for those who supported him, not for the “settlers” — people like me, who opposed his Oslo Accords.

One thing that Netanyahu does understand is that a Prime Minister should have as broad a coalition as possible to represent all sectors in Israeli society.

Bennett and Lapid have been concentrating on the simple arithmetic.

31+31=62
Likud + Lapid + Bennett = 62

Sixty-two are a majority, more than half of one-hundred-twenty.  They have been counting on Netanyahu needing them so desperately that he’d let them write the deal.  At this point, Tzipi Livni is the only party leader to have already signed and she got a great deal.

I wouldn’t bet on this one.  Netanyahu is one wily politician, and he may shock us all, which is what he likes to do.  Considering that the polls are showing Lapid leading Bibi if there were to be new elections, maybe that’s why Lapid isn’t wiling to compromise.  But he should remember that when Netanyahu called for elections a few months ago, the polls predicted that Bibi’s Likud, even with Yisrael Beitenu, should expect at least 50% more seats, so early polls should not necessarily be relied on.  And I highly doubt that your average NRP aka Bayit Yehudi voter approves of Bennett’s fanatically anti-chareidi stand.

Stay tuned….

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Bad news for the State of Israel and its citizens.

Tzipi’s special job will be to make peace sic with the Arabs. I kid you not.

Israel is extending its hand once more for peace with the Palestinians, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Tuesday at a press conference while announcing that former foreign minister Tzipi Livni had joined his coalition and will lead the Israeli peace negotiating team. “I am hoping for a peace deal based on two states for two people, as per the parameters I outlined during my speech at Bar Ilan University,” Netanyahu said at the conference. “Today Israel extends its hand once more for peace. We want a peace process, and we hope that it will yield results.”

Yes, Bibi has finally found himself a coalition partner, Tzipi the Movement  Livni, the lady who campaigned as an “alternative” to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.  Yes, the Tzipi who insisted that Netanyahu is a danger to peace. Yes, the lady has a price, and Bibi met it.

Since Naftali Bennett, who aligned himself with Yair Lapid, after campaigning that he will be a valuable member of Netanyhu’s coalition/cabinet only succeeded in alienating himself further.  He thought that Bibi would be so desperate for his MK’s to add to the coalition that the PM would come begging, but no surprise the political newbie miscalculated.

It really doesn’t matter that this Netanyahu-Livni coalition agreement goes 100% against both their campaign promises, statements etc. This is politics, and politics is a search, striving for power and politicians will do and say anything to get it. And no doubt that Yair Lapid sees his future with Netanyahu in the cabinet!  He’s not going to stick with Bennett.

During the election campaign, Netanyahu had reportedly made clear to several of his senior staff that no talks were taking place with Livni or other members of her party, and that the chances of her joining the next government with him as Prime Minister were nil. “Livni managed the negotiations with the Palestinians poorly,” Netanyahu was quoted in December as having told ministers. “Her entire stance is wrong and unacceptable to me.”

So, it’s time to get comfortable and watch Bibi’s show.

Good luck to the rest of us, we’re in for a bumpy ride…

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Senior officials in the Jewish Home responded to Tzipi Livni’s joining Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s  coalition, saying that it lessens the chances of the Jewish Home joining the government, the Israeli publication Ma’ariv reported today.

The criticism focused on the fact that Livni, who took a turn to the left on foreign policy and territorial issues since her departure from the Likud several years ago, will be allowed to manage the revival of the peace process with the Palestinians.  Shortly after the elections, Livni had made it clear that she would only join a government if she would be given such a position.

Ma’ariv cited senior Likud officials who responded saying that according to the coalition agreement with Livni, the Prime Minister will be the one to lead the negotiating team and that the Likud wants the Jewish Home to join the coalition.

Livni’s party, the “Movement Led by Tzipi Livni” won six seats in the Knesset, while the Likud-Beitenu won 31 seats. By signing a coalition agreement, the prospective coalition now has 37 seats. Sixty-one seats (a majority of the Knesset) are needed to form a coalition, but even more are needed to form a stable coalition.

I’m not going to pretend I was satisfied with the Likud’s election campaign, or even all of Prime Minister’s Netanyahu’s policies/positions over the last four years (e.g., Bar Ilan, the freeze, etc.). But in the past four years, we’ve had, first of all, a government that lasted  just about four years, which is quite an achievement in and of itself in Israel. And we’ve managed to stave off international pressure while getting sanctions in place against Iran. At the same time we’ve had modest domestic achievements, keeping the economy stable despite a global crisis and lowering the monthly cost of living.

Yet, leading up to the elections, I was shocked by how many people were so ready to abandon the Likud and Netanyahu, despite the fact that they knew only he could be Prime Minister and would need a strong showing for the Likud-Beitenu slate in order to have a stable center of gravity for his coalition.

On the day of election, I argued that weakening the Likud-Beitenu, even if by voting for the Jewish Home, to Netanyahu’s right, will actually strengthen whatever left-of-center party will join the government. That’s because even if “the right” has a majority of the Knesset, even 65 seats, a stable government requires more than that. Netanyahu will have no choice, just as he did after the last election, but to bring at least one party from the left in to stablize the coalition. Otherwise any coalition partner could bring down the government.

As the Likud-Beitenu dropped in support, that became more and more true, since the less seats it would have the more vital each coalition partner would be. While that would make Jewish Home more vital to the coalition, it would also have a similar affect on the other parties. The only method Netanyahu has of neutralizing that problem is by bringing in more parties. Practically, the weaker Likud-Beitenu was, the more necessary a left-wing party would become to the coalition. That party was Yesh Atid, which seems to be the most centrist of the sizable left-wing parties.

That prediction, or actually warning, came true with a vengeance. Not only did the Likud lose seven mandates worth of votes to Jewish Home (Jewish Home got 12 and Power to Israel got two, for a total of 14 – seven mandates greater then these two parties represented in the prior Knesset), but Yesh Atid almost doubled in size, going from a predicted 10 to 19 mandates.

So, predictably, Netanyahu’s first post-election call was to Yair Lapid.

At that point Netayahu had two realistic possibilities for a right-of-center coalition: Likud-Beitenu-Jewish Home-Yesh Atid+Shas (with a moderate Haredi-draft plan) for a 72 seat coalition OR  Likud-Beitenu-Jewish Home-Shas-UTJ-Livni-(Kadima) for a 67-69 seat coalition without Lapid (unclear draft plan, but relatively decent foreign policy positions).

(A Likud-Beitenu-Jewish Home-Shas-UTJ coalition would amount to 62 seats, would result in do-nothing government, with a bad budget, and might even fall by the time the next budget came up).

When it became clear that Lapid’s demands were too inflexible, making Shas unwilling to join the coalition, meaning the first option was not going to happen, the second option became more necessary. So Liberman went about trying to make it happen, meeting with the Jewish Home. Talks began with Livni as well. But then Bennett and Lapid formed an alliance:  Bennett would not join the government, unless Lapid also joined.

Practically, that means that Netanyahu can’t form a government without Lapid. It also means that Lapid will be strengthened in his demands, specifically his universal draft plan (which sees lowering the amount of yeshiva-exemptions to a mere 400, lower than it was in the early years of the state) and Shas and UTJ will not sit in the government. Lapid will be doubly strengthened in his demand for a renewed focus on the peace process (he still clings to Golda Meir’s non-sense slogan of, you only make peace with your enemies), because not only does he have more leverage with Netanyahu, but also because Netanyahu will need to bring in more left-wing partners to stabilize the coalition, such as Tzipi Livni who demands that she lead a renewed negotiation effort.

Netanyahu tried to break the alliance by offering Bennett virtually everything he wanted prior to elections – greater say over government guidelines and ministries – in exchange for being the first party to join the coalition. That would have weakened Lapid’s position and forced him to moderate. But Bennett refused.