Netanyahu and Gantz try again for unity deal
Apr 2, 2020 15:24:39 GMT -5
Post by shalom on Apr 2, 2020 15:24:39 GMT -5
Amid last-minute threats, Netanyahu and Gantz try again for unity deal
Facing growing anger from his right flank, PM appears to retreat from agreement, but compromises have been reached on all key issues — except West Bank annexation
Haviv Rettig Gur
By HAVIV RETTIG GUR
Today, 12:31 am 5
On Tuesday, Likud and Blue and White officials believed their unity government deal was all but sealed.
Netanyahu and Gantz each needed the other: Gantz had no centrist alliance to return to, Netanyahu lacked the votes to oust Gantz as Knesset speaker, a position from which Gantz could make Netanyahu’s next government essentially unable to govern.
On Wednesday, that notion seemed to unravel.
It took a few days for Netanyahu’s right-wing camp to realize the extent of his promises to Gantz, including not only an unprecedentedly generous 15 ministers (for perhaps 19 MKs — Gantz’s Blue and White, two Labor MKs and two from the new Derech Eretz splinter group), but also control over the defense and justice ministries, granting Gantz a de facto veto over the right’s most important policy aspirations.
Once they noticed, the rebellion came fast and furious.
Defense Minister Naftali Bennett of Yamina, left, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting of right-wing parties, March 4, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Right-wing Yamina threatened to leave the coalition “rather than sit in a leftist government” — that is, a government that won’t carry out a West Bank annexation or push conservative judicial and legal reforms. It also protested Blue and White’s lavish ministerial haul while Yamina’s six legislators would be lucky to receive two cabinet posts between them.
The rebellion extended deep into Likud as well. Former Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein was livid that Netanyahu had agreed to Gantz’s demand to remove him from the speakership as punishment for his defying a High Court order last week to hold a vote on his replacement. Some of Edelstein’s closest allies in the party even warned they would begin a campaign to support Blue and White’s laws to oust an indicted Netanyahu from the premiership, as one told Zman Israel’s (The Times of Israel’s Hebrew-language sister site’s) Shalom Yerushalmi.
A letter signed by top activists, including the heads of local Likud branches, demanded that Netanyahu “not surrender the right’s principles to establish a government with Blue and White. And if necessary, go to a fourth election.”
The pressure started to affect Netanyahu, leading him to add new and dramatic stipulations on Wednesday in a bid to assuage the right — and to make it difficult for his aggrieved allies to withdraw their support.
Likud suddenly announced a laundry list of new demands, or rediscovered former demands dropped by the wayside during the talks. They included a veto over the next justice minister’s appointments – that is, a Likud veto on the long list of candidates Blue and White would be nominating in the coming government’s term, from the state attorney and attorney general to at least six Supreme Court justices.
The West Bank. (Israel Policy Forum)
But the heart of Netanyahu’s solution to his predicament – and the last sticking point late Wednesday as the two parties’ negotiators prepared to meet into the night – was over annexation in the West Bank.
Likud began on Wednesday to publicly demand that Gantz agree to annex at least part of the West Bank within the next six months – and to drop Gantz’s vague demand from the campaign that some form of “international agreement” precede such a move.
Netanyahu had a powerful argument for his six-month timeline, one calculated to instill a sense of urgency on the right. As he explained to fellow Likud leaders, the next six months “could see the window close” on the possibility of annexation because US President Donald Trump may not be reelected in November.
The sudden hardening of positions turned the all-but-certain unity government into a frozen and uncertain stalemate — a stalemate that Gantz’s abandoned center-left allies insisted proved Netanyahu’s intentions had been dishonest from the start.
Article continues at link
Facing growing anger from his right flank, PM appears to retreat from agreement, but compromises have been reached on all key issues — except West Bank annexation
Haviv Rettig Gur
By HAVIV RETTIG GUR
Today, 12:31 am 5
On Tuesday, Likud and Blue and White officials believed their unity government deal was all but sealed.
Netanyahu and Gantz each needed the other: Gantz had no centrist alliance to return to, Netanyahu lacked the votes to oust Gantz as Knesset speaker, a position from which Gantz could make Netanyahu’s next government essentially unable to govern.
On Wednesday, that notion seemed to unravel.
It took a few days for Netanyahu’s right-wing camp to realize the extent of his promises to Gantz, including not only an unprecedentedly generous 15 ministers (for perhaps 19 MKs — Gantz’s Blue and White, two Labor MKs and two from the new Derech Eretz splinter group), but also control over the defense and justice ministries, granting Gantz a de facto veto over the right’s most important policy aspirations.
Once they noticed, the rebellion came fast and furious.
Defense Minister Naftali Bennett of Yamina, left, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting of right-wing parties, March 4, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Right-wing Yamina threatened to leave the coalition “rather than sit in a leftist government” — that is, a government that won’t carry out a West Bank annexation or push conservative judicial and legal reforms. It also protested Blue and White’s lavish ministerial haul while Yamina’s six legislators would be lucky to receive two cabinet posts between them.
The rebellion extended deep into Likud as well. Former Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein was livid that Netanyahu had agreed to Gantz’s demand to remove him from the speakership as punishment for his defying a High Court order last week to hold a vote on his replacement. Some of Edelstein’s closest allies in the party even warned they would begin a campaign to support Blue and White’s laws to oust an indicted Netanyahu from the premiership, as one told Zman Israel’s (The Times of Israel’s Hebrew-language sister site’s) Shalom Yerushalmi.
A letter signed by top activists, including the heads of local Likud branches, demanded that Netanyahu “not surrender the right’s principles to establish a government with Blue and White. And if necessary, go to a fourth election.”
The pressure started to affect Netanyahu, leading him to add new and dramatic stipulations on Wednesday in a bid to assuage the right — and to make it difficult for his aggrieved allies to withdraw their support.
Likud suddenly announced a laundry list of new demands, or rediscovered former demands dropped by the wayside during the talks. They included a veto over the next justice minister’s appointments – that is, a Likud veto on the long list of candidates Blue and White would be nominating in the coming government’s term, from the state attorney and attorney general to at least six Supreme Court justices.
The West Bank. (Israel Policy Forum)
But the heart of Netanyahu’s solution to his predicament – and the last sticking point late Wednesday as the two parties’ negotiators prepared to meet into the night – was over annexation in the West Bank.
Likud began on Wednesday to publicly demand that Gantz agree to annex at least part of the West Bank within the next six months – and to drop Gantz’s vague demand from the campaign that some form of “international agreement” precede such a move.
Netanyahu had a powerful argument for his six-month timeline, one calculated to instill a sense of urgency on the right. As he explained to fellow Likud leaders, the next six months “could see the window close” on the possibility of annexation because US President Donald Trump may not be reelected in November.
The sudden hardening of positions turned the all-but-certain unity government into a frozen and uncertain stalemate — a stalemate that Gantz’s abandoned center-left allies insisted proved Netanyahu’s intentions had been dishonest from the start.
Article continues at link