Thursday, May 28, 2015

Kahlon: Key Reversal Announced Not Long After Bad Coalition Deal

Kulanu leader - Moshe Kahlon
It is two for one day on my blog.  Aside from my article about the FIFA scandal and the pending vote over suspending Israel, I couldn't resist adding a second blog.

I wrote about Israeli election results and the "Haredi Coalition" that was formed on May 6, 2015.  As you might recall, I was particularly disappointed with Moshe Kahlon.  Before the election, Kahlon had formed a new party - "Kulanu" ("all of us"), which was dedicated, primarily, to economic issues in Israel.  Its mandate was to lower the cost of living for Israels, break up monopolies and find ways to make Israel more livable.  Kahlon had taken credit for lowering cell phone prices in Israel and was promising to do the same for housing.  Sounds great so far.

But with all of these great ideas, Kahlon's first act was to sign on to a government that was promising to waste billions of shekels - adding cabinet ministers, providing huge payouts to the UTJ and other ultra-religious parties - and pledging funds to a wide range of other expensive programs demanded by the new coalition partners.  The stench was significant.  One was left wondering whether Kahlon was incompetent (i.e. a poor negotiator), stupid or corrupt.  I suggested that just the act alone of joining a government that was prepared to make so many monetary concessions to the ultra-religious would strip Kahlon of the credibility that he had built up.

Now some really interesting news emerged about Kahlon yesterday.  Prior to the Israeli elections, Kahlon had promised to break up the monopoly in Israel over the Tamar gas field, 30% of which is owned by Isramco.  Kahlon is good friends with Kobi Maimon, one of the major shareholders in Isramco.  When asked about this exact issue before the election, Kahlon said that his personal relationship with Maimon was irrelevant and that breaking up the monopoly was in Israel's best interest and that he would do it, irrespective of any friendships he had.

Yesterday, Kahlon stated that he would not be involved in any way in breaking up the gas monopoly in Israel, even though, as Minister of Finance, this would be within his bailiwick.  Instead, he indicated that he was punting the issue over to Prime Minister Netanyahu.  But, in explaining his decision, he noted that he was putting the issue on the back burner specifically because of his friendship with Maimon.  News agencies across Israel were juxtaposing Kahlon's pre-election statements with his diametrically opposite pronouncements made yesterday.  Not surprisingly, many colourful adjectives are being thrown around...

Some of Kahlon's supporters are arguing that it is still way to early to judge his performance and that he is a seasoned politician who knows how to get things done.  They argue that he will fulfill several of his pre-election promises and that over time, these preliminary issues will look very minor.  Perhaps that is true.  I suppose we will have to wait and see.

But I am inclined to be concerned about a pattern that seems far more unsavoury.  Between Kahlon's agreement to dole out billions of shekels to the ultra-religious - and now his reversal on the issue of breaking up the gas monopoly, I would suggest that Kahlon's support across Israeli public opinion is likely to plummet very quickly, which will be good news for Israel's centrists in the next election (which I still believe will be sooner rather than later).




FIFA, Corruption And The Vote Over Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu with FIFA President Blatter
It couldn't happen to a nicer organization...

Perhaps it was not much of a surprise to see that seven top FIFA executives were arrested in Zurich yesterday on charges of racketeering, fraud, money laundering etc.,  The charges apparently relate to bribes that FIFA officials are alleged to have received in connection with awarding the World Cup to South Africa in 2010.  Investigations have been opened over the awarding of the World Cup to Russia for 2018 and Qatar for 2022.  Qatar as a World Cup host?  Is there any other plausible explanation aside from bribery?

FIFA has long been the subject of swirling allegations of match fixing, bribery of officials and all sorts of other conduct.  FIFA President Sepp Blatter, who is now running for his fifth term on Friday, has vehemently denied having any knowledge of any such activities.  Funny enough, one of his strongest supporters is Russian President Vladimir Putin, who always seems to have "no knowledge" of different circumstances, particularly the untimely deaths of his various political opponents.

It is in this context that one must consider the Palestinian motion that has been brought to oust Israel from FIFA.  What's wrong with this picture?  For one thing, "Palestine" is not even a state.  Why does it have its own FIFA team to begin with?  It should have "FIFA observer status."

But consider - that the Palestinian FIFA organization is asking the 209 members of FIFA for a popularity contest vote with respect to Israel.  Not sure how Qatar, Saudia Arabia, Yemen, Turkey and some other human rights luminaries are likely to vote but  they seem disinclined to support Israel, to put it mildly.  I haven't seen a vote on the FIFA agenda for the suspension of Russia for its activities in the Ukraine or, for that matter, for the suspension of Palestine for the launching of rocket attacks at Israel last year.  This motion to suspend Israel is obviously a blatant political move by the Palestinians in their ongoing effort to delegitimize Israel by using the BDS movement, instead of making political concessions to reach a peace deal.

Consider for a moment the structure of FIFA.  Israel is already in the wrong division in an organization that is supposed to be apolitical.  Israel is part of UEFA, the European Football association rather than the Middle Eastern division.  For this reason, it is so difficult for Israel to gain entry to the World Cup finals.  Geographically, Israel should be grouped with its neighbours.  It should have to play Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Jordan etc., to qualify.  If those countries were to boycott the matches, they could be considered to have defaulted the game.  If there are any security concerns, matches could be played in neutral territory in Europe.  But instead, FIFA has always given in to the notion that a whole geographic area can exclude Israel and force Israel to play with the Europeans.  If FIFA had any balls as an organization (and not balls that were being artificially inflated or otherwise doctored), it would take the appropriate steps to ensure that Israel is in the proper division.

So the issue has already been politicized.  Now the Palestinians have clamoured for a vote to suspend Israel.  With yesterday's news of the arrests of several FIFA officials, it became clear that an investigation has been going on at FIFA for more than a year.  These FIFA officials have known, or certainly should have known what was going down. 

In the face of this type of pressure on FIFA, why not do what Middle Eastern countries always do?  Blame Israel for everything, lob the ball over to the Israeli side of the pitch and see if all of the negative attention can be deflected to Israel.  Moreover, with allegations of bribery swirling over the award of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar - a key financier of Hamas and backer of various terrorist activities, perhaps it was even a condition of the award to Qatar that this type of motion would be brought at FIFA.

A cynic might question the timing of U.S. prosecution officials and wonder why so many FIFA officials would be arrested just as the issue of suspending Israel was coming to a vote.  Fair enough, the timing is interesting.  But this investigation has been going on for more than a year and is apparently just the tip of the iceberg.  It will be really interesting to find out how Russia and Qatar were awarded their World Cups.  (South Africa apparently bribed officials to the tune of $10 million U.S. to get the games).

With this background information, it seems far more likely that the Israel issue is much more of a smoke screen, a cloud set up to distract attention from what is really going on at FIFA.  In other words, the timing issue is probably the exact opposite of what the cynic might suggest.  It is FIFA, down by a player or two (or seven), with a collection of yellow cards (or whatever colour U.S. indictments might be) that is begging the referee to hand Israel a red card at a crucial moment to deflect attention from its own foul play. 

Can anyone really say that Israel is the one country in the world that should be suspended from participating in world football with everything going on in the world?  I haven't heard of any pending votes on Russia (over Ukraine), China (over Tibet), or countless other countries.  If FIFA decides to go down this road of politicizing football even more than it already does, it may wind up with only a handful of member countries who are deemed to be worthy of participation in its illustrious organization. 

The best outcome for Israel, for FIFA, for world football and for international sports would be a vote in which Israel manages to scrape together more than the one-third that it needs to avoid suspension.  Hopefully, an even more decisive vote would send the message that political disputes should not be played out on the football pitch. 

Perhaps the next discussion topic, if Israel is successful, will be the realignment of FIFA divisions to put Israel in the Middle East, where it really belongs.  But, of course, that is just a dream.  Given FIFA politics, it is far more likely that the organization will soon vote to add a new member to the organization - ISIL/ISIS - with its apparent expertise at heading the ball - and beheading opposition players. 

World Football fans might even get to watch ISIL play Palestine at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, while some democratic countries like Israel sit out on the sidelines.  Can't wait...




Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Netanyahu Finalizes His Haredi Coalition

Well, the negotiations are over and we have a new government in Israel.  A razor-thin 61 seat government, led by Prime Minister Netanyahu and his Likud party.  The government includes the UTJ (United Torah Judaism) (an ultra-religious Ashkenazi party), Shas (an ultra-religious Sefardi party, led by a convicted fraudster), Bayit Hayehudi (a religious Zionist party) and Moshe Kahlon's Kulanu party.  This is one big right wing party (or maybe a small right wing party, since it can hardly be described as a broad government).

Zionist Union Party leader Isaac Herzog called it "the weakest, most extortionist, most narrow government in Israeli history."  Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid called the coalition agreement "a liquidation sale."  Hard to argue with these characterizations.

By all accounts, the concessions given up by Prime Minister Netanyahu to the various coalition partners are excessive and wide-ranging.  The coalition agreement rewards the ultra-religious parties with a veritable reversal of a full range of changes that had been instituted at Lapid's behest in the previous mandate.  I have listed them already in previous blogs.  But "highlights" include:

  • Reversing the requirement that the ultra-religious be conscripted to the army, like other Israelis;
  • Reversing the requirement that state funded religious schools teach math and science and other secular subjects;
  • Reversing the cuts to yeshivas and restoring all funding to all ultra-religious programs to pre-2012 levels;
  • Providing the ultra-religious with an effective "veto" over any religion-state issues;
  • Installing UTJ Knesset members in some of the most important Knesset roles including Chair of the Knesset Finance Committee;
  • Turning over all key Education ministry positions to the religious parties, including responsibility for secular education.
The list goes on and on.  For those who favour religious pluralism, for liberal democrats and those who favour shul-state separation, the list of concessions is stomach churning.  In fact, I'm having a hard time thinking of anything positive to say about the composition of this government, other than, perhaps, the notion that Netanyahu may be the leader most capable of overseeing Israel's military and managing it in the face of a war or other major military event (which could occur at any time).

The "bright light" in the new government was supposed to be Moshe Kahlon, who had been elected to focus on economic issues and help make the country more liveable for the Israeli middle class.  But his opening act in this capacity has been the delivery of a stamp of approval to a governmental arrangement that will take billions of sheqels and pour it into parochial religious programs.  I would have to think that if another election were held today, Kahlon would lose at least half of his seats as a result of this display of a complete lack of judgment.

Perhaps surprisingly, Avigdor Lieberman has kept his rightist "Yisrael Beitenu" out of this unholy coalition.  That may well herald an early dissolution of what is bound to be a very unpopular government.

One would have to think that many Kahlon and Likud supporters will be demanding answers to why their parties felt the need to deliver so many concessions to the ultra-religious to form this government.  I have yet to hear any convincing answers, certainly not from Kahlon.

The big winners are bound to be Yair Lapid, Avigdor Lieberman and the Zionist Union party, all of whom will sit in opposition.  Of the three, it is really only Lapid and Lieberman who Israelis could count on to stand up to ultra-religious demands.  The Israeli Labour party, in the past, has made equally unpalatable concessions to the ultra-orthodox and had signaled a willingness to do so once again if that would have put them in power.  Only Lapid truly stood up to these demands in the previous Knesset and Lieberman has taken a stand this time around.

The good news, if there is any at this time, is that this government is not likely to last.  Netanyahu's coalition building decisions may well mean that his days as Israel's Prime Minister are limited.  There is bound to be a backlash as the government begins to implement this Haredi agenda.

Certainly Conservative and Reform rabbis and their congregations, in Israel and abroad, are likely to begin reciting the appropriate prayer for the speedy demise of this governing coalition and its replacement with one that is more representative, more pluralistic, more transparent and more committed to the rule of law (secular law, that is).  And that is not to mention anything about the prospect of peace negotiations, which are not even likely to make it to the back burner with this governmental configuration.

Looking forward to the next election already....








Monday, May 4, 2015

Lieberman: Hero or Opportunist? Latest Rumblings from Israel.

Avigdor Lieberman heads the "Yisrael Beitenu" ("Israel, Our Home") party in Israel.  He is a bit more of a complex politician than one might have thought.  On the one hand, he is viewed by some as a far right wing nationalist.  Certainly he has made some comments in the past about Israel's Arab population that can only be described as "racist."  He is unpredictable and will often say some things that many politicians would probably later regret.

At the same time, he can sometimes be far more practical than his right wing Israeli counterparts.  Lieberman, for example, has indicated that he is prepared to support a true "two-state solution" whereby one state would be a Palestinian state for Palestinians and the other state would be a Jewish state.  While some of his opponents call this a form of "ethnic cleansing," it is actually a far more logical solution than such epithets might suggest.  As part of any solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he argues, the Palestinians should be prepared to resolve any issue of Palestinian refugees by taking in as many Palestinians as would like to come - to their nascent state.  In this context, he also argues that it is logical to draw the borders of the two states in such a way that the large Jewish populations in Gush Etzion and other West Bank areas remain in Israel; whereas areas with overwhelmingly Palestinian populations, even if those areas are currently part of Israel, are to be ceded to the Palestinian state.  These proposals, he holds, would be most likely to ensure that there is a truly workable two state solution to the Palestinian conflict.  For many, this makes much more sense for Israel's long term security than Bennett's plan to annex the West Bank ("Judea and Samaria").  Then what?  Bennett and others on the right have no answer.  For the long run, Lieberman has suggested that Israel's Arabs who choose to continue to live in Israel, rather than the Palestinian state, should be prepared to serve in Israel's military or national service and should be entitled to full equality of opportunity. 

But getting back to Lieberman's current situation, he is a secular nationalist politician rather than a religious nationalist.  His constituency is in favour of easing the restrictions on conversions to Judaism, lessening the power of the religious authorities over the state (especially the ultra-religious) and reducing state funding of the ultra-Orthodox institutions.  Much of this would explain why Lieberman and his party were able to sit in a government with Lapid's Yesh Atid in the previous coalition, even though Lapid is viewed as much more of centrist.

But now, Prime Minister Netanyahu has reversed directions completely from the previous government that he led.  The first party that he signed up to join his coalition was United Torah Judaism.  I wrote about the concessions that Netanyahu made in my lost blog.  Certainly these concessions would be very hard to stomach for anyone with Lieberman's views about religion and state.  The concessions make it virtually impossible that Lapid's Yesh Atid party would even negotiate with this government, let alone join it.  But Lieberman was still negotiating.

Then today, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced another coalition agreement.  He had signed up the other ultra-religious party, led by convicted fraudster Aryeh Deri and was willing to provide that party with a fat range of concessions and ministerial portfolios.  Things get uglier and uglier by the day for those who endorse some level of shul-state separation or religious pluralism in Israel.

After the Shas announcement, Lieberman announced that his party would not join this government. This will leave Netanyahu with a razor-thin 61 seat government (out of 120 in the Knesset), once Netanyahu finalizes an arrangement with Bennett's "Bayit Yehudi" (Jewish Home) party.   

It is too early, in my view, to determine whether Lieberman is using this pressure as a negotiating tactic to wrangle some further concessions out of Netanyahu or whether he is taking a principled approach.  It is fair to say that over the years, Lieberman has not always been characterized as a man of principle.  We will probably have a better idea over the next few days.

If Lieberman stays out of the government, the big winners are bound to be Yair Lapid and Lieberman himself.  Many Israelis who voted for Likud or Moshe Kahlon's Kulanu party will be sorely disappointed to see that the biggest priority of their new government will be to restore a vast range of funding to various ultra-religious programs and to retract on the requirement that ultra-orthodox share the military burden of defending the state.  Many Israelis will find it hard to fathom that the solution for Israel's current financial situation is to take huge sums of money and pour it into ultra-religious programs, at the expense of universal health, education, infrastructure and other priorities.  This could mean a relatively short-lived government and a big boost for Lapid and Lieberman in the next election (at the expense of Likud and Kulanu seats).

On the other hand, if Lieberman simply uses this opportunity to extract further concessions for his party and himself and then joins a government which goes ahead with this ultra-religious program, he will undoubtedly alienate even more of his constituency (he had already fallen from 13 to 6 seats in the most recent election).

It should be interesting to follow.  I am inclined to suggest that many Israelis watching these events unfold will be much more likely to vote for Lapid in the next election.  This could create quite the pendulum swing in the religion-state relationship.  For Netanyahu to go ahead with such far reaching changes, while only holding a one seat majority, will be perilous for him and his party - as well as for Kahlon who will be seen as an accomplice to this shift towards the ultra-religious.   

Then again, all of that is an "optimistic" view of Israeli voters from a democratic, pluralistic view point.  If Israelis really do prefer to have the ultra-religious hold the balance of power....well...it becomes hard to imagine where we are headed.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is supposed to present the final governing coalition by May 7, 2015.  It will be fascinating to see what takes place in the late night, closed door meetings between now and then.