Written by: Aaron Katsman | March 16, 2009
Late last night the Likud party signed a coalition deal with the Yisrael Beiteinu party, signaling that the new Netanyahu government is starting to take shape. The deal stipulates that party head Avigdor Lieberman will be the next Israeli Foreign Minister. While that in itself is interesting, they were also given some deputy minister posts, including, rumor has it, deputy foreign minister. Wouldn’t it be interesting if former Ambassador and former Nefesh B’Nefesh co-chairman, Danny Ayalon got that position? He is highly regarded in the US, and may help soften Lieberman’s rough image.
According to Ynet: ” According to the agreement, Stas Misezhnikov will receive the Tourism portfolio, Uzi Landau will be given the National Infrastructure portfolio, Sofa Landver will become immigration absorption minister and Yitzhak Aharonovitch will be appointed national security minister. Yisrael Beiteinu was also promised a deputy minister post at the Foreign Ministry and the chairmanship of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee. However, the two parties included a clause in the agreement stressing their support of a unity government, which – should it be formed - could bring about a change in the portfolio distribution.”
Many political pundits predicted that Netanyahu would have to give up more to bring in Lieberman’s party but it looks like he got a decent deal.
Written by: Aaron Katsman | February 15, 2009
For those of you who still don’t think that new US Prez. Barack Obama is going to be pressuring Israel to make all kinds of concessions, you had better wake up. According to an article in Globes, Obama plans on getting directly involved in trying to shape the new Israeli government. According to Globes: “US President Barack Obama reportedly may urge Israeli political leaders to form a national unity government, according to British newspaper “The Daily Telegraph.”
To be fair, the article says that PM wannabe Benjamin Netanyahu may enlist Obama to lean on another PM wannabe Tzipi Livni, to have her join a national unity government that Netanyahu would head. I hope that this is not true but if it is, it doesn’t speak much of Netanyahu. Are we already seeing the ‘old Netanyahu’ surface? He may be the best finance minister in Israel, and he make the best Foreign minister as well, but the jury is out on his ability as a PM. It almost seems at this point that his only drive is to become PM. After all, he ran a pretty bad election campaign, basically trying to run out the clock and not make any slip-ups in order to win the election. His strategy came at the expense of his own Likud party who managed to win only 27 seats, when the potential existed for somewhere in the mid-30’s.
Now he is gonna to enlist/succumb to US pressure in order to become PM? What are the ramifications of this? Are there any Israeli politicians left that won’t do anything for power? Pretty sick. And what about Obama? Shouldn’t he leave the make up of the next Israeli government to Israeli’s? Doesn’t he have enough domestic issues to deal with?
