Netanyahu indicted, now on trial

Netanyahu will win and he is still the only player who can form a Government, Israel has a complex political system but it’s become a conservative country and in the end The current PM will prevail.
I was just with the Consul General to NY a few weeks ago at an interfaith Charity deal in his home and I asked him directly.

Even AIPAC is criticizing Netanyahu over this:

"JERUSALEM — Criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government has been heard from American Jews for a while now, but a simple 20-word tweet from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the largest American Israel lobby, has sent shock waves through the political establishment here.  The tweet, which came late Friday, was a show of support for an earlier statement by another powerful group, the American Jewish Committee (AJC)...'The views of Otzma Yehudit are reprehensible. They do not reflect the core values that are the very foundation of the State of Israel,' AJC wrote in its statement. 'The party might conceivably gain enough votes to enter the next Knesset, and potentially even become part of the governing coalition.'  AIPAC’s tweet simply said it agreed with the AJC and added that it 'has a long-standing policy not to meet with members of the racist and reprehensible party.'...

"For AIPAC, which is often considered Netanyahu’s support base in the United States, the decision to criticize such a move is even more unusual. The pro-Israel lobby endeavors to remain apolitical, and the decision to air its view on this point was probably taken with much deliberation...'When AIPAC speaks out this way, this is cause for alarm. Members of Otzma Yehudit belong to the margins of Israeli politics, not just on the Palestinian issue,' said Netanyahu’s former defense minister Avigdor Liberman, head of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, another right-wing, but nonreligious, faction."  link

It takes a lot to get AIPAC to criticize anything about Israel, much less Netanyahu's government.  This is just how divisive his move is.  He's playing with fire, and they know it, even if he doesn't.

There's no polarization, the LEFTIST, ELITIST EUROPEAN JEWS, who grew up in the PINKO, post WW2 ISrael on the kibbutz's and other communes, they and their children  are the minority, the religious Ashkenazi's are out populating them 4-1 because they don't have children, along with the Sephardics , who lived in Muslim countries and aren't fooled easily and the RUssians who lived under SOcialism/COmmunism and know it SUCKS.

Sorry the old lefties and you will be dead soon and Israel and the world will be much better off for it. 

"Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel is 'not a state of all its citizens', in a reference to the country’s Arab population.   In comments on Instagram, the prime minister went on to say all citizens, including Arabs, had equal rights, but he referred to a deeply controversial law passed last year declaring Israel the nation state of the Jewish people.   'According to the basic nationality law we passed, Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people – and only it.'"  link

Netanyahu is not unique in making such statements, or at least in behaving in line with them.  Like many leaders these days, he's a throwback to the era of Nationalism that led to a unified Germany and Italy, an independent Greece, and the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire into its many constituents parts...and ultimately to fascism, culminating in World War II.  The post-war world was devised, principally by the United States, as a rules-based international system of cooperation to ensure mutual defense and shared prosperity.  It has worked magnificently.  For more than 70 years the major powers have avoided direct warfare, and despite appearances, the overall level of international warfare of any kind is as low as it's been since the creation of the modern state, while the percentage of the world's population living in poverty has fallen to its lowest level ever.

Yet, despite this success--or perhaps because of it--a narrow nationalism is once again rearing its ugly head nearly everywhere, from Turkey to England, Sweden to China, Japan to Italy, and India to the United States.  Mostly, this is in the form of reaction from rural areas and less-cosmopolitan cities that do not fully share in the benefits of this system, where rapidly improving technology is disrupting established economies and habits of life.  But clearly it's not restricted to those areas.  We see it vividly in the anti-immigrant movements in the US and Europe, and concomitant reactions even to native-born minorities.  The dangers should be obvious, though many are not putting together the various strands into a more coherent picture.  But anyone who understands what the upsurge in "blood and soil" nationalism did in Europe would be fearful as hell about this.  I certainly am.

A little update from a friend in Jerusalem:  "Likud, won 35 seats in the Knesset. The primary opposition, Blue White, won the same number. How much credit should Bibi get from the success of five smaller parties, whose leaders indicated to the President that Bibi should be given the opportunity to form a government... the man's having trouble putting together a government. He has a bit more than a week left. Usually something happens in the last days. By this time, however, there's usually more agreed to than there is now."

So, things remain unsettled.  Meanwhile, "The matter of hearings is currently in the news.  The prosecutor's intention [is] to begin them in July...And in the air of a government not yet created are proposals that may protect the Prime Minister (and perhaps other officials) from prosecution.  Bibi distanced himself from these shenanigans prior to the election, but more recently has guided Likud MKs in how to present the case for protection...Meanwhile, Bibi's wife, Sara, has refused to accept offers to let her off lightly with respect to her management of the official residence, which has included large and small instances of criminal corruption."

The key point, though, is one that I have been thinking about for a long time:  "Israel is on the cusp of turning into something like Turkey, with certain forms of democracy, but using them to protect a leader with a record of personal corruption."  We in the US are seeing much the same thing.  It's not a small concern for democracy.

A nice piece from the WP probing the split between the Ultra-Orthodox and the rest of Israel's population over the military draft:

"The ultra-Orthodox, a catchall for a religious community that includes a wide range of sects, choose largely to segregate themselves from the wider Israeli society to lead a life in which religious observance is paramount. Outside influences such as films, the Internet and mixing with secular Israelis are discouraged, if not forbidden.  But in Israel’s fragmented parliamentary democracy, the political parties representing the ultra-Orthodox have become kingmakers in recent years, elevating their agenda and carving a fault line in Israeli society that is expected to grow...The ultra-Orthodox, also known as Haredim, make up only 12 percent of the population but are the fastest-growing segment of Israelis, with women giving birth to an average of 6.9 children."

Cutting off from society is something many religious sects do, and for the same reason as the Haredim: fear that engagement with the outside world will cause their children to reject their religion.  "Avraham Menkes, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi...sees conscription as a threat to the existence of his unique community. National service, he says, is a 'melting pot' designed to take Israeli Jewish immigrants from a diverse mix of cultures across the world and give them a uniform identity." And, of course, it is.  "Most recently it was [Menke's] nephew, who took off his kippah, or Jewish head covering, after serving in the military. 'He went to the military as a Haredi,' he explained. 'And now he says he discovered the world.' ”

But to most Israelis' it's not their job to keep Haredim "down on the farm" so to speak:  "The conscription issue has stoked the ire of many in the wider population who do not see these religious Jews as paying their way. Employment among ultra-Orthodox men is only about 50 percent; many prefer religious study. The government supports them with tax breaks and large welfare payments."  And as one of the children of such a family explains, “[The military's] a gate to go out from the community. The rabbis here are afraid people will connect with people from the outside.  The army is one of these places.”

The current power of the Haredim stems from what seemed like a minor concession: "Military exemptions for the Haredim have been around since the birth of Israel. In 1949, the country’s founder, David Ben- Gurion, granted them for 400 religious yeshiva students, because so many Jewish scholars had died in the Holocaust. Since then, numbers have ballooned."  And as their numbers rose they formed political parties that, thanks to Israel's proportional representation system, now control 16 of 120 seats in the Knesset, enough to make them the power-brokers in a system where no party ever wins a majority, and all governments are multi-party coalitions (a lesson for fans of multi-party PR systems).  And so Israel stumbles along with a minority effectively able to thwart more than 80 percent of the population.

That’s why the founding. fathers here were smarter than the 1940’s Leftists of Israel.
There in IsrEl a George Soros can “Trump up” stupidity, Like Bibi accepted Cigars and champagne from a good friend and make believe it’s actually an issue, here, Soros tried that and Trump won, everytime.

What you don’t understand is Israel is a Rightwing country.
Blue & White was led by a guy who is a right winger himself and would rather join with Netanyahu than give in to the Left, the other Russian tried to be the King maker and his own people hate him now, many believe he was directly connect to Putin.
You can’t fool Israelis who lived under Muslim rule and who were expelled penniless, only to be sent to Israel mostly, those Darker Jews that the Leftists in Europe make believe don’t exist are the risers in Israel Politics, along with the Russians who mostly hate the Left, The Modern religious And Haredi who Include the Hassids.

It will remain a friendly, Right Wing place that is also the most tolerant place in the Middle East for gays Who just LOVE Tel Aviv.

Yes the Leftists in the Universities try to lie and indoctrinate, just like in Europe and America but all those kids go into the army first and they are much better able to withstand the indoctrination.
Only the very WHITE Askenazi’s Jews are the Leftists, the children of the holocaust survivors , from Germany, Poland, Hungry et all.

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