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Coalition Negotiations: Bibi & Gantz in Nat’l Unity Talks

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Edited by: Fern Sidman

As often raucous negotiations concerning the cobbling together of a governing coalition in Israel continue to take place a week after the second election of the year, it has been reported that Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Monday night met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud party and Blue and White party leader Member of Knesset (MK) Benny Gantz at the President’s official residence.

According to a report on the World Israel News web site, Rivlin invited the party leaders to work together to form a unity government based on a broad coalition and prevent the possibility of a third round of elections.

Going into the meeting, Rivlin told Netanyahu and Gantz that “The nation expects you to find a solution and prevent another round of elections, even at a personal or an ideological cost. This is not a time for boycotts.”

WIN reported that the three leaders began the meeting at 8:00 PM, and after approximately an hour Rivlin left the party leaders to discuss the prospects of a unity government. The two leaders continued the discussion for over an hour. As he left, Rivlin sounded cautiously hopeful regarding the possibility of a unity government, as was reported by the WIN web site. “We have taken a significant step forward tonight, and now the first challenge is to establish a channel of direct communication between the sides,” Rivlin said.

World Israel News reported that Netanyahu and Gantz issued a joint statement as they concluded their meeting, saying they “discussed ways to promote national unity, and have agreed that the party’s negotiation teams will meet tomorrow.”

President Rivlin has invited the party leaders to meet him again on Wednesday, to continue discussing prospects of a coalition government that includes both major parties.

Earlier on Monday, President Rivlin concluded his round of consultations with the newly elected Members of Knesset with no candidate receiving a majority of 60 or more recommendations to be tasked with forming a government. Photo Credit: Shutterstock

Earlier on Monday, President Rivlin concluded his round of consultations with the newly elected Members of Knesset with no candidate receiving a majority of 60 or more recommendations to be tasked with forming a government.

At the beginning of the consultations, President Rivlin thanked the members of the Central Elections Committee and its chairman Judge Hanan Melcer for their hard work and dedication, noting, “We all know that only five months have passed and we are once again asked to address these issues, having thought that the people had spoken. The entire country is looking at us with deep concern that we will go to elections for a third time. A stable government cannot be formed without the two big parties and this, I believe, is the will of the people. We are a stable country, flourishing economically and able to defend our borders, and we must ensure that a government is formed that brings stability, dialog and healing of the divisions in our country.

The first party to give their recommendation to the president for the person to be tasked with forming the government was Kachol Lavan, whose delegation was led by Moshe (Bogie) Yaalon with MKs Avi Nissenkorn, Zvi Hauser, Karin Elharrar, Pnina Tamano-Shata and Merav Cohen. Kachol Lavan recommended that MK Benny Gantz form Israel’s next government, and undertook to return the mandate to the president if they were unable to form a government and emphasized that they would not be part of negotiations for entering the government under a different leader.

At the beginning of the second day of consultations, United Torah Judaism, represented by Deputy Minister Yaakov Litzman and MKs Moshe Gafni, Mordechai Babchuk and Shlomo Pollak, informed the president that their recommendation was that MK Binyamin Netanyahu should form the government and made it clear that they would support no other candidate for prime minister.

At the beginning of the meeting with UTJ, and after it became apparent that three members of the Joint LIst had withdrawn their support for Benny Gantz, the president referred to the possible lack of clarity following Yisrael Beiteinu’s decision not to make a recommendation and the withdrawal of the three Joint List recommendations, saying that such extraordinary events are a source of concern and that they make the prospect of forming a government as soon as possible more distant. “As Haim Hefer wrote in one of his poems, ‘we don’t want to go to sleep, we want to go crazy’. Let me tell you all, including the folks who run this country: go crazy if you want to go crazy. Even the president cannot stop you if you insist.”

Yamina was represented by party leader MK Ayelet Shaked, with MKs Moti Yogev, Ofir Sofer and future MK Matan Kahana. Yamina recommended MK Benjamin Netanyahu to form the government and said that if the formation of the government was entrusted to another candidate, they would consult with the members of the right bloc regarding their decisions.

Labor-Gesher’s delegation was led by MK Amir Peretz, with future MK Orli Levy-Abecassis, MK Itzik Shmuli, Secretary-General of the Labor Party Eran Hermoni and Secretary-General of Gesher Yair Ohana. Labor-Gesher recommended MK Benny Gantz should form the government.

The head of Democratic Union’s delegation was MK Nitzan Horowitz, with MKs Stav Shaffir, Tamar Zandberg, Ilan Gilon, and party director-general Ronit Chaikin Jacoby. The Democratic Union recommended MK Benny Gantz form the government.

At the end of the consultations, President Rivlin had received recommendations from 55 members of the Knesset that prime minister and leader of the Likud MK Benjamin Netanyahu should form the government, and 54 MKs recommended that leader of Kachol Lavan MK Benny Gantz should form the government. Eleven MKs did not recommend a candidate to form the government.

Gantz would have received more recommendations than Netanyahu if all members of the Joint List lent him their support. However, the Balad faction did not recommend any candidate to the president.

Yisrael Beiteinu, led by MK Avigdor Liberman, also chose not to recommend any candidate, leaving both Gantz and Netanyahu with no decisive majority. Liberman has said he wants to see the formation of a unity government and therefore chose to deprive both ideological blocs of a clear majority, as was reported by World Israel News.

It is unclear what Rivlin intends to do in light of the inconclusive consultation round. He has said, however, that he intends to do all he can to aid the formation of a unity government.

The kind of government that will be formed after last Tuesday’s elections is far from known, but the Arab Joint List has already announced that it will lead the opposition, according to a WIN report.

This seems an almost sure bet, as it’s the third-largest party in the Knesset and, historically, no Arab party has been part of a governing coalition, as was reported by World Israel News.

The head of the opposition receives briefings on national security-related matters, and meets with foreign leaders who come on official visits.

Since this would be the first time that an Arab party will enjoy such a significant status, it is instructive to know what the parties who make up the Joint List stand for – in their own words.

There are four parties in the Joint List: Balad, Hadash, Ta’al and the United Arab List.

Balad’s stated purpose is to transform Israel into a bi-national “state of all its citizens” and grant the “right of return” to Palestinian refugees and their descendants. At the same time, it supports the creation of a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders.

One of Balad’s founders, Azmit Bishara, fled Israel after being charged with treason for aiding the terror group Hezbollah during the Second Lebanon War, according to the WIN report.

After a party meeting in March in which the Palestinian national anthem was played, Balad’s newly elected leader Mtanes Shehadeh said that “The Israeli flag and anthem doesn’t represent us (the Arab public); it is a part of the oppression we experience.”

Ta’al’s ideology is almost identical to Balad’s. Its founder, long-time Knesset member, Dr. Ahmad Tibi, was an ardent supporter of the terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization during the 1980s. He acted as a political adviser to its leader Yasser Arafat.

Last month, he said in an Israeli radio interview that “Israeli arch-enemy Hamas is not a terrorist organization. It is one of the factions that represents the Palestinian people and it is a legitimate faction.”

On Tuesday, World Israel News reported that Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz says he has met with an “Arab” foreign minister and agreed with his counterpart to advance cooperation between Israel and the unnamed country.

WIN reported that Katz has arrived in New York for the annual opening of the United Nations General Assembly, leading the Israeli delegation after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cancelled his scheduled trip in order to stay in Israel for coalition negotiations.

The Iranian threat has brought Israel closer to various Arab countries with which the Jewish State does not have official diplomatic ties, primarily in the Gulf, because these Arab states also feel threatened by the Islamic Republic.

Katz, before becoming foreign minister, visited Oman in November 2018 after Netanyahu held talks in the same Gulf state in October, as was reported by WIN.

Katz, already as foreign minister, met with his Bahraini counterpart in July during a visit to the U.S. and reportedly with an undisclosed official from the United Arab Emirates. He also holds the position of intelligence minister.

World Israel News reported that Katz on Tuesday has tweeted that he had met with an Arab foreign minister on the “sidelines” of the General Assembly event and referred to it as a “first and fascinating” encounter in which cooperation was discussed.

The Israeli foreign minister wrote, “We had an in-depth discussion on the regional reality and ways to deal with the Iranian threat while also agreeing on a process to promote civilian cooperation between the two countries.”

Katz is scheduled to address the General Assembly on Thursday, the same day as Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas, as was reported by WIN.

WIN reported that Abbas arrived in New York City last weekend to attend the 74th session of the U.N. General Assembly. He wasted no time taking shots at President Trump, calling him “biased” towards Israel and saying that his decisions have been “destructive to the peace process.”

Among the moves by the Trump administration as being particularly harmful to peace negotiations, Abbas cited the transfer of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and the administration’s freeze on financial aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).

UNRWA has for years been accused of perpetuating the Palestinian refugee problem rather than solving it.

In August, 2018, the State Department announced it was making the cuts to UNWRA, which it described as based on an “endlessly crisis-driven service provision model.”

“The United States will no longer commit further funding to this irredeemably flawed operation,” said State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert at the time. Israel welcomed the move.

Also in August 2018, the U.S. cut $200 million in funding to other Palestinian projects in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip.

(World Israel News)

Read more at: worldisraelnews.com

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