Amid deepening rift within government, Gantz reportedly tells associates his party will not be beholden to coalition agreements if Knesset vote not held on budget by November’s end
TOI STAFF
Defense Minister Benny Gantz (left) and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a press briefing, July 27, 2020 (Gobi Gideon/GPO)
Blue and White has reportedly warned that should the dysfunction in the coalition continue and a state budget for 2021 fail to advance in the Knesset by the end of November, the centrist party will “act as an opposition” within the government.
According to the Kan public broadcaster, Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz, who has gone head-to-head with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent months over the budget, told close associates over the weekend that if it does not pass its first reading in parliament by next month, his party will no longer be beholden to the coalition agreement that set up the government.
Responding to the report, Finance Minister Israel Katz of Netanyahu’s Likud party, told Kan radio Sunday that Blue and White was “keeping the budget hostage to their political considerations.”
Israel has limped through 2020 without a state budget, even though the coalition agreement signed by Blue and White and the Likud in April provided for a two-year 2020-21 budget to be passed in the summer.
While the initial budget deadline had been in August, with a failure to pass the 2020-2021 budget by then requiring the Knesset to dissolve, Likud and Blue and White agreed to a last-minute compromise that gave the parties 100 more days. That expires on December 23.
Speaking to Kan on Sunday morning, Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman slammed the deadlock, saying, “There is no other country in the world that has not yet approved a budget for 2020 — this is an Israeli record. Most OECD countries have already approved a budget for 2021.”
Netanyahu’s critics assert he is bent on preventing Gantz from becoming prime minister in November 2021, as agreed upon in their coalition deal.
One of the few loopholes in that agreement between Netanyahu and Gantz that would prevent the Blue and White chairman from replacing Netanyahu after a year and a half would be if the parties failed to pass a budget, thus sparking early elections.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, with then-Foreign Minister Israel, now Finance Minister, Israel Katz during the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem, October 27, 2019. (Gali Tibbon/Pool Photo via AP)<
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On Saturday night, Gantz said he would weigh his options if the budget was not passed in the coming weeks.
“The next few weeks will signal to me if there is an intention [on the government’s part] to work for the citizens,” Ganz told Channel 12 in an interview.” If this does not happen… if the government does not function, I will have no choice but to think of the coming steps.”
Blue and White joined the government so it could “function in an emergency situation,” Gantz said in reference to his surprise decision in April to join a Benjamin Netanyahu-led coalition, weeks into Israel’s first COVID-19 lockdown. The decision followed three rounds of national elections in which no clear winner emerged.
“What we are finding is that the government is not functioning. We are fighting from within and will continue to fight for the government to function,” Gantz said, adding that the country’s priorities should supersede those of Netanyahu or his Likud party. The Blue and White chairman said he wanted to see the government functioning as a coalition made up of its different parties, preparing a state budget and convening its ministerial committee on legislative matters. “If not — I will weigh all alternatives,” he said.
In one of the ongoing disagreements between Blue and White and Likud, Gantz claimed victory Sunday morning in the battle to appoint the next state attorney, a move that had ostensibly been blocked by the coalition agreement.
Reversing a previous decision that no committee to name a state attorney can currently be formed due to bureaucratic difficulties, Civil Service Commissioner Daniel Hershkowitz said Sunday that due to its importance, the process of finding someone to fill the key post would begin immediately.
“There is no doubt about the great importance I see for filling significant positions in the civil service. Therefore, without ignoring the aforementioned difficulty, out of my duty to ensure the proper functioning of governmental systems, I have decided to approve at this stage the job posting and examination of candidates’ eligibility,” Hershkowitz wrote in a letter to Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit. He had previously said that the committee could not be formed because the acting director-general of the Justice Ministry, Sigal Yaakobi, could not participate due to her temporary status, representing a conflict of interest.
“It will be clarified that the said approval was given due to the exceptional circumstances and the special and unprecedented situation, taking into account the characteristics of the position and its importance,” Hershkowitz added.
Taking to Twitter, Gantz said in response, “We promised, and we fulfilled.”
In the government coalition agreement, the Likud and Blue and White parties agreed to put off any senior nominations that they were likely to clash over. However, earlier this month Gantz said it was time to end the “chaos” in the government and fill senior law enforcement posts that have long been manned by temporary appointments.
Netanyahu, on trial in three corruption cases, is seen as unlikely to agree to the Blue and White minister’s preferred pick for the state attorney post.
Israel has been without a permanent state attorney since December 2019, with the end of Shai Nitzan’s term. Mandelblit has been serving as acting state attorney in recent months.
Similarly, the Israel Police has also been without a commissioner since December 2018 with the end of Roni Alsheich’s term. Alsheich too was a key figure in the Netanyahu probes and thus reviled by Netanyahu and Likud as one of the figures the premier claims was involved in an attempted coup against him. Motti Cohen has been acting police chief since Alsheich’s departure and has had his tenure extended several times.
Gantz, in his Sunday tweet, vowed that “the next step is to start the process of appointing a commissioner.”
The following are selections from an interview with high-ranking Israeli physician and former high government official, published in today’s Arutz Sheva. Reveals that many Israeli member s of the ruling class are every bit as antisemitic as Andrew Cuomo and Bill DeBlasio in New York.
‘Isolate the haredim, cut them off,’ says Prof. Gabi Barbash – Haredi Community ?
Professor Gabi Barbash, a former director-general of the Health Ministry and director of Ichilov hospital in Tel Aviv, at one time considered by the government for the position of coronavirus project manager, launched what haredi website Kikar Hashabbat called an “unprecedented attack” against the conduct of members of the haredi community. Barbash was responding to news that several elementary boys’ schools resumed studies on Sunday, in contravention of government regulations but heeding the ruling of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, one of the leading rabbis of the haredi world. . . .
I think that this problem of the haredi community is truly a difficult problem to deal with. Look at what’s happening in New York – they have the same problems as we do, but there, due to political considerations, they feel that they have the strength to take action against the haredi sector and place sanctions on them. Here [in Israel] it’s not like that, and the result is that the haredi sector knows that it has a stranglehold on the political echelon, and they allow themselves to behave however they like.”
If such is truly the case, what does Barbash propose should be done? He outlined in broad strokes his “vision” for dealing with the haredim . . .
“. . . I think we simply have to erect a barrier around [those] cities. Let’s cut them off – no problem – let them do what they want [within their cities] and we’ll only let ambulances out to take them to hospital – and it’s obvious that it will reach that situation – and maybe that’s the right way of dealing with them.
“Cut them off,” he insisted. “Lock them inside their cities. Give them their basic supplies, and simply isolate them. Don’t let them out to go to work – or for any other reason. City mayors have the right to say that they don’t allow preschool assistants from ‘red’ areas to come to work. I see that local authorities are already doing this – the government can’t do it, but the local authorities can.
. . .
When it was pointed out to him that contagion rates are dropping everywhere, including in haredi cities and neighborhoods, Barbash said that he was pleasantly surprised at the data, but added, “I don’t really know what’s going on in the haredi sector anymore. Maybe a part of their rebellion is in [refusing to do] testing – and if that’s the case, we have no idea what’s really going on there. We see what’s going on in Tel Hashomer [hospital], and in other places that take those kinds of patients. From what I hear, there continues to be more contagion among haredim than among others.”
Israel is not a potential haven any more for Orthox American Jews, because it is just as antisemitic a country as any other. Infamous!!!
While the politicians fiddle: “Almost 1m. Israelis unemployed, half below the age of 34
The report revealed that during the month of September, both women and young people were more likely to file for unemployment, and at rates higher than even during the first wave.” From today’s Jerusalem Post.