Lapid’s great gamble: Once the government is in place, the Haredim will join  

A narrow, fractured coalition needs the ultra-Orthodox parties to survive. Bennett is trying a conciliatory approach to achieve that, while Lapid opts for blunt force trauma


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Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony for the victims of the 1948 Altalena incident, at Nachalat Yitzhak cemetery in Tel Aviv on May 26, 2021. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

As Bennett and Lapid — now publicly committed to each other — try to lock down the coalition agreements that will give shape to their declaration of intent, the thorny problem of actually building and stabilizing that unwieldy coalition is still ahead of them.

This is a coalition that could have formed in no other political context. Nothing unites deep-right Yamina with fervently progressive Meretz, nothing could bring ex-Likud hawk Gideon Sa’ar to make common cause with Islamic Movement official Mansour Abbas, except the desire across wide swaths of the Israeli electorate and political system to see the end of Benjamin Netanyahu’s long rule.

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May 31, 2021 | 12:23 pm | 5 Comments »

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Planned Lapid-Bennett security cabinet would have right-wing majority  

Full cabinet of at least 26 members said to include one-third women, one-third religious Jews, one-third Sephardi origin; will also have Arab and Ethiopian-origin ministers

By TOI STAFF         Today, 3:24 am

Then-education minister Naftali Bennett (L) and Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid during a ceremony at Netiv Ha’avot, at the West Bank’s Elazar settlement, on July 23, 2017. (Gershon Elinson/Flash90)

Under a planned unity government being put together by Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid and Yamina chief Naftali Bennett in a bid to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the top-level security cabinet will have a clear majority of right-wing members, Hebrew media reported Sunday.

The reported makeup of the body would indicate the extent of concessions made by Lapid to Bennett and comes with Netanyahu trying to portray the emerging coalition as a “left-wing government” that is “a danger to the security of Israel and a danger to the future of the state.”

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May 31, 2021 | 8:55 am | 3 Comments »

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What will Bennett-Lapid unity gov’t do to the judicial branch? – analysis  

Who will control the c’tee appointing judges?

By YONAH JEREMY BOB, JPOST

YESH ATID leader Yair Lapid and Yamina leader Naftali Bennett arrive at the President’s Residence this week (composite photo). (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)

YESH ATID leader Yair Lapid and Yamina leader Naftali Bennett arrive at the President’s Residence this week (composite photo).

If Yesh Atid’s Yair Lapid and Yamina’s Naftali Bennett form a new government, what will the impact be on the judicial branch?

Two gaping holes already need to be filled following the retirement of justices Hanan Melcer and Menachem Mazuz last month.

In 2022, Neal Hendel and George Karra retire, and by October 2023, Supreme Court President Esther Hayut and Justice Anat Baron also will have retired.

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May 31, 2021 | 8:32 am | 1 Comment »

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New York Times Is Caught Publishing ‘Palestinian’ Propaganda  

By , GELLER REPORT – on

It was supposed to be heartbreaking: on Friday, the New York Times published a front-page series of photos with the headline “They Were Just Children,” little “Palestinian” children who had supposedly been murdered by the evil Israeli war machine during the latest round of Hamas jihad attacks. The only problem was that one of the photos, prominently featured on the top row, was of a little girl whom “Palestinian” propagandists, using the very same photo, had reported murdered by the Israelis in January 2017. It was just the latest example of the fact that Israel’s atrocities are so many and so brazen that “Palestinians” have to fabricate evidence of them – and the establishment media eagerly plays along.

May 31, 2021 | 8:19 am | 3 Comments »

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Bibi is to blame  

By Ted Belman

Bibi is the reason that we don’t have a rightwing government.  Bibi is the reason we are looking at a left dominated government in the making. Bibi gambled on doing better in a new election.

All he had to do was resign. Instead he is forcing 45 MK’s to lose their positions of influence and go into opposition.

Its not too late to do the right thing, pardon the pun.  He should tender his resignation immediately, assuming such resignation would be effective immediately. Such resignation would put an end to the Lapid-Bennett government which is expected to be presented to Rivlin for approval by late Wednesday.

This would allow Bennett (Yamina)  and Saar ( New Hope) to join with Likud, Shas and UTJ in a rightwing government.

Bibi would be much better served by such a government than by the one currently being formed.

May 31, 2021 | 2:10 am | 59 Comments »

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Do you sympathize with the Jews or the Palestinians  

If you really mean “Never Again,” now is the time to do something about it. If you choose to just sit back and watch, we in Israel will carry on without you.

By Naomi Ragen

It is not every day that a woman wakes up to find that her children and grandchildren have spent the night in a bomb shelter, bombarded by missiles launched by a vicious, anti-Semitic terrorist organization dedicated to murdering every last Jew on earth; missiles launched haphazardly at densely populated residential areas at the heart of the country.

I think about my in-laws, both survivors, one of Auschwitz the other of Hungarian slave labor whose wife and two children were gassed by Nazis. And here we are in 2021, and their precious descendants are once again objects of intensive attempts at annihilation as the so-called civilized world brays in unison in support of Hamas, the spiritual heirs to the Nazis.

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May 31, 2021 | 1:44 am | 2 Comments »

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The strategic consequences of Bennett’s megalomania  

The leftist government that Yamina’s Bennett and Shaked are about to form will not be able to oppose the Biden administration’s policies on Iran because most of its cabinet ministers support those policies.

By  Caroline B. Glick, ISRAEL HAYOM        05-30-2021 13:01

There is little point at this stage of the game to mention the depths of moral depravity and treachery into which Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked have descended.  Now, as the two self-proclaimed “leaders” of the ideological Right defect from the nationalist camp and form a leftist government supported by pro-Hamas Arab parties, the time has come to discuss the strategic and national consequences of their actions.

The place to begin the discussion is by noting that ministers that support the Biden administration’s Middle East policies will hold an absolute majority in the leftist government Bennett and Shaked are now intent on forming.

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May 30, 2021 | 4:48 pm | 10 Comments »

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With his party’s support, Bennett says he’s heading into government with Lapid  

T. Belman. Bennett is choosing between this government and a fifth election, not a Netanyahu government.   Bibi wasn’t so right wing anyway. I like Bennett’s red lines.  Not mentioned here is his dominance of who is picked for the Judiciary nor the government’s position on Biden’s policies and intentions.  The question remains is how stable will it be given the reliance on Ra’am support.

Bennett’s said, ““We have red lines and we’ll uphold them. We won’t relinquish territory and we won’t harm the Jewish identity of the State of Israel.””
All Yamina MKs but one say they will back leader in joining bloc of parties seeking to oust Netanyahu; unapologetic Bennett insists coalition won’t be leftist

Today, 4:28 pm  

Yamina party leader Naftali Bennett at a press conference in the Knesset, in Jerusalem on April 21, 2021. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Yamina leader Naftali Bennett told his party’s lawmakers Sunday that he intends to join with Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid in forming a coalition, a move that, if completed in the next few days, would end more than 12 consecutive years of rule by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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May 30, 2021 | 4:31 pm | 23 Comments »

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The Great Jewish Divide  

By: Valerie Sobel

KKK, David Duke, Senator Byrd, slave-ownership, voting against the abolishment of slavery and against MLK’s civil rights movement of the 1960’s – proud and well-documented history of the Democratic Party. American liberal Jews vote for and fund this Democratic Party.

In 2008, Democratic Party birthed a two-term President who called for the return to Israel’s indefensible 1967 borders, orchestrated a UN resolution pronouncing most of Israel illegitimate in Jewish hands, and gifted Islamist terrorist state of Iran $150 Billion for acceleration and expansion of their nuclear program. A program set up to drive Israel into the sea.  Astonishingly, American liberal Jews voted for and funded this Democratic Party.

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May 30, 2021 | 12:08 pm | 4 Comments »

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US Jewry is shifting profoundly and Chabad is on rise – Pew research  

The Chabad emergence, documented in this Pew Report, is a game changer for American Jewish life. The numbers are startling: 38% of all US Jews have engaged in some way with Chabad programs.

By DAVID ELIEZRIE, JPOST      MAY 30, 2021 10:26

CHABAD TEENS on ‘Pedi-Sukkahs’ parade through New York City’s Time Square in 2014. Pedi-Sukkahs were offered around the world, including in Canada, Denmark, England, Australia, Holland, France and 14 American states. (photo credit: ITZIK ROYTMAN/CHABAD.ORG)

CHABAD TEENS on ‘Pedi-Sukkahs’ parade through New York City’s Time Square in 2014. Pedi-Sukkahs were offered around the world, including in Canada, Denmark, England, Australia, Holland, France and 14 American states.

US Jewry is changing and it’s heading in two different directions. That is what’s clear from the new Pew Report.

The number of Jews who don’t identify with religion is rising, with many on a trajectory away from Jewish life. But on the other side, there is a spiritual rebound. Orthodox Judaism is continuing to grow and successfully retain its youth. And, with large families being the norm, it will become a larger segment of the community over the decades. This is coupled with the rise of Chabad, now equal in size to either the Reform or Conservative movements.

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May 30, 2021 | 9:50 am | 3 Comments »

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Academics use propaganda, not expertise, to bash Israel  

T. Belman. ““We live in a society where it is more acceptable to be antisemitic than it is to be Jewish”. said a Conservative Jewish Rabbi to his flock. He also intimated that ” too many of his own congregants have preferred to define themselves as anti-zionists, I imagine, joining Israel’s enemies in bashing Israel, instead of standing by their own Jewish people in Israel and their ancestral homeland.”

Little did the Rabbi know that he was to blame because he further explained his hurt and disappointment that while he personally stood up for all other causes, LGBTQ+, immigrants, black lives etc. Nobody from the other causes is now standing up for the Jews, as antisemitic attacks are taking place across United States communities.

You reap what you sow. What did he expect?

How claim “Palestine is a feminist issue,” when child marriage, veiling and honor killing are not due to the alleged occupation? Op-ed.

By Prof. Phyllis Chesler , INN      , May 27 , 2021

illustrative

Men wearing Palestinian keffiyas have been running around beating up Jews in the streets of America and Europe. Israel was envisioned as the safe haven for persecuted Jews living in exile, and now Jews living in the diaspora are being attacked because Israel not only exists, but dares to defend itself against Islamist terrorist aggression.

In addition, interfaith do-gooders, feminist academics, and scholars in general are issuing statements of support for Palestine, but not for Israel, which has been under the most profound siege.

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May 30, 2021 | 9:30 am | 1 Comment »

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The Israel Lobby is no more, if it ever was  

AIPAC IS A SHADOW OF ITS FORMER SELF.

We are witnessing overtly what many of us began perceiving a decade and more ago — the end of the “Jewish Chapter” in America.

By Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer, INN      ,May 28 , 2021

Congressmen Elliot Engel & Jerrold Nadler

Congressmen Elliot Engel & Jerrold Nadler

I have an Orthodox rabbinic colleague on the American political left, one of the very few still to be found among American Orthodox Jews. He was quite all over the place last autumn, promoting the Biden campaign and attacking President Trump. In fact, because there are so very few of that mindset among American Orthodox rabbis, he found himself getting quoted and featured in most left-wing Jewish media organs seeking to find an Orthodox rabbi for Biden over Trump. There was such a dearth of others to interview.
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May 30, 2021 | 8:51 am | 2 Comments »

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The Oldest Hatred Now Fulminates and Flourishes at 1600  

By Joan Swirsky, 

In February, not two weeks into the, ahem, presidency of Joe Biden, I described in my article, “Joe’s Jews,” the appointments he made of 11 longtime Jew haters and Israel loathers to key positions in his cabinet/regime.

A month later, in my article “More about Joe and the Jews,” I described 12 more Jew haters and Israel loathers that Joe appointed to key positions in his cabinet/regime.

There have been many other alarmingly similar appointments since then, making it clear to even the most casual observer that the Biden White House has a particularly hostile––even hateful––attitude toward Jews and their ancient homeland Israel, combined with a perverse infatuation with and allegiance to any group or individual intent on destroying the Jewish state.

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May 29, 2021 | 6:23 am | 1 Comment »

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Bennett agrees to form ‘change government’ with Lapid  

The report came after Yesh Aitd came to agreements with Labor for the Diaspora Affairs portfolio.

BY GIL HOFFMAN, JPOST MAY 28, 2021 22:50

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chats with Naftali Bennett in the Knesset (photo credit: RONEN ZVULUN/REUTERS)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chats with Naftali Bennett in the Knesset

Yamina leader Naftali Bennett agreed to forming a coalition government with Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid, N12 reported.

The two sides agreed that Bennett will serve first as prime minister until September 2023, when Lapid will take over until November 2025, according to N12. The swearing-in ceremony is expected to take place in 10 days, following an announcement of the new government either on Saturday night or Sunday.

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May 29, 2021 | 2:33 am | 13 Comments »

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