in bocca al lupo to the dog star

On 17 Sep 2019 Israel held its 2^nd election in a year after the dissolution of the Israeli Parliament in April. The election was cast as a contest between Benny Gantz and Benjamin Netanyahu, the latter having tried for a fifth term as PM. In reality, though, it was a vote on whether or not Bibi was still fit to hold office. Neither of the candidates’ parties scored enough seats to form government. The final count was Gantz at 33 seats to Netanyahu’s 31. Even then, Bibi had to cobble together his seats from a far-right coalition. Since then there have been calls for formation of a unity government between Likud (Bibi’s party) and Blue and White (Gantz), with Lieberman cast as the kingmaker. Gantz has refused, and now the Joint List (Arab) party has endorsed Gantz as their man to be PM. The question on everyone’s mind is now: Is this the end of Bibi Netanyahu? Continue reading “Is this Bibi’s swan song?”

[There is an update to this post HERE.] Israelis went to the polls today yet again, after only a few months, to try to see if a government could be formed from amongst the warring political parties in Israel. Polling on the day puts the Kahol Lavan Party of Benny Gantz a half point ahead of Likud (Netanyahu), with those two parties far out in the lead. Five months ago, when Netanyahu had to form a coalition, he did so with far right parties. But then the Israeli Parliament dissolved itself and forced another election — this one. It is an important election in some respects,and then in another way, not. We’ll get to the why in both cases as we go along. Continue reading “Why this Israeli election is important and why none of them matter”