Inside Israel Today: A Political Guide to “After the Holidays”

[Music] you're listening to inside Israel today with your half moon on the land of Israel Network hello and welcome to inside Israel today here on the land of Israel network on the land of israel calm the Beatles sang a song that said I don't know why you say goodbye I say hello and I feel like I have something in common with the Beatles today because we haven't done this show and so long because there have been so many holidays all of them seeming to come on the Tuesday or right around the Tuesday and yet I'm leaving on a speaking tour for three weeks on Friday and I have not yet mastered the technical abilities that my colleagues here in the Land of Israel Network have to permit me to broadcast a show from a different country and so here we are we have this one show to talk about everything there's been and everything that there will be as if I really know so first of all before I get into the politics we have had beautiful holidays here in Jerusalem the weather has been absolutely gorgeous the tourists have come from all over the world another record year in tourism if you haven't been this is the time to plan a trip to come around this time next year because Jerusalem in particular keeps on getting more and more beautiful so we had a wonderful Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur Sukkot and Simchat Torah and now they are all technically over and now we are entering the period in Israel known as a hey ha ha game after the holidays that is when everyone no matter what job you have has to stop procrastinating stop dealing with things that by pushing them away and saying I'll deal with them after the holiday after the holidays is here and you have no more excuses and that's true for our politicians as well sort of the overwhelming majority of our politicians can continue to do nothing as they've been doing for almost a year now let's not forget this all began on Christmas Eve the Speaker of the Knesset Yuli Edelstein made such a nice gesture when he announced that they were going to end the Proceedings of the Knesset plenum early on Christmas Eve on December 24th in honor of the Christian members of Knesset and this gesture would have been very nice were it not for the fact that all Christian members of Knesset celebrated Christmas On January 7th because their Orthodox and so the only one affected by this decision was going to be me because I celebrate my American Jewish heritage by going to a movie and eating Chinese food that night then Netanyahu earlier that day on the 24th then said I'm going to disperse the Knesset not you and he initiated the election that ended up happening at April 9th and then he didn't succeed in forming a government but he wasn't a willing to give that mandate to form a government to somebody else so he initiated another election instead Knesset members who'd just gotten their job after running 3-4 times and spending so much money finally got their job they didn't even get to deliver their maiden inaugural speech in the Knesset and yet they were forced to vote to lose that job that they wanted so much ladies and gentlemen do you remember Ozzie Diane he was interviewed here on the Land of Israel network on the Land of Israel calm here on inside Israel today you have a very nice interview please google it he's a former deputy chief of staff of the IDF the nephew of Moshe Dayan a right-wing nephew of the very left-wing Moshe Dayan a man who's held a lot of different offices here run social service organizations that help a lot of people among the very few politicians that are very well versed in in both the economy and security and spoke perfect English and could represent his role abroad very well gone this gentleman he's currently unemployed because he was a member of Knesset only from after the April 9th election until the May 30 days in the hand to vote to lose his job so and we had another election on September 17th and it once we got the results it was pretty clear no one would be able to form a government at least not for a while yet a game was played everyone went to the president to say who should form a government and it was clear that the president would ask the person who got the most recommendations but the Likud and blue and white didn't want to go first blue and white ended up outsmarting the Likud and telling Arab Knesset members don't recommend us three of the 13 three of the eleven and well that three of the Arab Knesset members did not end up recommending blue and white they pretended that they didn't support them to form a government and because of that Netanyahu had a majority of an MK or two and because of that he was the one given the first mandate to form a government even though it was it was very clear there was nobody who could do it that they were just gonna be going through the motions that it wasn't really going to be happening and so last night it really happened that Netanyahu admitted that he can't form a government we've been waiting for this for so long but it happened somebody other then Netanyahu is going to get a chance to form a government apparently tomorrow that is something we've been waiting for for a very low time it hasn't happened since Tzipi Livni in 2008 netanyahu was given a chance to form a government then and after the election of 2009 and succeeded and he's been in power now for ten and a half years and before that for another three Tzipi Livni imagine if she would have formed the government back then imagine how much different Israel would be and then she's no longer employed either to correct what I said before there are indeed 13 members of the the joint arab list in the new Knesset and so 10 of them recommended against 3 didn't which was enough to make Netanyahu go first now why would you want to go second my children never want to go second they always want to go first the answer is because everyone is waiting for the Attorney General to make a decision before a government can really be formed and we've really known that all along that the Attorney General has to decide whether Netanyahu committed bribery or not there are a lot of people who are very impatient for our government to be formed and I totally understand them this has been going on for way too long it's a farce a lot of the budgets to very important causes like helping the handicapped in the Holocaust survivors and the children and the elderly they can't be transferred but yet I also understand the people including the leaders of Likud and blue and white who say stalling is a good thing stalling is enthralling because we need to find out first what Nets anyhow did and it's worth waiting a couple weeks before you make a huge decision like how to form a government it could last for four years that means that it was smart for blue and white to wait and see is the Prime Minister going to be weakened by in a bribery indictment I could help him form a government and it is smart for Netanyahu to wait and say even though he had this mandate let's wait before the Attorney General to decide that he did not commit bribery because then it'll be easier for him to form a government after after the 28 days that gas has a chance because then there would be 21 days where anyone can form a government or Netanyahu can get another chance but this is a risk of Netanyahu's part because what if the Attorney General decides faster than people think what if Ganz gets a week 10 days where he already has a decision by the Attorney General to indict Netanyahu for bribery and guess right now it has the exclusive right to form a government that could change things dramatically or maybe not maybe the liquid Knesset members will say well we waited so long before we can wait another few days until Netanyahu can then form a government himself even though he's been indicted for bribery we'll see will there be a single member of Knesset of the 55 members of Knesset and the right in a religious block of Netanyahu who says oh my god you just got indicted for bribery we don't like you anymore go away I have absolutely no idea ladies and gentlemen and I'm saying this not as your average man on the street I'm saying this as a reporter who talks to these Knesset members day in and day out and in fact over the past week has actually talked to Likud Knesset members who are most open in their opposition to Netanyahu I've asked them are you going to force Netanyahu out and the answer I've gotten sounded like and now even if he gets indicted for bribery mainly because it's impossible you can't do it with one you can't do it with two yeah and they're certainly not anywhere close to a majority of the Likud's 32 Knesset members who it would be in favor of saying Netanyahu you've just been indicted for bribery you can't stay in office let's remember the law the law says that if you're a Knesset member and you get indicted you have to quit Netanyahu is a Knesset member doesn't you have to quit well the law also says that a prime minister if indicted doesn't have to quit actually doesn't say that it says that Prime Minister's to quit have convicted what does it say about a prime minister indicted it doesn't say anything lie by logic the Prime Minister has to quit if convicted he doesn't have to quit have indicted logic though if a Knesset member gets indict and he does have to quit Netanyahu is a Knesset member that means that this is going to be decided by the Supreme Court there will be petitions that say Nitin now has to quit it will force the Supreme Court to rule Supreme Court does not like Netanyahu a much Supreme Court would love to have Netanyahu forced out but will it really happen the experts on the Supreme Court tell me probably not so there could potentially be a political uprising against Netanyahu if he gets indicted for bribery but probably not you could potentially be legal interference to make Netanyahu step down if indicted for bribery but probably not so what happens ladies and gentlemen well we get to those 21 days and at first nothing happens because Israelis don't do anything far ahead of a deadline 21 days that's an eternity 21 days goes on forever do you realize that there been less than 21 days of holidays it seems like there's been a zillion days of holidays and yet it's been less now we're going to go into those 21 days and we'll wait we reporters will speculate a lot we'll be working pretty hard I believe during that time it's the last few days talking about December 11th or 12th being the deadline right now to form a government until Netanyahu returned his mandate to form a government two nights early last night it looked like it was definitely going to be December 12th the 12th day of the 12th month shortly before 12:00 midnight would be the deadline right now it's looking like Reuven Rivlin will give against the mandate to form a government tomorrow Wednesday which would make the 11th the deadline and that the 11th day of the 12th month and approaching 12 doesn't sound quite as haunting that is not what would be in an Edgar Allan Poe kind of book there so but it is what it is and around then somebody will form a government I believe I don't know whether it would be against going first in it in Yahoo second or Netanyahu first and ganz second but a unity government still remains the easiest government to form and if you don't have such a government we'll go to elections immediately and then nobody wants that we would have another election apparently on the the 10th of March we don't want that maybe I would like it but I don't think any of the other eight and a half million people living in this country would like it now why is it so important for Netanyahu to go first when a when a government is formed after all but Benny gas got more seats shouldn't he go first well Netanyahu has these criminal cases it's a lot easier to handle criminal cases as a prime minister there are everybody's equal before the law technically but not really it'll affect what kind of judges you've got whether you'd be tried in Jerusalem or in Tel Aviv you could get judges that are looking to get promoted so to be more careful with the Prime Minister to get judges that are not looking to get promoted that so are at the end of the line would be more honest we saw what happened with a Woodall Mert that because he quit he did get tried by one judge in Tel Aviv as opposed the three judges in Jerusalem and that judge put him away in prison so there's a lot going on the line here now let's keep in mind all that has to happen by that December 11th apparent deadline is that they have to get 61 Knesset members to sign a piece of paper saying that they want a government to be formed by this particular person they don't have to form a government yet they don't have to have policy guidelines yet they don't have to have a platform on anything yet they don't have to have appointments the cabinet positions yet all they have to have is a petition like you have a petition for anything else that petition has to have 61 names on it that's it now after that what is the deadline to form a real actual government with ministers the answer is it doesn't say in the law it could take two years it doesn't say but if you get those 61 members of Knesset names on a piece of paper then they prevent an election we've never had anything approaching this before we've never gotten to that 21 day loophole before so we're still trying to figure out what it is and when you're still trying to figure things out when laws have not been passed about how to handle them then that's when courts end up coming in in the end of having a coalition crisis a sorry constitutional crisis in a country with no Constitution now there is another possibility which Netanyahu has been talking about a lot lately which is that gas will form what's called a minority government they have them around the world where they don't have a majority but they have some Knesset members some parliament members on the outside providing a parliamentary safety net that prevents the government from falling well what if you have a government of blue and white alone just those 32 but then you have labour and what was once called merits and is now called a democratic you and the Israel BT no and the Arab lists all on the sidelines all saying we don't want this government to fall when it comes to key legislation they'll pass it when it comes to things they don't they don't they can't really get much done but at least there's no election that could end up happening or you could have blue and white together with the Lieberman and that's it or blue and white together with labour and merits and leave Lieberman and the Arabs together on the sidelines doing the exact same thing which right now sounds a little strange but you never know because you could have the Arabs and you smell Bettina both having in common that they don't want loot nittany out to be the prime minister anymore that could be enough to keep them together let's not forget something we've been saying all along this entire process the strongest emotion that unites people in politics is not love it is hate and this hatred of Netanyahu is strong there is not a majority for a lot of different things in the Knesset that just got elected one thing there is a majority for which is hatred of Netanyahu there are 65 Knesset members who don't want Netanyahu be Prime Minister not for a day certainly not for two years definitely not for four and if that's all they can unite on that's what they will unite on and there will not be an election I've been saying this all along I have a friend who keeps on writing me every time something happens that makes it look like we're going to another election do you still think the chance of going to an election is zero and I write back minus one minus two minus five ladies and gentlemen it is not going to happen we are going to have a nice poram that date that they're talking about about having an election on the 10th of March gotta take out that old-school non computerized date book over here from my pocket and I am Telling You the 10th of March is Purim wouldn't that be a farce we'd go to vote wearing costumes ladies and gentlemen this has been Gil Hoffman celebrating my Africa game after the holidays time with you perhaps all I could be interviewed by one of the show hosts while I'm away maybe we the technology exists to make that happen so I'd be happy to come on the Arion jeremy show or the eve hero show or the Josh Hastings show or the high flyer show you never know but unless that happens I will be back here mid-november looking forward to seeing you them from here in Jerusalem bye bye hi this is Eve Harrow host of rejuvenation on the Land of Israel Network you can hear a new show for me every Sunday and every day of the week shows from another one of my very talented fellow show hosts reach me Eve at the Land of Israel calm and keep listening everybody we love your 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