Inside Israel Today: Are Knesset Members Slackers?

[Music] you're listening to inside Israel today with Gil Hoffman 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 comm broadcasting from Jerusalem at an exciting time here in Jerusalem where I'm spending a lot of time following around members of Knesset as they are passing their last laws before they go on their extended summer break and we'll be talking about that soon but first I want to tell you about another story I've been writing with them which has been about a fellow named rabbi Joseph good Nick of Melbourne Australia who is a businessman who received advice many years ago from his Rebbe the lubavitcher rebbe his rabbi who died in 1994 the Rebbe told him before he died to look for diamonds in northern Australia and that proved to be a very smart advice he also told him that he should do what he can to prevent Israel from giving up land and that process had begun before the rabbi died that under its chakra beam who was elected Prime Minister 1992 there was an Oslo peace process the rabbi was very worried that Israel would be endangered by this process and so the Habad movement got involved in the election in 1996 in a way that they never had before in Israeli politics and never will again they decided that the election between the incumbent Prime Minister Shimon Peres and the young Likud leader Netanyahu must be won by Netanyahu and so they did a campaign the last three days before the election called Netanyahu is good for the Jews they put up banners all over the country with that very simple slogan Netanyahu is good for the Jews and this slogan had a lot of strategy behind it because Arthur Finkelstein now strategist found that majority of Israelis see themselves as Jewish before Israeli and part of being Jewish meant to them preserving the Land of Israel and preserving their Jewish values and that Netanyahu could capitalize them on this in the election on what it means to people to be Jewish and the people that saw themselves as Jewish first were more likely to support Netanyahu and the people who saw themselves as Israeli first were more likely to support Shimon Peres and so the body movement prepared this whole campaign in Junction's all over the country before the days of the internet being popular banners on the streets were the way to go and that cost money and Joseph good Nick paid for it and so Joseph good Nick was credited for bringing Netanyahu had been behind in the election to power in 1996 the first time that he got elected prime minister imagine had it not been for this campaign had it not been for Joseph good Nick Shimon Peres could have been reelected and the Oslo process would have continued at full force despite the suicide bombings that were taking place it couldn't very well be that Israel would look very different today there are people including show hosts in the Land of Israel Network who would probably say Israel might not even be alive today had that election in 1996 gone in a different direction and so good Nick since then has had his ups and downs financially and in his relationship with Netanyahu and I had the privilege of having lunch with him in and his family his wife Shana is a very good cook on Shavuot a holiday where people eat dairy products I was in Melbourne Australia to speak for Habad synagogue and they set me up to eat at the good Nick family home and there I had a fascinating discussion with Joseph good Nick with yussle Aziz called who told me that he has made an interesting choice on who should be Netanyahu's successor not any of the people currently and Lee could not Naphtali Bennett the leader of the byth UD the religious Zionist party but the number to invite UD a yell at shaked our Minister of Justice yes an ultra Orthodox rabbi says he wants there to be a woman Prime Minister he believes it's right for Israel in this day and age and he believes that his rabbi even though he's not with us would have supported her as well he believes that she has the right kind of leadership and that she can be elected that she is the kind of unifier because she's secular though has a lot of support for religion being a part of a religious Zionist party and so he told me that he has been in touch with a yellow chick head and that he has been advising her for many years to leave Lee could excuse me to leave by EOD and join Likud the ruling party in order to become elected prime minister and so I when he told me this I decided this is fascinating but I shouldn't write it yet he told me that I should wait and I agreed that we should wait for this to be relevant and I figured it would only be relevant when the next election would be called and then there might be pressure on her to leave and jointly could but then something changed on Friday The Jerusalem Post sister paper and Hebrew Mar Eve ran a poll that said that if I yell at shaked would lead the Likud in the next election she could lead the party to 33 seats as saying that Netanyahu would win as head of lis could now the reason why they commissioned this poll was because a few days earlier David Beaton who was the coalition chairman for a while is very close to Netanyahu said that if I yell it would run only could she would win the second slot on the party's list after Netanyahu and Samar we've decided to test it out when I saw this poll I said the time has come and I got in touch with you cell and he agreed with me and so I wrote this story which ran in Monday's Jerusalem Post and ma Reve and has resulted in a great uproar Naftali Bennett was asked on the nightly news on TV about my article which was kind of cool and he said that the Likud is trying to divide and conquer inside my party trying to cause fights between me and a yellow and it's not going to work I yell it this morning was interviewed on army radio here where she said I love my party and I'm not going anywhere but anything can happen in Israeli politics and this story is going to continue to develop and it's going to continue to be fascinating don't be surprised if you continue to hear in the future a yellow chick head as a serious candidate for Prime Minister that she's not going away and you will remember that it all came back from one meal that happened on the Shabbat holiday and that I managed to keep to myself for a whole month and not tell anyone about sometimes that's the way scoops develop now that in this day and age usually you have to say things immediately or somebody else is going to find out and this is something that happened very different and so yes there are a lot of people who are going to seek the Likud leadership whenever Netanyahu goes you might see up to 1015 candidates that will be running in the next Likud election which could very well happen sometime the beginning of next year if as predicted by our legal correspondent the owner Jeremy Bob in The Jerusalem Post that the Attorney General will decide to indict Netanyahu on charges of bribery in the case 4,000 affair don't be surprised if there is then talk about perhaps electric head perhaps Neftali Bennett joining Lee could in order to run and perhaps Bennett losing and then a yellow Czech head running next time this could all end up happening so stay tuned to WWJ post calm for all that excitement and action as it happens the second issue that I wanted to talk about here is what's going on at the Knesset right now which is that you have 120 Knesset members who have been incarcerated in their chairs in the Knesset plenum okay maybe not all of them and but there has to be a majority of the coalition in the room at any given point because they are going through marathon voting on legislation that they want to pass before the Knesset goes on its long recess starting at the end of this week when I say long recess it could be a recess forever currently they're supposed to come back in mid-october but when they come back and mid-october they could be initiating an election and that would mean then you'd have an election coming up in February March takes a month to form a government they wouldn't really be doing anything really important till May when you've got the Israel's independence day they've got a vacation then too don't be surprised if they barely work over the next year so this is a very big week in the Knesset and having said that I want to praise the members of Knesset because people think that they are slackers and don't work at all and that is not true they eventually do work they just procrastinate they wait until there's more political pressure to pass bills such as at the very end of a Knesset session before they go off on vacation so they have been passing a slew of bills that are very interesting and make lives better for P overnight they passed a bill saying that women do not have to wait in line anymore if they are pregnant they passed a bill saying that every educational institution in Israel must have an EpiPen to help people with allergies children with allergies they passed something recognising the need for young people with disabilities to be able to go to pre-army academies and facilitating that they're passing a bill today that will help this terrible dilemma that there has been for people who happen to be Prime Minister of Israel that their expenses are taxed and they're going to allow all those poor people to not have their expenses taxed any more okay so that is a bill that helps only one person but it does help him anyway that's the kind of thing that they're passing nowadays they passed a law overnight that says that companies will have to give a human to answer phone calls within six minutes after waiting on hold that's wonderful wonderful news I can't wait to call my cable company and get somebody within six minutes you will no longer have to pay property tax on a pergola pergola is a Hebrew in English word not just the Hebrew word right so all these things have passed in a very exciting way and so next time they tell you that members of Knesset don't really work remember what's going on this week after the break we will be speaking to an expert on what's going on behind the scenes in the Knesset and a yellow cheek heads by dudy party in particular Jeremie Sultan one of the rockets fell right by yeah Jason here host of Israel uncensored on the Land of Israel network at the Land of Israel calm tune in to my show this week for an exclusive interview with rabbi dolphin Dell the head of the Hester yeshiva in the town of steroid just over the weekend over 200 rockets and projectiles fired at southern Israel without trying the best to make this place into a ghost we're not gonna listen they're trying to break us right they don't realize it's invincible unbreakable here that interview and all the latest news Israel uncensored on the Land of Israel network at the Land of Israel calm don't miss the show [Music] and we're back here on the lambda visual network on the land of israel calm here on inside israel today we're in the first part of the show we spoke about the Knesset passing laws in its last week before it goes on what could be a very extended recess and we spoke about the scoop that I had this weekend through some post about the Australian diamond miner rabbi Joseph good Nick who in 1996 helped Netanyahu become the Prime Minister of Israel for the first time and who told me exclusively that he believes that Netanyahu's rightful successor should be the number two in the by the UD Party our justice minister a yell at shaked and with those things happening no better person to welcome on my show then a man who is both an insider in the Knesset and also the head of the member sarahx theone branch in the by dudy party of Naftali Bennett anayia logic head any veteran of the Land of Israel networks predecessor the voice of Israel Network Jeremy Sultan thank you for coming here on inside Israel today thank you it's great to be with he once again my friend Gil okay so what have been people talking about behind the scenes in by DoD about this story that I had about the representative of God if you will in the Habad movement deciding that God's choice as the next emissary of the Rebbe and therefore emissary of God in the Prime Minister's Office being a yellow chick head you know I'm a big fan of Kabbalah I asked you know before I get into what what people are talking about invite you D I asked when it went you go for the morning prayers I went about this morning's awkward so I could ask them what it was if this was like a blanket a blanket approval from the Rebbe from God what it was and they just responded no comments so I found that interesting but going back to the by easy so um as before you had your scoop which ever talked about an Israeli news for the last 24 hours about it started with last week the VP Tom with his speech it continued on with the scenario poll that was taken out in ma Reve there were a bunch of various reports of stuff that were either weeked or fabricated that came and were spoke on the news by various outlets before you went ahead and came forth with your story and really what we're talking about and what we seem to be feeling is that this is a concentrated we could efforts directed to try to break the by to D up and also to try to specifically help the Likud in the municipal elections in October first on the first part I also saw that u.s. Hendel actually came out with an article today in which he explains his view of why it is that he thinks that Netanyahu is deciding to break up the by beauty and his his outlook is pretty much that infinity I was able to break up the by you D then he doesn't have to worry about going to the right in the next election you can go to the center and what better way to do it than to offer the number two spot electric head to try to convince Kumada break off with the relations that he has with this c'mon leaders and sort of tried to demolish by you have to come in from handle but for the by UD you know I've heard various reasons of why you might be trying to break down the Bayou D most of them center around the relationship of course with Makino and Bennett and what used to be I guess Mitzi Allen shaked as well since the two of them were in the same boat until quite recently apparently in terms of the gossip columns but the second aspect that I mentioned which is the municipal elections Ayelet shaked was just yesterday last night doing what she's been doing for last couple months which is going through the country every night in another place the by Edie is running 65 municipal lists across the country last night she was in Vermont gonne campaigning for a vo Ben motion and she campaigned for me the sarod just a few weeks ago and what she said no but sir which you said well not gone last night even after all these things came out including your breaking story yesterday is the same thing on my eletric head you guys like me you know me you trust me this Bayou the official is my person I want you to vote for my person in the municipal elections there is the municipal elections in October very likely the national elections are going to be after that this is going to be a litmus test to see how good we are how strong we are that's why I'm asking all of you people not just religious people the secular people audience everything vote by ud in municipal elections now I can tell you not just from Eminem but what I've heard from my other friends among the 65 municipal leaders this is something that has scared a lot of likud mayors and a lot of the other we could deputy mayors and areas where Lee could is not mayor since they're usually just about every country one or the other these days and they have brought those feelings up towards them teas and ministers saying guys this is a very smart proposition that if by ug is able to do well animistic elections that could translate to the national elections which just about everything is going to happen within a number of months after the municipal elections in October so you guys need to do something now because if you don't help us we're not even going to be in a position to be able to help you when it's your turn around and as something that's resonated a lot with a lot of Likud people so the best way to go ahead and to deal with that specific issue is it's to very clearly say listen shaked is on her way to we could dismiss everything she said in that parlor meeting or in that big rally or event to buy ug she's talking about her people whenever she's coming to Likud on Richard I've always been we've been we could for decades vote for me forget about people like Jeremy or review then Lucien and ignore everything she said and again it's been like that whether it's coming because of bad blood with it you know whether it's coming because they want to actually crash the by using party from within similar to what Bibi did to crash Kadima from within with the famous O'Neal schneller mole and everything that went on over there or it's again this municipal leader thing it is very clear whatever fear you want to take again whether it listening people within the Bayou G or just people within the various aspects of the different distribution along the spectrum of the right in terms of the Knesset always this is a we coud concentrated effort whatever the reason being to try to bring down the Bayou you disagree you know I let you talk for a long time there I think I don't have anyone have let ramble on for so long other than a Holocaust survivor was over ninety and I pretty much let go for twenty minutes I respect your analysis there but I want to tell the listeners okay I'm not part of a conspiracy and I doubt that there is one I really do what happened was that David Beaton was asked a question at a meeting of the legal Bar Association and a lot about a yellow jacket and he gave her a compliment you gave her a compliment of the way the David B town was really good guy knows how to give a compliment oh she's so cool that she would beat anyone in the could if she ran in my party it's a nice thing to say when when you want to say something nice about somebody for somebody who has a point of view that his whole life is inside the liquid party and then Mar Eve decided you know what that's an interesting idea let's see what that would look like in a poll and found that she did very well and Gil Hoffman who had this conversation with Russell good Nick in Australia a month ago and had been intending to wait with a story for the next election to be called for it to be relevant said you know what if this poll ran it's relevant now let's go with it nobody here was trying to hurt the by dudy nobody here was trying to do using enough telly Bennett's of words from last night on TV the strategy of divide and conquer news just develops this way and the rumors that that Jeremy was referring to our that when my yellow chicken was the bureau chief and Naphtali Bennett the chief of staff of Netanyahu when he was the leader of the Opposition left on bad terms because the Netanyahu's wife Sarah found out that Netanyahu was paying them I was paying a yell at out of pocket and the same thing with just the expenses of Naphtali who it was a millionaire on his own and no reason to be paid and she screamed at a yell at and that Naphtali you're stealing food away from my children yet year and of nare so and that since then the Yellin has not been allowed to be in it's an hour's presence privately she has not been invited to the Prime Minister's residence and she has not been invited on planes together with the Prime Minister even when they're traveling to the same place for the same meetings and these kinds of things make it unlikely that Netanyahu would be actively trying to pursue her and so I think your whole theory there is far-fetched Jeremy so I appreciate your analysis and obviously I would never accuse the great and neutral Gail Hoffman of being part of any conspiracy you did interview someone who who was thinking about this and as you said one of the story to be held for before elections I've I've known for some time and I'm sure you have as well and you've heard a lot of things in terms of various points when bi you D was going up in the polls there were all this talk about maybe I yell at breaking away from left alley and going ahead and being a member as we could as you know the V baton traditionally is the mouthpiece I know that he's only coming back now into politics as he likes to say after his brief recess from commenting on public affairs well he was dealing with his own investigations which seems to be a thing that unfortunate a lot of we could people need to deal with these days such as Minister crime caps and so on but regardless of that point when you Tong says something it's usually because Netanyahu told him to say it and you're right that could have been a simple way to give a compliment but but I'll tell you something he also isn't like official what I want to go ahead and compliment someone and for instance I really like the we could party branch chairman uh in Memphis era and he's a nice guy and he's also probably a lot more popular than me perhaps even within my own party not only you know within the city the last thing I would do is to just suggest that if he ran in my party he would get this number one spot that's just not the type of way that politicians give compliments that isn't the type of thing that you would say as you know to be beaten is one of the people who wants to be Minister and we could he wants to get as high of a spot as he can in the next Likud primaries to be saying that this person is such a good person they could run in my party in beat me and be the top of that list that things to me again far-fetched for that to be an innocent thing there are at least 50 different compliments I can think of in which you can really think I yell it for the amazing work that she is doing and I could also point to previous things that be time said about ala in the beginning of the term which were not so positive but regardless of all that I understand your position that you think that this is a simple thing I tend to not see innocence when uh when things like this happen I think that like you said you are right that there are a lot of pieces that are falling into place following this baton interview and a lot of them is just the way that the news cycle works if that's the way media works I agree with that aspect but what I do know is and it was very very good at this in terms of controlling the public opinion in terms of controlling what is these specific topics that we are going to be talking about on any given day of course with the exception of his investigations which always have a way of creeping back into the news but he is usually able to and even a lot of times with investigation stuff being the top story on a lot of other stations of being able to provide a different narrative and enough stuff to be thrown to the various people in terms in the media in terms of being able shift focus I wanted to ask you about the bills that are being passed in the Knesset this week because you know people have an impression that the Knesset members are slackers that they don't work very hard and they're passing dozens of bills into law this is going to be probably the busiest week not just of the year but of the Knesset erm last week we passed 11 bills into law you know we voted on several dozen but a lot of that was in the first reading or there were votes on the preliminary reading since we're getting it to then of the the the the summer session which then if it is really you know technically is Thursday which probably will be Thursday because the Wednesday session will probably once again just like last night and probably tonight go over midnight into the next day and not leave our end case with a lot of sleeping hours but yeah just this week I would estimate and getting this can change we're probably going to pass I would say 20-something bills into law on the final reading there's a lot of bills that were also I'm voting on in the first reading which is important because if we do end up in a situation which you hinted at at the beginning of our interview in which we have elections right after we come back from the recess just like we had in 2013 where I had a three-month recess we came back on the first day after the recess voted for a Knesset election and then took a election recess for another three months in which for one day of work I got six paychecks and that is really the the great example of not you know of government not working what you have here today is really the government working very hard each one of them Kade's his sleepy maybe three hours at best they're voting within the plenum until all hours of the night then they come back in the morning they're dealing with committee votes before they go to the Palladium there's a sense of urgency within the corridors of the Knesset that we need to be able to pass as many laws as we can in their final reading right now because we might not have an opportunity to do so in the session and there's also a feeling that if we at least get some of this other stuff done in the first reading then you'll be able to apply a gene ritzy fruit in the next Knesset since this government does expect to be the next government of Israel even after we have an election and that we won't have to desert it wouldn't have voted on from the very beginning of the robbery right we won't have to go through right we would have to go through again the ministerial community of legislative affairs waiting you know months to get there for your turn and to be discussed in and postponed and discussed again and then voted on the preliminary reading then the whole round of committee hearings and voting before you even get up to the first reading so um there's just been a flurry of votes on legislation just last night we we passed a bunch of bills a regular tweet which did a great justice and mentioning the important ones of course to me I feel especially the one that says that people that go overseas and and really attack the IDF and criticize them to have no place to be in our schools in our education system that's against our values that's against what we hold dear again we're not abolishing them from the law anything but we are choosing the people who are allowed to speak to our children who are impressionable and we make sure that the education values they get is that we love the ideas and ideas it's good the nation-state bill which will come up tomorrow most likely or again it could happen ready after midnight into Thursday since my feeling is they're probably going to want to save the best for last and I think that that is going to be really the most important bill that not just this Knesset passes the business term I think of this entire generation you know after having 12 basic laws that define the Democratic nature of the country to have that one basic law that defines the Jewish nature of the country that gives our state symbol or our flag our national anthem our our language giving them the to tional status just like it is in every other country except the State of Israel that we on without apologizing say yes our state symbol is the menorah you know that's a Jewish symbol our national anthem talks about us returning home to the land of Zion to Jerusalem that we don't apologize for that that we chose the colors of our flag with the star of King David there in the middle and the colors of the tallit you know really just go ahead and have those things cemented within constitutional status so that we are like every other one of those nations I think that is really going to be one of the biggest feats it's not the biggest feat in most important piece of legislation as I mentioned in this generation okay you heard it Jeremy Sultan the Knesset inside are here and an insider in the by dudy party talking about what the Knesset is doing this week so ladies and gentlemen thank you for being with us here on the Land of Israel network on the Land of Israel calm and we'll have another exciting show from Jerusalem next week stay with us the Reverend dr. Martin Luther King said that the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy from ours is a story filled with both challenging controversy but ultimately it's also a story of hope and redemption I'm Rob McClure and this is the Jewish story join Rob Mike foyer for the best Jewish history podcast the Jewish story on the Land of Israel Network