Ra’am and Join List have both announced that they will recommend to the president that Eisenkot get first shot at building a coalition. With 67 recommendations he will get to go first.
Do the members of the Knesset at least theoretically vote on this as individuals, or is the decision made entirely by blocs?
So…the plan is to deny members of a minority religious group the right to raise their children in accordance with their cultural traditions? Pretty sure human rights lawyers have a word for that.
I can’t stand the fuckers, either, but that kind of rhetoric leads to places we really don’t want to go.
The recommendation to the president is made as a block. The party leaders all visited him and made recommendations (except United Torah Judaism which is a Netanyahu block Orthodox party that decided not to endorse anyone rather than backing Bibi).
The vote for a government is made by individual MPs but defection is very costly in Israeli politics. You can be sanctioned by the Knesset and forbidden from running with any sitting party in the next election.
I did not know that. Presumably that is only a realistic concern if you are defecting from the majority? Or do all the parties come together to punish defectors?
No, not at all. They can raise their kids however they want at home. What they can’t do is decide that they’re not going to teach their kids basic math, science, English, Arabic, civics, and the other skills necessary to survive in modern society in order to keep them trapped within their cult.
If they want to keep those skills to the bare minimum required by law and then spend the rest of their time teaching them Torah, that is indeed their right. But they cannot rob their kids of a future by not meeting the bare minimum requirements to function in modern society.
I agree with all that, but I still think that particular phrase is creepy and off-putting.
It’s not the whole Knesset declaring you a defector by vote; it’s the Knesset House Committee, and at least in theory they are ruling based on established and nonpartisan guidelines.
Basically, if you are in a party, and you want to defect, you can only do it if one of the following things is true:
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Before the election you were already part of a faction, and the whole faction is defecting. So for example, Labor could break off from The Democrats, or any of the Joint List parties could break off, and as long as they do it as a block, it’s not treated as a defection.
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You’re taking 1/3rd of the party with you when you defect and you legally create a new party in the process (minimum of two MKs, one guy can’t run off to create a solo party)
These rules apply even if you’re breaking off from a minority party.
Lior Schlein is what you’d call a provocateur.
He’s a comedian, not a politician; and often what he’s doing is turning the right’s own rhetoric against them. (I guess Yair Golan gets a lot of flack for doing the same thing sometimes and he IS a politician…)
I don’t agree with him on everything but he definitely has a point about the Orthodox. Like the Hilltop Youth, bringing people who don’t share the cultural foundation that the country and the army are built on is corrosive.
But is “defection” defined as actually starting a new party, or just as voting against your party’s line on any one particular vote?
You can vote on a single vote out of line and it’s not a defection, just a break in party discipline. That’s an internal party matter, not a legal matter. But when that vote makes or breaks a government, it’s pretty much always going to be treated as a defection.
Ah, got it, thanks.
I’m reading about this issue in New York State, where it is legally required that private schools teach math and science. Lawless Satmar educators historically provide no such high school instruction to their boys, and do not meet state minimum curriculum requirements for girls either:
American Shtetl: The Making of Kiryas Joel, a Hasidic Village in Upstate New York
There is a balance between raising your children in accordance with your cultural traditions and affording them some opportunity to make a living outside should they so desire.
As for human rights lawyers, I’d say that pushing for the right balance is part of their work.
A solution presents itself:
Two birds with one stone, Israel gets rid of Bibi, and we get rid of TFG. I mean, he’s adored almost like a god over there in Israel (in his head). He says he’s got a 99% approval rating in Israel!
Israelis have tears in their eyes from gratitude over this generous offer; oh, wait, that’s just from hysterical laughter.
Unconfirmed rumors on the internet report that Eisenkot has enough votes to form a government!!
Haaretz seems to be confirming it.
Notably, all Arab-majority parties decided to recommend Eisenkot. The Arab-led Joint List joined Mansour Abbas’ United Arab List in backing him, saying the decision was aimed at replacing Netanyahu’s government.
Joint List chairman Yousef Jabareen said the party had neither requested cabinet posts nor sought to join the coalition, but was prepared to support an Eisenkot-led government from outside.
Abbas, meanwhile, told Herzog that despite the complexity of the election results, the gaps between the parties could be bridged to form a stable government. Asked about Hamas, he said his vision was for Hamas and other armed groups to disarm as part of a two-state solution.
Eisenkot also received the recommendations of the Democrats, Yisrael Beiteinu, Together and his own Yashar party.
Unless I’m missing something, this is enough votes to get first shot at forming a government, not to actually do it. There are probably more negotiations on that front.
ETA: ah, I see your quote. This is what they were saying at the meeting with the president I mentioned earlier, I think. The fact that they recommended him is definitely positive (compare to UTJ not recommending Bibi) but it’s no guarantee that all 67 ministers will agree to form a government.
For example, the Joint List said they’d be willing to support the government from the outside without a coalition. That would be a minority government, which I think is a good path forward, but one of the parties in Eisenkot’s block said they won’t agree to a minority government. Will they change their mind if it comes down to that or Bibi? Very possibly. But this isn’t quite an Eisenkot victory yet.
Is this story what @Thing.Fish was referencing? Or is there something else floating online?