If various coalition partners make good on their threats to abandon the Netanyahu government in a vote of no-confidence by the opposition, polls show that the right-wing Likud party will only benefit from early elections.
A new poll conducted this week by Israel's Maagar Mochot (Brain Trust) found that if elections were held today, the Likud would win 34 of the Knesset's 120 seats.
In second place would be the centrist Yesh Atid faction with 24 seats.
The opposition Zionist Union (Labor) would suffer the most, dropping from its current 24 seats to just 10 in the new Knesset, while the right-wing settler faction, Jewish Home, would rise from 8 seats to 14 seats.
The other drastic change, according to this particular poll, is that the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, one of the sources of the current government's headaches, would fail to pass the electoral threshold and would be absent from the new Knesset.
These numbers would enable the head of Likud to establish a stable government of 67 seats, even without Shas.
However, whether or not Netanyahu would be the one to lead that new government would also depend on the outcome of the various corruption investigations targeting himself, his wife and numerous of their political, personal and business associates.
France's president believes that for the sake of advancing a peace process that hasn't gone anywhere in 20 years, the international community should continue adhering to a fantasy that is clearly debunked by facts on the ground.
Speaking at the annual dinner of France's Jewish umbrella organization, CRIF, President Emmanuel Macron chastised US President Donald Trump for his recent public recognition of the obvious - that Jerusalem is the capital city of the State of Israel.
Macron called this move an "error" that only served to perpetuate the Middle East conflict.
He went on to echo Palestinian leaders by insisting the US could no longer play the role of honest and unbiased peace broker.
What Macron glossed over was the fact that 20 years of playing to the Arab narrative regarding Jerusalem had likewise never served to advance the cause of peace. Even former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak's offer to surrender most of the eastern half of the Holy City didn't result in an agreement. In fact, it preceeded precisely the opposite - an explosion of violence.
Pretending that Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel to avoid Palestinian outbursts is akin to a parent letting a belligerent child have his or her way to forestall a temper tantrum.
1 comment:
Just thank you for putting these at my fingertips. These tell the whole story. Not long. Not long at all
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