Inside Israel Today: Why This is Israel's Midterm Election

you're listening to inside Israel today with Gil Huffman on the Land of Israel Network hello and welcome to inside Israel today on the land of israel network on the land of israel calm on another tuesday in this exciting election for Knesset and I say exciting election but I do have to take that with a grain of salt I don't entirely mean it and I want to explain to my listeners why I'm not actually calling this an exciting election as I normally would the answer is because I don't want to downplay the real exciting election that is already being worked on right now and that election is not taking place on April 9th that election is going to be taking place presumably sometime in 2020 that's going to be the election after Netanyahu has to quit the criminal investigations of Netanyahu will inevitably bring him down yeah I know we've got a lot of people on the listening to the Land of Israel Network who worship Netanyahu and that's well deserved the man has done so much for our country in his 13 years as Prime Minister and deserves all the acclaim the current state of our economy being very positive the current security situation being very positive the diplomatic situation perhaps being better than ever Netanyahu has to be given full credit for it but all good things must end and we have to be getting used to the fact that he can't stay Prime Minister forever we will have a prime minister afterward who will be less experienced and less accomplished and that's okay so the head election to replace that's in Yahoo whenever it happens though my money's on 2020 is going to be the exciting race the race where everyone who's been waiting because they knew that they didn't want to waste money and effort on a lost cause is going to run that's true in Netanyahu's the that's true among politicians who are not yet in Netanyahu's Lee could and that's true with Netanyahu's political opponents that's why I advise you listeners to this show to watch the moves that are being made by the politicians in the weeks ahead and understand that they are being made not for the current election they are being made to position themselves for the more important election of 2020 I'll give you some examples first of all a yellow Chuck head and aft Ali Bennet why would they leave a comfortable role as leaders of the by UD party a party that's been around for a hundred years and leave to some party no one's ever heard of have to build up a new name a new brand in three months why would they make such a decision they could probably do better if they have a storied history party with an infrastructure behind them with activists working all over the country on their behalf the answer is they're not really running in this election they are but this isn't the election that matters to them the new right party as it's being called it is a stopover on the way to the party that they want ahead which is the liquid right now they cannot join Lee could there's great animosity between Sarah Netanyahu and I yell at and Naphtali even if the Prime Minister could be persuaded to take them in right now for rational professional reasons his wife isn't known for being rational or professional she has a terrible grudge against them she doesn't even let a yellow jacket fly in the same plane as her husband she's not going to let her in his party but the moment that the Netanyahu's are gone then they will join the Likud and Naphtali will rob her leader of Likud and lose and then the next election after that I Ellen will run for leader ibly could and very well might win but they can't join yet so they're running in another party that no one's gonna remember in history in the April election and then that party will be gone and when it's in yow leaves they will join Lee could and so this election doesn't really matter the next one matters a lot been against ok former chief of staff of the IDF didn't really intend to speak yet but yesterday a group of Druze officers came to his home in Rocha iene and talked to him about the nation state law and so he had to say that he wants the nation state law to be changed in order to help the Druze people and that's very nice he also is being careful because he's running for the election of 2020 let me explain the reason why he can't say anything yet and the reason why he can't build his list yet why he's purposely delaying both is because the following two jobs are both acceptable to him defense minister under Netanyahu an opposition leader to Netanyahu people like Yair Lapid and Moshe bogey alone are telling Gantz we won't join you if you're going to be a Netanyahu's Defense Minister we want to replace Netanyahu it can't be done right now but we want to replace Netanyahu we won't join his government and he's not willing to say that then there are also people who are not in yet in politics but are considering entering politics who would run on Ganz's slate but they want to be cabinet ministers they're telling him we don't want to join you if you're gonna be the head of the Opposition then we'll just be backbench opposition in case you can't really accomplish anything we only want to join you if you're going to be joining the cabinet you can be the defense minister and we'll be other ministers maybe we'll be in the security cabinet alone with you deciding whether we go to war make peace but been against can't tell people on this side or on that side what he's going to do because both options are acceptable to him because both options defense minister and opposition leader will allow him to be in a good place to run for prime minister in the more important exciting election in 2020 so one more person as an example Danny Danone Danny Danone as our ambassador to the UN for another month or so he only had to leave about a month early to participate in the Likud primary on the 5th of February why did he decide for that one month to stay as ambassador to the UN after he's been working on his political comeback the entire time while he's been at the UN he's been constantly informing the liquid Central Committee members what he's doing he's been very successful over there he's making sure that people know about that the answer is he is running he's just not running yet he's sitting out this election that doesn't really matter in April in order to run in the election that it really does matter for leader of Li could in the election of 2020 okay one more the Labour Party the Labour Party is self-destructing imploding and everything some members of Knesset are purposely going with the flow in labour not really making a fuss it's a couple members of Knesset 8 on Kabul on a suburban are taking a great political risk by purposely publicly insulting a biga by why can they get away with that whether that doesn't seem like a smart thing to do to insult their party leader the answer is fine they won't make it to the next Knesset but the one after that maybe they will in the labour party will have a new leader who doesn't mind so much that they insulted his predecessor it's not too bad to take a break for only about a year it's not that big a deal so everybody is running for the election of 2020 except for Netanyahu himself Netanyahu himself is running in this election and he's decided to run against the legal establishment because he thinks that that is what will help his election campaign to downplay you know all the investigations against him to rile up his political base against the legal establishment make this race be about him and him being innocent in the investigations being pathetic I don't know if this is the right thing or the wrong thing I personally think it might be more wrong than right if I were him I would focus more in his diplomatic security and economic successes but maybe he doesn't have a choice maybe since his political opponents are going to be focused on the indictment pending a hearing that's gonna be coming next month he needs to be working already in advance to make soften the blow of that indictment pending a hearing so that when the people hear about it they'll basically mock and scorn at it and then maybe people will forget about it right before the election and then he can focus on diplomacy security economy after all he shortly before the election he's going to be going to Washington to meet with the president United States he has an AIPAC conference that will make him look very good and maybe that is it's a now's long-term strategy during this campaign because he is the one focusing on this campaign the second thing that I wanted to focus on in this election is to lament that two of Israel's most historic parties seemed to be going down the drain the first party is the Labour Party avi gob I yeah is the leader of the party who's a man in the wrong place at the wrong time he's self-made millionaire very impressive in what he's accomplished in his life and yet he doesn't seem to have the people skills to run a party or really the ideology his ideology has gone back and forth and back and forth tonight I'm going to be attending or at least covering an event and where he's going to be unveiling his diplomatic plan and chances are it'll be different than other statements he's made since entering politics he talked about how so at one point about how settlements don't have to be evacuated at one point he talked about how the left might have forgotten its Jewish values chances are he's not gonna be saying either of those things tonight and the Labour Party has survived bad leaders before but this is going to be very very bad their most of their voters now what they care about most is replacing the two now and they know that I'll be gob I is the last person who can do it and so they're going to vote for other parties that have a better chance of doing it the Labour Party in the April 9th election is going to be going back to its base core of people that have never voted for anything other than the Labour Party and no matter what they do and no matter how bad their leadership is just can't bring themselves to vote for any other party I expect their electorate to be an average age somewhere in the late 60s and that does not bode well for a party that wants to survive but perhaps next time they'll have a younger leader and they'll have a leadership race that ends in a better way and maybe the Labour Party will come back to life well the other party it's on its way out is the National Religious party which ran in the last couple elections under the name by two UD but this is the party that goes back before the founding of the state I said a hundred years I don't know about that earlier in the show but it has been around for several decades my parents were members of non-members of the party but we're the institution's at the party formed when they were growing up in Rene Akiva my grandparents were brought to this country by world mizrahi that's part of that same overarching religious Zionist institution that the National Religious party grew out of and a yellow check had enough Bennet leaving the party certainly hurt it and we don't know yet who's going to be leading the party there's going to be decisions made on that over the next few days yesterday it's satellite party the National Union decided to elect a new younger or leader but Sol Smotrich as its leader and he's going to say I want to lead the joint list that there'll be of the National Union and the by Tod parties and that would mean that by Judy wouldn't be running even as the head of a party in the election which would be a historic landmark of one of the parties that found in the state basically dying there are those who say that that's a good thing not the religious Zionists have integrated into the Likud into the ruling party and religious scientists who are not as right-wing have integrated into other parties Yesha teed will purposely be running with a third of its slate being national religious perhaps there'll be other parties who try to get that vote so maybe it's a sign not a religious Zionists Modern Orthodox people have successfully integrated into the country and the last political topic that I wanted to talk about you know what maybe we'll do that we'll talk more about this election after our break stay with theater and theology tune in for an interview with yet el valor director of the Jerusalem based a theatre company which is one of the reasons I prefer to do my plays of pecan which by the way was built over a thousand years ago in the Crusader period you know that cuz you're a tour guide I love I just love doing shows there it feels so so good listen listen to the full show on rejuvenation with Eve Harrow every Sunday on the Land of Israel network at the lands of Israel dot-com and we're back here on the ladder visual network on the Land of Israel comm this is inside Israel today and the second half of the Shoah I encourage our listeners to read an article that I wrote about the English speakers in this country and whether they could ever organized to support the same candidates for Knesset whether English speakers in Israel could be galvanized as a force I wrote in the article about how there are 250,000 people who were born in seven english-speaking countries who are living in Israel today now some of them may Dalia in the 1950s but most of them are people who still speak English in their private lives while living here and they have a lot in common they have a lot of the same concerns about about how to succeed and thrive in this country how to raise children in this country how to work in this country 250,000 is a lot of people and that's not counting their children and grandchildren whose mother tongue is also English it's more than the amount of votes that Shas the God in the 2015 election which the party won seven seats in that election could you imagine if there were seven seats of English speakers in Israel I mean the Knesset now I'm not saying form a party of them but the question is whether they can work together more than they have in the past if a party would make a more serious effort and I spoke about it for the article to a lot of different people to the three Knesset members that we've had who were born in the United States over the last decade of Lippman from Yesha teat we heard a click from Likud and Michael Oren from colano and I spoke to Carolyn Glick who is running in the new right party of a electric had enough Dolly Bennett and got interesting responses but there was basically a consensus that because there's such a variety among English speakers that they're never really going to be able to run in any kind of organized way in order to help their population now I did go to an event a couple days ago of yair lapid speaking in English in Tel Aviv and on the one hand it was nice to see 500 English speakers come out to an event to hear a politician speak in English on the other hand when he asked he was asked questions about helping the english-speaking community in particular he didn't really have answers he was ready because he speaks beautiful English to give the answers that he would give to a Hebrew audience in English on security and matters of religion estate on Netanyahu on how to replace a Netanyahu on the fate of the centrist parties that are not uniting right now it's good that he could answer those questions in English and everything but when a young lady in the back asked a question about how she could even survive living in eurocom making alia from North Carolina and all the challenges that she's been through l'p he'd thanked her congratulated her for making alia got the said that she's the epitome of Zionism and gave a lot of nice compliments but then didn't really answer her question he said I'll help you join the euro hum a branch of my party and then you'll have a better social life what no this woman needs to know how to get a job this woman needs to know how to be able to support herself now this woman needs to have help dealing with bureaucracy she's asked the leader of a party of men who's running for Prime Minister and he didn't really have an answer ready and perhaps if his party had an Anglo representative and I'm not getting into why but doe blitman is now running in the party like he did in the past perhaps they would he would be better in a position to answer that question we don't know yet officially where there was lists of candidates are only going to be submitted in the third week of February but I've seen that if you want to take care of your community you really have to do it yourself so right now the only candidate running who is from an english-speaking country other than you who - Glick who I I don't think really has too much of a chance in the Likud primary of getting reelected is Carolyn Glick my former colleague at the Jerusalem Post and it's interesting to see the response that she sent me when I asked her about whether there's an organized Anglo vote in Israel and if so how large and how many mandates can it be worth for a party I was actually surprised that she gave me a long answer because we've been told that she's not interviewing yet she wrote me negative English speaking Israelis otherwise known as Anglos are certainly not homogeneous in their outlooks she went to Harvard ladies and gentlemen for instance they run the gamut of the religious secular spectrum although more often than not they're found in the middle at the same time they're highly educated and share certain core ideals and concerns first the overwhelming majority of Anglo Israelis are deeply Zionist they mated alia because of their commitment to Zionism not surprisingly given their high motivation and education levels the contribution that english-speaking Israelis have made in every facet of Israeli society simply extraordinary in part because some english-speaking Israelis have family abroad they are keenly concerned about how how Israel is portrayed in the international media they are disproportionately engaged in hasbara efforts to defend Israel from its many detractors around abroad particularly in the Western world english-speaking Israelis are also disproportionately concerned about the trajectory of the can Jewish community particularly in relation to assimilation and the attendant weakening of Jewish identity English speakers in Israel also have practical insults concerns in relation to taxation of foreign income pensions and wealth in relation to integration and absorption assistance and English language instruction in schools okay I want to stop there for a moment that last sentence is extremely important that there be a member of Knesset regardless of political views and on the traditional right wing left wing the spectrum in Israel we have someone who is coming to the Knesset with a purpose of dealing with these practical concerns about taxations pension absorption integration English language instruction in schools beautiful um so that was a very positive sign but here comes the negative ladies and gentlemen you know Carolyn she had to add a dig here when you consider that second-generation Israelis from Anglo Israeli families retain their hyphenated identity this is a significant to look electoral demographic it's long past time that its members receive adequate and competent representation in the Knesset what you had to add this line that yahuda Glick Michael Oren and development have not given this demographic adequate and competent representation in the Knesset okay Carolyn Michael Oren 99% sure is not running for Knesset again except if a party comes in and sweeps him off his feet you who - Glick has a a liquid primary on the 5th of February with that is gonna be it and now absolute bloodbath politically and dobe Lippmann it had a personal dispute that I won't get into in Yesha t that's gonna prevent him from running what is the point of stepping on these people these are people who tried to help English speakers slowly tried more than anybody has before who knew ooh the responsibility that they had coming into the Knesset and day in and day out had on their mind that their goal is going to be to help English speakers in Israel they had the limitations none none of them became a minister we would you know during their tenure in the Knesset that the absorption Minister was Russian most of the time that's kind of limiting the interior minister was ultra-orthodox during that time that's also kind of limiting in a helping but they did their best they tried to help people in a way that I think we have to really be grateful and so this is Carolyn out of all people you think Carolyn would start on the right foot and here just want to raise this possibility that maybe she needs to start off with just a little bit more humility that curtain hurt anyone even a politician so this has been inside Israel today here on the land of Israel network on the Land of Israel calm we'll have another exciting show from Jerusalem next week looking forward have a great day you're listening to the Land of Israel network at the Land of Israel comm broadcasting the truth and beauty of Israel to the