UPDATES
7 am Israel time, Thursday, March 19 2015
Latest election results: 100% of “regular” votes tallied, but 200,000 of the votes are still being counted.
**The above update may seem like an odd one. Virtually all Israeli media sites are already reporting on the composition of the new Knesset; however the diplomatic and IDF votes have yet to be announced. Supposedly, election officials began counting them yesterday, and will finish by noon today at which time the complete election results will be announced.
There will undoubtedly be minor changes; for example, there are rumors that Koolanu and the Arab List may both lose a seat. In the latter case, this is not surprising given the fact that there are very few Arabs serving in the IDF.
As reported yesterday, what your humble servant is waiting on is to see if Yahad makes it to the 3.25% threshold. If they do, they automatically receive 4 seats–and the first four people on their candidate list include several firebrands who will be extremely forceful in putting forward their “rightish” positions. What’s more, those 4 seats would give Netanyahu a 61 seat coalition–even without Koolanu.
**Speaking of Moshe Kahlon and Koolanu, there are quite a few indications that he will begin active negotiations with Netanyahu over the next few days. Yesterday, he went to great lengths to say that he has no personal animus against Netanyahu, but left Likud because he disagreed with Netanyahu’s socio-economic policies.
The long and the short of it is simply that everyone knows that Netanyahu has won a resounding victory, and everyone wants to get on board (after exacting a steep political price in terms of ministerships and appointments to committees).
TODAY’S BLOG:
President Obama just doesn’t get it.
No matter how much he attempts to manipulate Israeli politics, it always backfires. Whether he snubs an invitation to speak at the Knesset as he did when he visited Jerusalem in order to “reach out” to young leftist Israelis or snubs Netanyahu in Washington when Netanyahu is there, the result is always the same.
He just makes Netanyahu stronger here in Israel.
It is worthwhile to remember the three specific things that Obama did to try to oust Benjamin Netanyahu in the election here on Tuesday: V15, Jeremy Bird, Ameinu+.
1. The Obama (John Kerry) State Department issued grant money over the last three years to the One Voice Movement which operated in Israel as the V15 (Victory 2015).
As late as 5 pm on Tuesday, V15 was still calling Israelis urging them to go to the polls and vote for Herzog and Livni.
How does your humble servant know this?
Because they called my house in Ashdod where, to put it mildly, they got a rude reception.
2. V15 used some of its money to hire Jeremy Bird, President Obama’s ground game “commander” in the last election. Bird was brought here–along with his team–to help coordinate the Herzog/Livni get out the vote campaign. It is inconceivable that Bird and his team would have come here without President Obama’s express approval.
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3. Not content with funding V15, the Obama-Kerry State Department also funded other left-wing NGOs whose only goal was to “get out the Arab vote” against Netanyahu. Two such NGOs, Ameinu and the Abraham Fund, apparently used U.S. taxpayer money to try to influence the election.
According to an Ameinu memo, it was specifically working with Jeremy Bird in order to increase the Arab participation in order to oust Netanyahu. On Tuesday afternoon, when Netanyahu sent out an urgent call to Israelis that “leftist NGOs” were busing Arabs to polling places, he was referring to Ameinu and others.
By the way, encouraging more Arab-Israeli voter participation is a good thing–but what is terrible is doing so for the specific purpose of trying to change the outcome of an election here.
Your humble servant mentions all of this in today’s blog because of the egregious way that the White House was still campaigning against Netanyahu yesterday after the election.
Not only has Obama refused to make a congratulatory call to our Prime Minister (and John Kerry only grudgingly done so), we had this trash coming out of the mouth of Obama spokesperson Josh Earnest:
“The United States and this administration is deeply concerned about rhetoric that seeks to marginalize Arab Israeli citizens. It undermines the values and democratic ideals that have been important to our democracy and an important part of what binds the United States and Israel together. Rhetoric that seeks to marginalise one segment of their population is deeply concerning, it is divisive, and I can tell you that these are views the administration intends to communicate directly to the Israelis.”
What unbelievable chutzpah from an American administration who took Israeli-Arab citizens and used them as pawns in its war against Benjamin Netanyahu.
Who undermined democratic values and ideals? Who was it that tried to subvert the Israeli democratic process?
Barack Obama and John Kerry.
Thank goodness they did not succeed.
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.