Tonight’s Rally Was Electric – and Now I Know We Will Win By: JoeSettler
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2.LIVE – Rightwing Election Rally Fills Rabin Square
By: Jewish Press News Briefs
Published: March 15th, 2015
Latest update: March 16th, 2015
Photo Credit: Hillel Meir / Tazpit News Agency
10:15 PM The massive pro-right rally is now over.
9:30 PM
9:26 PM Looking at the rally from Ibn G’virol Street :
Photo credit : BEBO / Rotter.net
9:14 PM Rabbi Druckman speaking.
9:07 PM Leftwing newspapers claim only a few thousands to 15,000 people at rally – outright lies.
Streets are filled – up to 4 blocks away. More pictures on the way from our roaming reporter.
8:55 PM Eli Yishai speaking.
Livestream Video at bottom of the post.
8:45 PM
8:38 PM Naftali Bennett on the stage working up the crowd and playing the guitar.
8:32 PM Definitely at least 100,000 people there.
Listening to Netanyahu at the rally was like listening to him at the rallies it the old days. Powerful energy.
8:26 PM
8:15 PM Bibi is electrifying the crowd…
8:12 PM Netanyahu takes the stage
8:08 PM Police say 100,000 people in the square.
Prime Minister Netanyahu to speak…
8:04 PM The Square is packed and people are still streaming in.
7:59 PM The first speaker has gotten up to speak at the rightwing rally in Rabin Square.
7:29 PM 750 buses are coming from around the country to fill up Rabin Square with supporters of the political parties from the right in a show of strength. Some buses have arrived, but many are still underway.
It’s not even 7:30 PM and Channel 20 estimates that tens of thousands of people have already arrived for the rally that only begins at 8PM this evening.
Channel 20 also reports that the rally is filled with secular Jews, and not just religious ones.
Among the speakers who will be speaking tonight are Prime Minister Netanyahu (Likud), Minister Naftali Bennett (Bayit Yehudi), MK Eli Yishai (Yachad) as well as other Ministers, MKs and leaders.
This is the first show of real electricity that the Right has displayed this campaign. It’s as if they’ve been holding it in, and now finally letting it out.
Our reporter in the field will be updating us as the rally goes on.
About the Author: JewishPress.com brings you the latest in Jewish news from around the world. Stay up to date by following up onFacebook and Twitter. Do you have something noteworthy to report? Submit your news story to us here.
LIVE – Rightwing Election Rally Fills Rabin Square
Claire McCaskill, D. MO. John McCain, R. AZ.
As Israel closes in on the national election scheduled for Tuesday, 17 March, Fox News has come out with an exclusive report. The U.S. Senate has appointed a bipartisan panel to investigate the use of funds donated from the Obama State Department to the organization OneVoice, which in January partnered with an Israeli anti-Netanyahu group, V-2015 (or V15) to import Obama’s own campaign operatives for the election. The goal of V15 and OneVoice: to defeat Netanyahu’s Likud coalition in the Knesset.
That this inquiry has bipartisan agreement is obviously significant. Senators on both sides of the aisle think something stinks — and that’s just the first-order conclusion.
The Fox story outlines the initial concern of the investigation: the $350,000 the State Department has funneled to OneVoice. State says the funding is unrelated to the V15 effort in the Israeli election:
One expert told FoxNews.com earlier this month the State Department grants constituted indirect administration funding of the anti-Netanyahu campaign by providing OneVoice with the $350,000 — even though State Department officials said the funding stopped in November, ahead of the announcement of the Israeli election.
Fox quotes an NGO funding expert who considers that a bit disingenuous:
Gerald Steinberg, founder and president of NGO Monitor, which tracks money flows to unmask non-governmental organizations that deviate from their stated human rights or humanitarian agendas, said even ostensibly unrelated grants keep an organization going during periods it is not engaged in political activity.
But there’s another reason to parse the timeline closely here.
The timeline
The story has expanded since late January, with additional evidence that U.S. groups are involved in an effort to unseat Benjamin Netanyahu. Alana Goodman reported at Washington Free Beacon in early February that a U.S.-based group called Ameinu (motto: “Liberal values; Progressive Israel”) sent out a fundraising memo on 17 December 2014, outlining a very Jeremy Bird-like plan to “get out the vote” and transform the Israeli political landscape.
The December memo cited consultation with “American experts,” including Obama campaign operatives.
We are already in touch with a highly talented combination of knowledgeable Israeli professionals and American experts with experience in similar recent operations, including the Obama presidential campaign.
Ameinu president Kenneth Bob told Free Beacon in February that Ameinu had indeed consulted with Bird and V15, but had since parted ways with them:
[Bob] later said that V15 and Bird’s consulting group 270 Strategies were involved in the discussions early on, but have since parted ways with Ameinu.
“When we first began soliciting funds for GOTV efforts ahead of the Israeli elections, we spoke to a number of entities with projects in mind, including Strategies 270, which ultimately became V15,” said Bob.
But that disclosure, even assuming it’s accurate, puts the State Department’s claim about when its funding for OneVoice stopped in an interesting light. It’s obvious why the Senate thinks it needs investigating.
The State Department, as cited by Fox News, said its funding for OneVoice stopped in November (emphasis added):
State Department officials said the funding stopped in November, ahead of the announcement of the Israeli election.
The early election in Israel was announced on 2 December 2014, when Netanyahu’s governing coalition was officially dissolved. That means interested parties – like V15, OneVoice, Jeremy Bird, and Ameinu – were certain, less than a month after the State Department funding to OneVoice stopped, that there would be an election.
That alone means it’s hard to make the case that State Department funding was irrelevant to a OneVoice project decision that could have been in progress no later than 2 December. OneVoice clearly could have been using, in December – and probably in January and February – money it received from the State Department in November.
But OneVoice and its partners could very well have been eying an Israeli election project before 2 December. And since we also know that Bird and V15 were discussing an election plan with Ameinu sometime before 17 December, it becomes, at the very least, increasingly unbelievable that the OneVoice funding Bird and V15 ultimately went with was on no one’s radar screen earlier than late January, when Bird and his cohort showed up in Israel.
The big picture
The announcement of an early Israeli election didn’t come out of the blue. In fact, it had been talked about as a possibility for months, and was publicly discussed as likely throughout the month of November 2014. From statements by cabinet ministers in September, to speculation in October about the meaning of early Likud primaries (see here as well), to MSM statements in November that the “smart betting” was on an early election, to pointed disclosures in mid-November that Netanyahu was telling Likud leaders to get ready for an early election, the word was out.
November, or even October, was when advocacy groups and full-time political professionals would have been putting their scope on an early Israeli election.
Indeed, the phrasing of Kenneth Bob’s statement about the discussions with Bird and V15 evokes a timeline that probably did start earlier than 2 December 2014 – a bare 15 days before the Ameinu fundraising memo went out with its shaping-the-vote plan.
In that light, the timing of State’s last release of funds to OneVoice – according to State, in November 2014 – might even look like a severance for appearances’ sake. If the Fox News report conveys the Senate’s concerns accurately, one of them seems to be with the coincident timing of Marc Ginsberg’s resignation announcement from OneVoice. Ginsberg made that announcement on 11 November 2014.
By 11 November, as the links above illustrate, it was received wisdom in MSM reporting that Netanyahu would call for an election in early 2015. But 11 November was also less than two weeks after the Obama administration had thrown its infamous tantrum by “leaking” the news that someone in its ranks thought of Bibi as a “chickens***.” Moreover, 11 November was one week after the Democrats lost the Senate to a Republican wave in the mid-term election, and Obama thus lost Congress for the balance of his presidential term.
At that point, Obama’s actions on more than one front – e.g., executive amnesty; executive restrictions on firearms; ignoring Iran’s violations of the 2013 “nuclear deal” in order to press ahead with ill-advised negotiations – were beginning to show an increasing recklessness and disdain, not only for public opinion but for the prerogatives of Congress. It would actually have been quite in character for the administration’s post-election agenda to include a strategy to campaign against Netanyahu in the widely anticipated Israeli election.
Congress may or may not be able to turn anything up with this investigation. The Obama administration is likely to stonewall, as it so often does, and the non-profits involved may be able – ironically enough – to hide behind the IRS in declining to reveal their financial information. (This although it may well be a violation of IRS regulations for OneVoice to fund V15’s activities in the first place – a point Ted Cruz has twice made official inquiries about.)
Apparent certitude and unity in the Senate
The fact that this is a bipartisan investigation is telling, however.
Senate Democrats aren’t moving to protect the administration from scrutiny. That may represent fall-out from the administration’s thinly-veiled attack on New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez, the Democrat who has opposed Obama on both his Iran and Cuba policies. In part, at least, Senate Democrats are probably sending a signal of their own to the Obama White House.
But this goes beyond not protecting Obama. The Democrats could have simply not participated, and thereby split the baby: neither protecting Obama nor helping the Republicans put his officials in the hot seat.
Instead, they’ve signed up for a legitimate inquiry: an inquiry whose outcome will matter. The Fox story indicates that the investigation has been ongoing, apparently for some weeks before the public heard about it. It’s possible – even likely – that the senators know things we don’t (not yet, at any rate). And the Democrats, at least, can’t be in this just for the theater.
It would be remarkable for both parties to undertake an investigation they didn’t think anything would come of. The opposition party (the GOP, in this case) would still be motivated to try to air improprieties in the president’s administration. But the president’s own party doesn’t have a motive to involve itself, if it doesn’t expect to achieve anything more than that.
It’s not clear precisely what’s going on. News of the bipartisan panel has been leaked just three days before the Israeli election. The Senate is well aware that that, too, is political timing. Whatever’s going on, it seems to be something big.
About the Author: J.E. Dyer is a retired US Naval intelligence officer who served around the world, afloat and ashore, from 1983 to 2004
The American-style anti-Bibi campaign appears to violate US tax laws, especially its goal of changing Israeli law to create a Palestinian State. By: Lori Lowenthal Marcus TheJewishPress.com Mar 16, 2015
The website of the parent entity of the anti-Bibi US-style political campaign in Israel, V15. Photo Credit: screen capture
Remember Al Capone?
He was the notorious American gangster who met his downfall by the inelegant and unexciting – but sometimes deadly – U.S. tax code. So, too, may be the ultimate fate of the ubiquitous and well-funded Obama-style campaign machine gunning for Netanyahu, known as V15.
That entity and its creators are barred under US tax law from attempting to achieve its two stated goals: defeating Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and changing Israeli law in order to create a Palestinian State.
For some reason the fact that V15 is an avowed effort to oust Netanyahu did not raise enough eyebrows when it was first announced.
The lack of sustained attention back in January caused some to scratch their heads. That V15 was run by the same folks, and in the same style, as U.S. President Barack Obama’s notorious street theater, in your face, take no prisoners-style campaign director, Jeremy Bird; that its financial, emotional and political source received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the U.S. State Department; and even though that same source is an entity which has tax exempt status in the U.S. – which means it cannot fund projects to either support or defeat a political candidate in the U.S. or anywhere else, did not lead to a long media shelf life.
The first two issues should have drawn attention to V15 not because political operatives are barred from selling their strategic skills – that is, after all, the nature of their job – but because it was so odd for someone like Bird to come all the way to Israel to sell his skills. Bird is not Jewish, and his only apparent connection to Israel was working for an anti-Israel American radical activist back in his graduate days.
But who was paying for Bird? Campaign funding is very strictly regulated in Israel. The strategist who managed Obama’s two U.S. presidential campaigns – in which billions of dollars were spent – was likely to have a very high price tag.
Then there was the matter of the U.S. State Department grants to OneVoice, V15's “creator.” The airy dismissal that all State Department funding ended at the end of November, so there was no U.S. government money being used for the election — which was publicly announced in early December — was, incredibly, accepted without any further interrogation by the American (and most of the Israeli) press corps. Former Naval Intelligence officer J.E. Dyer pursues that angle with the kind of tenacity one should be able to expect from the seasoned press corps members who show up nearly every day at State Dept. briefings.
But the least interesting angle, at least to most, is the one that involves the Internal Revenue Service. Before your eyes glaze over, recall that the U.S. actually had what could almost be called a juicy scandal beginning nearly two years ago, that involved the IRS.
Quite a few politically conservative (and one pro-Israel) organizations claimed that the IRS was treating their applications for tax-exempt status in a discriminatory fashion. The initial response from the IRS was that many of those groups were not really entitled to tax-exempt status, because they were engaged in political, not educational or charitable, work.
That seemed to many like a reasonable response. The Internal Revenue Code states that even a non-profit organization cannot be exempt from paying taxes, and its donors will not be entitled to tax deductions, if the organization is involved in politics or lobbying.
But while much of the IRS-Gate attention has since focused on where are Lois Lerner’s emails and whether they are really gone forever or just deleted, hidden or irrelevant, the fact that tax-exempt organizations cannot engage in raw politics seemed to be one tiny aspect of American government that many people learned.
So why didn’t the fact that the American tax-exempt OneVoice used its funds to create the V15 political campaign effort gain traction, given that it’s admitted goal is to get rid of Netanyahu?
That should be at least one facet of the current bipartisan congressional investigation which was revealed by a leaked story to Fox News over the weekend.
And it should be the one the committee leads off with, because it is a no-brainer. The law is clear. Tax-exempt organizations cannot fund political campaigns. Here is the language: all 501(c)(3)s are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign supporting or opposing any candidate for elective public office.
This means ANY amount of political activity is grounds for loss of tax-exempt status.
The prohibition applies to all campaigns: federal, state and local, and extends beyond candidate endorsements. Actions that clearly violate the prohibition include contributions to political campaign funds, and making verbal or written public statements by or on behalf of an organization that favors or opposes any candidate for public office.
Distributing statements prepared by others that favor or oppose any candidate for public office will also violate the prohibition. That means that V15 can’t declare innocence just because it’s against Netanyahu, rather than really being “for” Herzog, Livni or anyone else.
Finally, allowing a candidate to use an organization’s assets or facilities will also violate the prohibition if other candidates are not given an equivalent opportunity.
WHAT ABOUT US LAW APPLYING TO FOREIGN CAMPAIGNS?
Does the fact that the political campaign takes place outside of the U.S. mean this rule does not apply? The answer to that question is also clear: the restriction against lobbying and the prohibition against political activity on behalf of or in opposition to a candidate for elective public office (electioneering) applies with full force in a foreign context as well.
ABOUT THOSE STATE DEPARTMENT GRANTS…
But now let’s go back to the U.S. State Department grants to OneVoice, which the State Department spokespeople claimed were kosher because the grants expired prior to the official announcement of this recent Israeli election.
What were those grants for? The State Dept. tried to shrug off any accusations by flatly denying the grants were for elections, why, they were for promoting the “two state solution!”
Here is what everyone missed the first time around: according to IRS rulings, a tax-exempt organization cannot engage in efforts to influence or change laws of the U.S. or that of a foreign country.
Yet that is exactly what the State Dept. grants to OneVoice were for. During a State Dept. press briefing on Jan. 29, 2015, a journalist asked the State Dept. spokesperson Jen Psaki for what purpose was the $233,500 grant (its most recent one) to OneVoice. Psaki said the grant lasted from Sept. 23, 2013 until Nov. 30, 2014, and that it was funding “to support efforts to support a two-state solution.”
Really? Apparently the State Department forgot that under current Israeli law there is no such thing as the country of “Palestine.” Israeli law would have to be changed to recognize such an entity, if it ever were to come into existence. Those laws would include nearly everything connected to the current Israeli Civil Administration, as well as many laws dealing with Jerusalem.
So the U.S. government was using U.S. taxpayers’ money to fund an effort to influence, and hoping to formally change, the law in Israel to force a solution it favors!
We know the U.S. uses taxpayer funds to help influence changes in foreign nations with hostile governments, but attempting to change the law through its own interventions, using Americans’ money, to defeat the position of the democratically elected leader of that nation?
In addition to such an effort being problematic for Israel and for many Americans on multiple levels, it should also prove toxic for OneVoice. Again, that boring, tricky Internal Revenue Code may be what brings down OneVoice.
When the State Dept. thought it was washing its hands of difficulties because its grant to OneVoice ran out at the end of November, the problem simply switched to a different track.
501(c)(3)S BARRED FROM ATTEMPTING TO INFLUENCE OR CHANGE (EVEN FOREIGN) LAWS
You see, the Internal Revenue Code bars tax-exempt status from any non-profit that seeks to change or influence the laws of either the U.S. or that of any foreign country.
This bar is categorical. “An organization that attempts to influence and advocates changes in the laws of a foreign country does not qualify for exemption from Federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of the Code.”
On Jan. 29, Psaki flat-out admitted that the State Department grants to OneVoice were given to support “efforts to support a two-state solution.”
THE WHOLE GOAL OF ONEVOICE IS TO CHANGE ISRAELI LAW
OneVoice admits this is the goal of its activity. Its mission statement explains that OneVoice “amplifies the voice of mainstream Israelis and Palestinians, empowering them to propel their elected representatives toward the two-state solution.”
OneVoice explains that “an emphasis on the risks” of a “two-state solution” and “the compromises it entails” has led to a reluctance to push past those risks. But OneVoice is there to “mobilize Palestinians to end the occupation” and provide the “opportunities and tools to build momentum for a peace agreement and #2StatesNOW.”
Of further interest is that the OneVoice website donation page, readers are now informed that those interested in making donations may do so either through the Peaceworks Foundation or the Peaceworks Action, Inc. The latter is a 501(c)(4), and as such donations made to that arm of OneVoice/Peaceworks is not tax-deductible.
However, below that information we learn that Peaceworks Action, Inc. is brand new, so there is no Annual Report for that arm of Peaceworks for 2014 or any time before that. Recall that the State Department grant was for the year 2013 – 2014.
On several fronts and in several different ways, the launch of an American-style, American funded guerrilla campaign to take down the sitting prime minister of one of America’s closest allies may not succeed in achieving that goal, but the attention it drew should lead to the funding source’s loss of tax-exempt status.
It took down Al Capone. Now, with the bipartisan congressional committee finally examining its activities, the tax code may be what takes down V15/OneVoice/Peaceworks.
About the Author: Lori Lowenthal Marcus is the US correspondent for The Jewish Press. She is a recovered lawyer who previously practiced First Amendment law and taught in Philadelphia-area graduate and law schools. You can reach her by email: Lori@JewishPressOnline.com
5.Bolshevik-Like Israel Media Hide Good Economic News
The Consumer Price Index sank last month, but the anti-Bibi media buried the news so it won’t help Netanyahu. By: Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu TheJewishPress.com Published: March 16th, 2015
“All the news to print that fits the agenda.”
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) sank 0.7 percent in February, following a 0.9 percent drop in January, but Israel’s media front against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has buried the report lest people realize the truth.
Netanyahu cannot take any credit for the drop in prices, but reporting good news for the consumers would destroy the myth propagated by the Israeli media establishment that the consumer is worse off than ever under Netanyahu.
The CPI has fallen 1.5 % in the past 12 months and 1.6% for the first two months of this year.
The drop in the price of crude oil was sharper than the rise in the shekel-dollar rate, accounting for a reduction in the price at the pump.
But Internet and telecom services also dropped 2.7 percent last month, another result of the revolution called “free competition” initiated in the Netanyahu administration under the aegis of then-Communications Minister Moshe Kachlon.
Netanyahu on Sunday publicly offered the Finance Ministry post to Kachlon, who left the Likud government and now heads his Kulanu party.
The name “Kulanu” is scary to tycoons.
Immediately after publication of Netanyahu’s offer to Kachlon, the banking index in on the Tel Aviv Stock exchange dropped by 1.5%. The tycoons are afraid that Kachlon as Finance Minister will cut ridiculously high fees that banks charge customers for everything but breathing.
The Globes business newspaper reported:
Kachlon is promising substantial reforms in the Israeli banking system, especially the opening of the sector to competition, as he did in the cellular market. The stock exchange is listening to him, and in view of the likelihood that he will be appointed Minister of Finance; investors are sending the banks shares…southward.
If anyone thinks he is destroying the ability for companies to profit, take a look at the Cellcom mobile phone company.
Kachlon said several years ago there is no reason that the oligarchy of mobile phone companies should earn billions of shekels a year. Cellcom’s stock was selling at more than $32, and its shareholders enjoyed a steady 10 percent rise in the price of the stock every year along with a fat dividend of more than 12%.
That was before Kachlon acted, opened the market to free enterprise, which was followed by a 90 percent drop in cell phone rates.
Cellcom’s shares eventually sank to approximately $5, but is the company losing money?
The company reported today its earnings for 2014, and don’t shed any tears for the shareholders.
Net income increased 2.9% compared with 2013.
About the Author: Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu is a graduate in journalism and economics from The George Washington University. He has worked as a cub reporter in rural Virginia and as senior copy editor for major Canadian metropolitan dailies. Tzvi wrote for Arutz Sheva for several years before joining the Jewish Press.
Bolshevik-Like Israel Media Hide Good Economic News
6.Kerry’s Gaffe Exposes ‘IsraelPhobia’
If Kerry confuses Egypt with Israel, what will be on his mind in talks with Iran?
By: Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu TheJewishPress.com Published: March 16th, 2015
John Kerry up in the air and out of this world. Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry spoke enthusiastically about Egypt in a speech on Friday but made a very undiplomatic boo-boo by stating that Egyptian President Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is committed to Israel’s future.
Yes, that is what he said. Here is the entire sentence, according to the official U.S. State Dept, transcript of his speech at American Chamber of Commerce of Egypt in Sharm el-Sheikh.:
President Sisi has engaged on a bold and critical path to implement reforms. He’s committed to restoring investor confidence in Israel’s future.”
The State Dept. later noted that he meant to say “Egypt’s future.”
How could a mistake like that have been made by the Secretary of the State of the United States of America, the man who knows he can bring peace between Israel and the Arab world, and between Iran and the rest of the world? The U.S. Embassy in Cairo had a nifty explanation for the blooper and posted on Twitter:
“Clear theme of @JohnKerry speech/visit today: confidence in #EGYPT’s future. All night flight+morning event=unintended slip (wrong country!)
Jet lag is definitely a problem for diplomats like Kerry, who seem to spend more time on the plane than at home.
But excuses are not going save the world when he sits with Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas and says “Hamas, whoops I mean Israel,” or sits with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and says, “Jews, whoops I mean settlers.”
But all of that could be forgiven because his talks with the Palestinian Authority and Israel were nothing more than a way to boost profits for hotels where he stayed, but what happens when he talking with Iran over its nuclear program?
First of all, he has to remember he is in Switzerland today and not in Swaziland.
His aides need to remind him he is talking to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and not Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
And Kerry needs to be reminded that “peaceful nuclear energy” in Iran means in plain English, “A nuclear bomb to destroy not only Israel but also the United States.”
About the Author: Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu is a graduate in journalism and economics from The George Washington University. He has worked as a cub reporter in rural Virginia and as senior copy editor for major Canadian metropolitan dailies. Tzvi wrote for Arutz Sheva for several years before joining the Jewish Press.
Kerry’s Gaffe Exposes ‘IsraelPhobia’
7.Public Warned: Don’t Believe the Polls By Gil Ronen, INN
Netanyahu in media blitz says Labor could defeat him, but could the polls be fabricated?
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu launched a media blitz Thursday, granting interviews to Israeli television channels as well as other news sources, in a last-minute attempt to shore up support ahead of Tuesday’s national elections.
Netanyahu cited polls that show Likud’s main rival, Labor under Yitzhak Herzog, leads over Likud by several MKs. While most of the public wants a right wing government, he said – if Labor defeats Likud, the president could task it with creating the next government with the support of the Arab MKs.
However, News1 editor Yoav Yitzhak warned readers that the polls are not necessarily accurate.
“Guys, don’t believe the polls,” he wrote. “Some of them are purposely slanted. Yedioth Aharonoth refrained from publishing a poll last weekend whose results indicated that Likud is gaining strength.”
Netanyahu gave interviews to Channels 2 and 11. He agreed to give an interview to Channel 10, too, but his condition was that Raviv Drucker, a journalist who has been attacking him and his wife ferociously for years, not be the interviewer. Channel 10 decided to forego the interview.
Netanyahu told Channel 2 that he would not agree to a rotation government with Labor: “I will not be a prime minister in rotation, and that should be prevented,” he stated.
Netanyahu also lashed out against foreign-funded elements seeking to unseat him, to force Israel into making concessions against its good.
“There are vast amounts of funds flowing from abroad, millions of dollars,” he said, claiming that “European states and left wing people from outside” Israel were funding non-governmental organizations that encourage Arabs and left wing Israelis to vote.
According to Netanyahu, this was “because they understand that if Tzipi and Buji reach (the premiership), they’ll give everything up, and withdraw to the 1967 borders and divide Jerusalem,” he said, using Herzog’s nickname.
AFP contributed to this report
Public Warned: Don’t Believe the Polls
8.Only Bibi By Arlene Kushner March 16, 2015
One of the things that has been most upsetting about this vile campaign is that a major theme of it, on the left, has been “anyone but Bibi.” No grappling with issues, no positive frame. It has been rather disgusting, and should not be permitted to win the day.
Let’s look at why it MUST be Bibi:
[] The reason it is “anyone but Bibi” is because Bibi is the one who represents the threat to the left. No one else in the current set-up can carry the day on the right except him. And since the thought of a left-wing government headed by Buji Herzog is terrifying, it indeed must be Bibi who is provided with the opportunity to defeat Buji.
Herzog is running on a “two-state” platform. He is eager to start negotiations with the PA – an exercise in insanity – and looks forward to being able to give half of our country away.
Even more distressing is his readiness to bow to Obama on issues of Iran: He expresses “confidence” that Obama can handle matters. Heaven help us.
Stopping him means a strong Bibi.
It is not necessary to think that Bibi is the perfect leader. One can feel discontent with him in one regard or another and still understand that he stands head and shoulders above Buji in terms of doing what’s best for the country.
Providing security for our nation means standing strong. Herzog’s positions would immediately weaken Israel, for Herzog is going for appeasement instead of strength. Our enemies would smell this immediately.
Channel 2’s Middle East expert has already predicted that Iran’s proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, would be likely to test Herzog’s strength very quickly after a Herzog win;
http://www.israelnationalnews. com/News/News.aspx/192596#. VQTJ-pscSM9
Stopping Buji means a strong Bibi. There is no one else who can fill this role.
[] With regard to Iran, the most significant existential issue of all, there is also the matter of Netanyahu’s stunningly successful talk in Congress earlier this month.
He was hailed incredibly in Congress with one rousing ovation after another; commentators later referred to him as the leader of the free world – the only one ready to stand up and tell the truth about Iran. A time of great pride for Israel, when we are so often the object of delegitimization campaigns.
Does the nation then reject Netanyahu? It would be a huge disservice to him. And the message it would send to the world would be shameful: Yes, our prime minister stood up to Iran as no one else, but we are prepared to dump him now for someone who can appease Obama.
This would not only be a terrible message to deliver, it would mean that the single voice speaking out against Iran, amongst national leaders, would have been silenced. A disservice to the free world.
[] Then we come to the matter of reports that American funds have been invested in the campaign here in order to bring Bibi down. The matter is serious enough so that the Senate is now going to look into it, according to Fox News:
”An investigatory bi-partisan panel has been convened in order to probe allegations that the US State Department gave a political group that opposes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu taxpayer-funded grants, a source with knowledge of the proceedings told Fox News on Saturday.”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/ senate-said-probing- washingtons-ties-to-anti- netanyahu-group/
Do we sit still for this? Is this how we want our elections determined? It is imperative to stand strong, with ballots, against a US administration that wants our prime minister out.
Only Bibi By Arlene Kushner
TheJewishPress.com Published: March 16th, 2015 Latest update: March 15th, 2015
What U.S. President Barack Obama has achieved is impossible, if not miraculous. He has pushed the Saudis, the Sunni Gulf states, Egypt, and the Israelis into each other’s arms.
The president sees his negotiations with Iran as restricting Iran’s nuclear ambitions. In reality, Obama has moved back the goalposts. The goal before was clear enough: to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear device. The goal now is to monitor a nuclear infrastructure which has a breakout capacity that can easily lead to a nuclear weapon.
The president has not flip-flopped this much on foreign policy since he had to decide what to do in Syria.
In both cases, Obama managed to inspire some confidence among the peoples of the region, which is why his policies have produced cooperation among unexpected partners, all of whom now feel betrayed by the president’s embrace of Iran.
The president’s supporters have argued that a nuclear deal is in no way contingent on Iran’s foreign policy. Iran’s hegemonic aspirations are dismissed as inconsequential. Its support of terrorists in the region and its export of terrorism overseas to kill Jews in Argentina are also said to be independent considerations.
The expansion of Iranian influence into Yemen after a recent coup puts Tehran in position to fight for control of access to the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the narrow Straits of Tiran. Iran could thus cut off the Israeli port of Eilat, the Jordanian port of Aqaba, and the Saudi port of Jeddah – not to mention Port Sudan, one of East Africa’s most important facilities.
To hear MIT Professor James Walsh, who thinks the agreement with Iran is a stunning achievement, none of this is relevant to negotiations with Iran. After all, the Soviets had expansionist ambitions when we negotiated arms control treaties with them.
The Soviets already had a nuclear arsenal, and agreements reached with Moscow were largely symbolic. We got rid of systems we did not want, and so too did they. The world applauded while both sides set out to create new and better weapons and delivery systems. Soviet innovation led to re-loadable silos – never a topic in negotiations that revolved around the number of missiles they had. One silo, one missile – or so we thought.
If there is a lesson to be learned from our dealings with the Soviets, it is that an agreement is only as good as the transparency of the parties that enter into it.
As secular Marxists, the Soviets were not interested in imminent eschatology. And when it came to proliferation, the Soviets were not about to arm terrorists with dirty bombs.
The Soviets already were a world power, as well as a regional hegemonic power. The Iranians aspire to be at least a regional power, and conceivably more. We had no choice regarding the Soviets. We have a choice regarding Iran, and Obama’s emerging agreement with Tehran will legitimize their aspirations.
Iran has expanded into Iraq, providing hundreds of military advisers. The Iranians have organized Shiite militias to defend Iraq against the Islamic State.
As Iraq fights to retake Tikrit, Iranian advisers are playing a prominent role, and the Obama administration is at least indirectly coordinating airstrikes with Iranian tactical moves.
In Syria, Iran props up the regime of Bashar al Assad, while using its ability to project power through Syria to the Golan Heights, where Iranian generals prepare for war against Israel.
Iran is the major supporter of terror groups Hezb’Allah and Hamas. All of Iran’s clients are recipients of its technology for building missiles, rockets, and military hardware – so boasts Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The Obama administration can mock Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s notion that Iran is gobbling up Arab countries. But add to Iran’s presence in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, the Shiite coup in Yemen, a country that controls access to important ports on the Red Sea, and you get a picture of the changing strategic dynamic in the region.
There is no doubt that the Obama administration has acquiesced to the idea that Iran will become the dominant power in the region. Perhaps not even with reluctance. For the geographic location of Iran, its population, and its energy resources, make it a potentially dominant power – and potential partner. The Nixon administration saw the Shah of Iran through this lens, and now the Obama administration sees the Ayatollahs the same way.
But there is an obvious difference. The Shah was not only our partner – he also had no expansionist ambitions.
Obama has failed to appreciate the difference, but neither the Arabs nor the Israelis have made the same mistake.
About the Author: Abraham H. Miller is an emeritus professor of political science, University of Cincinnati, and a senior fellow with the Salomon Center for Truth & Accountability.
Obama Backs Tehran’s Push for Hegemony
Published: March 16th, 2015
Herzog and Livni at a campaign stop in Tel Aviv. Photo Credit: Flash 90
Tzipi Livni is forgoing her rotation agreement with Yitzchak Herzog, to help the Zionist Union (Labor) build a coalition.
Though, just 2 hours earlier, Yitzchak Herzog said the deal is still on.
The rotation agreement, where Herzog would be prime minister for 2 years, and then Livni would be prime minister turned what they thought was a great way to beat Netanyahu into a national joke.
Livni is anything but popular among the Labor party activists, and Netanyahu’s repeatedly identifying the pair as Livniherzog (one word) certainly didn’t help.
Some early polls indicated that if the rotation deal were canceled, so Livni would not be prime minister, the Zionist Union could get 2 more seats.
Livni reportedly said she would agree to cancel the rotation deal if that is what is needed to form a coalition.
Before Livni merged her Hatnua party with Labor, all the polls showed that Hatnua was not even going to pass the minimum electoral threshold.
Livni Cancels Rotation Deal with Herzog
11.Israeli Elections: March 17 is Just Stage #1
Or, “Israeli Political System for ‘Dummies”‘ By: Batya Medad Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com
Published: March 15th, 2015
Knesset Upheaval Photo Credit: Unknown
For the Israeli public and political leaders, elections to the Knesset on March 17 isn’t the end of the suspense. It may take days or weeks for us to have a new government, to know who will actually be Prime Minister.
Unlike the American political system and many other countries, counting the votes doesn’t tell us what we really need to know. It just lets us all know how many MKs each party will have and which parties will be in the Knesset.
The Prime Minister needs to control more than sixty 60 MKs to have a ruling coalition. None of the parties will come close. That means they have to make deals with others. I have no doubt that the party heads have been negotiating all along. The question is which party’s leader, Likud or Labor can cajole and control sufficient MKs.
As much as I hate the idea of the Bobbsey twins, Herzog-Livni to succeed, I really wouldn’t mind hearing Bibi Netanyahu opposing their plans, which are too similar to things he would do in power. I am one who hasn’t forgotten that it has only been the Likud to give up our holy land and destroy Jewish communities. The Likud has traditionally been its best in opposition. I sincerely hope and pray that if Bibi and Likud and Bayit Yehudi’s Bennett are in the opposition they will use the opportunity to get more strongly Right. Herzog-Livni will discover that making the changes they have threatened to do will be much more difficult that they wish.
Time will tell.
Remember that in a democracy the people get the government they, the majority, the idiots, yes, all of us deserve.
About the Author: Batya Medad blogs at Shiloh Musings.
Israeli Elections: March 17 is Just Stage #1
12.Herzog’s Capitulation By: JoeSettler
I was shocked and embarrassed at how easily Herzog capitulated to Rina Matzliach…
Published: March 15th, 2015
Yitzchak “Buji” Herzog walks off the set, as ordered. Photo Credit: Channel 2
I feel sorry for Labor/Zionist Union chief Yitzchak “Buji” Herzog. I really do.
Here he is sitting on Rina Matzliach’s Meet the Press show, with someone feeding him lines on his earpiece, and then Netanyahu, who did not initially even know that Herzog was in the studio beats Buji hands-down in an unexpected debate (unexpected for Netanyahu, at least).
But that wasn’t the end of Herzog’s humiliation.
Rina then (quite rudely too) kicks Herzog out of the studio during the impromptu debate she set up. I found her tone nasty and condescending.
And Herzog capitulates without a word!
His sour face said enough, as he actually got up and left without saying another word – as ordered!
If Herzog capitulates so easily to a mere talking head, when he is actually in the middle of his dream debate with the Prime Minister, what is going to happen when he has to face off with real opponents like Obama, Abbas, and his partner Tzipi Livni.
Every Israeli must see this video and realize that Buji Herzog must not become the Prime Minister of Israel.
UPDATE: I was told that Herzog was told to leave because legally candidates have to have equal face time on TV, and he had his time before. If he had stayed on it would have gone into Bibi’s time and Channel 2 would have had legal problems. Still. Doesn’t change what we just saw.