Netanyahu Managed to Reach an Agreement With Most Of His Political Partners, and is Now Closer to Assembling a Coalition: The political system in Israel is based on a coalition government. Netanyahu has a bloc based on 64 members of Knesset, out of 120. He has already reached agreement with the extreme right-wing party Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) led by Itamar Ben-Gvir, a party that is considered racist and strongly supports Jewish Supremacy. Earlier this week he closed a deal with the Religious Party led by Bezalel Smotrich, who will be Minister of the Treasury for half of the four year term and then Minister of the Interior. His party will also receive the Jewish Identity ministry with a large budget, and added functions that were taken from the Ministry of Education. The orthodox Ashkenazi party, Yahadut Hatora will receive a few ministries and will head the finance committee in the Knesset. They placed stringent conditions to joining the coalition, mainly regarding imposing Halacha rules on the state, like public events with gender separation. They were also promised an enlarged budget for their education system. Halacha is the system of rules and ordinances that govern Jewish religious life and is the system whereby the ultra orthodox govern their day to day lives. It is important to state that they generally do not teach humanities, mathematics, English or science in their schools.
For the government to be able to be sworn in, the Knesset needs first to pass a law that will enable a convicted member to be sworn in and serve as a minister. The current law bans it, thus they also need to pass a law that will enable the Knesset to override a supreme court rule if that contradicts a political agenda. This stated intention resulted in vociferous protests from many circles in Israel, including numerous lawyers and the Israeli Bar Association.
Mayors and School Principals Rally Against New Government’s Plan to Intervene in Secular Schools External Programs: dozens of mayors and heads of local councils, mostly from affluent and predominantly non-religious areas, came out against the coalition agreement with the far-right and ultra conservative Noam party. Under the agreement, the unit responsible for external study programs in schools will be taken out of the hands of the Ministry of Education, and transferred to the responsibility of the party's chairman, Avi Maoz, an anti LGBTQI and family values advocate. Maoz will control the unit that decides on external education programs, namely control over the list of non-official bodies authorized to teach or lecture at schools.
The mayors announced that should the new unit ban liberal and pluralistic education programs from schools, they will fund such programs from local budgets. The mayors’ public statement came after current PM Lapid called on them to safeguard liberal values in education and refuse to cooperate with the new unit, headed by Maoz.Also, more than 300 Jewish and Arab public schools’ principals and educators signed a protest petition during the weekend against the transfer of the unit to Maoz, whose "racist, LGBT-phobic, dark and extreme views nullify entire communities and identities in Israeli society." The principals pledged to continue exposing their students "to content dealing with freedom, equality, love of humankind, human rights, diversity and inclusion”.
Former PM Bennett Makes a Move Against “Poison Machine”: Bennet announced earlier this week that he filed defamation lawsuits against those who published fake news and spread lies about him during his tenure as PM. In his statement, Bennett explained that he intends to fight the "poison machine", as he calls it, that spread lies against him. He also said that during his tenure he avoided filing lawsuits because of his primary commitment to his role of PM, but that now he has decided to "actively act against the poison machine, and against the spread of lies that poisons the public discourse."
The first lawsuit, in the amount of one million shekels ($300,000), is against a rabbi who claimed that his parents were not Jewish. In the statement made by Bennett, Rabbi Ronan Shaulov "slandered Bennett's late father and mother as if the Jewishness of the late James Bennett is in doubt, and as if Myrna Bennett is not Jewish, and therefore in his opinion Bennett himself is not Jewish." The sermons in which Rabbi Shaulov repeatedly questioned Bennett’s Jewish roots received at least 700,000 views on the various platforms.
Bennett also announced that he filed another libel suit, in the amount of half a million shekels ($150,000) against the right-wing activist Yigal Malka, following "serial spreading of lies". Malka’s posts repeatedly accused Bennett of “stealing” 50 million shekels from the public for renovations of his private home, that served as a formal residence during his tenure. This information, which Bennett refuted in national TV interviews, was the focus of a series of investigative items on a prime-time news show in a leading commercial TV channel.
Al-Jazeera Network Files a Petition at the International Criminal Court (ICC) to Investigate the Killing of Journalist Shireen Abu-Akleh: a new chapter in the Abu Akleh saga opened this week, when the Qatari network filed a petition at the ICC in the Hague against the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), demanding an investigation into her killing. The petition comes six months after the journalist was shot dead while she was covering violent clashes at the Jenin refugee camp, and after an Israeli probe showed that she was most probably killed by IDF fire. In its statement, the network said that the petition was accompanied by evidence and documentation that disprove Israel’s claim that Abu Akleh was hit by mistake.
US officials said that the US opposes the petition submitted by Al-Jazeera and noted that the court should focus on its main mission, which is to "serve as a court of last resort to punish and deter horrific crimes.".
Senior Israeli foreign ministry officials estimated that the petitioners will find it difficult to substantiate claims against soldiers who were involved in the incident, and therefore believe that this is mainly a declarative and propaganda move and not one that will lead to conclusions or taking personal measures against them. However, Israeli diplomatic officials expressed their concern of a political landslide for Israel ahead of the establishment of the right-wing government.
Hadassah Hospital In Jerusalem Insists on Laying Off an Arab-Israeli Medical Doctor Based on a Rumor: Dr. Ahmed Mahajna, is a trained surgeon, and an Arab-Israeli. A month ago, after a small party he held in the ward to celebrate passing an exam, the staff decided to give the remains of the food to the patients. Subsequently, someone spread a rumor saying that Mahajna gave food to a Palestinian terrorist who is receiving treatment at the hospital, that he vocally encouraged his actions, supported him and even took a selfie with him. An extreme right-wing organization hurried to demand his resignation. Hadassah hospital scheduled a hearing before laying him off. Mahajna insisted that he did not do anything that was attributed to him, and even the right-wing organization apologized for spreading the rumor without any evidence. But even that did not change Hadassah’s position, and the case will be decided in a disciplinary process. It is important to state that the political climate is currently even more polarized, due to the results of the general election, in which right-wing parties won and are currently in the process of assembling a governing coalition.
Further Reading
The list of all planned reforms in Israel: Here
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