{"id":177829,"date":"2019-05-29T19:01:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-30T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/05\/29\/it-appears-that-voting-him-immunity-was-a-bridge-too-far\/"},"modified":"2019-05-29T19:01:00","modified_gmt":"2019-05-30T00:01:00","slug":"it-appears-that-voting-him-immunity-was-a-bridge-too-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/05\/29\/it-appears-that-voting-him-immunity-was-a-bridge-too-far\/","title":{"rendered":"It Appears that Voting Him Immunity was a Bridge too Far"},"content":{"rendered":"
Benjamin Netanyahu has been unable to form a government<\/a>, so there will be snap elections.<\/div>\n

I think the fact that he was going to use the new government to grant himself for immunity for impending corruption charges was a major contributing factor:<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s parliament has voted to dissolve itself after Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> failed to form a government, in a move that will lead to a second round of elections just one month after the country held a national poll. <\/p>\n

At a suspenseful gathering that ended weeks of unsuccessful bartering and brinkmanship, the Knesset voted to disperse and call new elections, set for 17 September. <\/p>\n

Coalition talks stalled after far-right former defence minister Avigdor Lieberman, a Netanyahu ally-turned-rival, refused to back the prime minister. <\/p>\n

Netanyahu needed support from Lieberman\u2019s ultranationalist party, Yisrael Beiteinu, for a majority in Israel\u2019s parliament. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

Lieberman, whose party\u2019s base includes largely secular Russian-speaking Israelis, wanted guarantees that the prime minister would back legislation to insist ultra-Orthodox Jews, also known as haredi, undertake mandatory national service like other Israelis. <\/p>\n

Netanyahu, however, also needed the 16 seats from ultra-Orthodox parties for a 61-seat majority of parliament\u2019s 120 seats. Those parties demanded that the existing exemption from conscription for seminary students stays in place. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Likud surrendered completely to the haredi,\u201d Lieberman said before the parliamentary vote on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026 <\/p>\n

This time, Netanyahu, 69, was under additional pressure to form a government as he faces potential indictments for bribery, fraud and breach of trust in three cases. He denies any wrongdoing, labelling the accusations as a \u201cwitch hunt\u201d. <\/p>\n

His loyalists had been planning to grant him immunity in the next parliament. A draft law they proposed would overrule court decisions and in effect protect the prime minister, although Netanyahu has not publicly backed the plan. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I cannot but think that the plans for immunizing Bibi were giving his coalition partners some serious concerns that they would pay for giving him a get out of jail free card.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Benjamin Netanyahu has been unable to form a government, so there will be snap elections. I think the fact that he was going to use the new government to grant himself for immunity for impending corruption charges was a major contributing factor: Israel\u2019s parliament has voted to dissolve itself after Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[368,375,588,439,488,374],"class_list":["post-177829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-corruption","tag-elections","tag-fail","tag-government","tag-israel","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177829"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177829\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}