Then, in February 2019, he was indicted on one case of bribery and two cases of fraud and breach of trust. This involves allegedly planning to help a newspaper disadvantage its competition to get good press in return. Also, he is accused of meddling with an Israeli telecom company merger in exchange for positive coverage on its news site. The prime minister, in the midst of a tough election contest, denied any wrongdoing.
The guy living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue started insinuating himself into the Israeli electoral process. This is possibly beyond what his base was looking for.
In the election of April 9, Bibi seemed set to win a fifth term after vowing to annex the West Bank, part of a so-called American peace plan.
The huge problem is that millions of Palestinians live in the area captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The Palestinians want to make it part of their future state. This campaign promise is sure to raise tensions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The right-wing Likud party of Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t win enough seats to govern. He attempted to form a coalition government, but it failed. By late May, the Israeli Knesset (parliament) voted to dissolve itself and redo the election.
Try, try again
Ahead of Israeli’s do-over election in September, the Prime Minister faced opposition from the left and the right.
President Rivlin tasked Netanyahu with forming a government when unity talks With Benny Gantz’s Kahol Lavan reached a stalemate.
There COULD be a third round of voting if this doesn’t work out, and as of this writing, here’s no real government. What are Netanyahu’s recent liabilities? They may be:
-criminal allegations, and the sense that a win could get him immunity.
-the American’s apparently-canceled wish to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani as the Israeli prime minister insisted that Iran was developing its nuclear program
Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that Israeli officials “played” his ex-boss. He warned that a “healthy amount of skepticism” is needed in dealings with Israel’s prime minister.
“They did that with the president on a couple of occasions, to persuade him that ‘We’re the good guys, they’re the bad guys,’” Tillerson said, according to the Harvard Gazette. “We later exposed it to the president so he understood, ‘You’ve been played.'”
Benjamin Netanyahu turns 70.
From today’s Daily Skimm:
Israel
The Story
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has failed to form a coalition gov.
Why was he trying to?
Because back in April, Netanyahu’s right-wing party failed to win the 61 seats needed for a parliamentary majority. He tried to form a coalition…but that didn’t work out. So, a new election was held last month. And the same thing happened: no majority, no coalition.
So is Netanyahu giving up?
Essentially. And he’s blaming it on rival Benny Gantz, the leader of the centrist party. Netanyahu says his own party made “every effort” to form a gov with Gantz’s but Gantz was having none of it. Now Israel’s president said he would give Gantz a chance to try forming a coalition gov – with 28 days to get it done. Otherwise, Israel could hold its third election in less than a year.
theSkimm
This is the first time in more than a decade that someone other than Netanyahu – Israel’s longest-serving PM – has a chance to lead the government. And leaves the future of Israel’s politics up in the air.