News from April 19th to April 25th
Israel's new government and Orthodox Jewish blood plasma drives
Hey everyone! As always, feel free to reach out to me with questions, comments, or concerns at newsofthejews@gmail.com. If you need good Jewish/Israeli shows or movies, make sure to check out this newsletter.
Israeli election update:
Does Israel have a government yet? Yes!!!
Gantz and Netanyahu signing their coalition agreement. Haaretz.
What does the government look like? Here’s an overview of how the coalition deal addresses some of the most critical issues between Prime Minister Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz:
Prime Minister: Netanyahu will remain the Prime Minister for the next 18 months, at which point he will step down, and Benny Gantz will become the Prime Minister for the remaining 18 months. The deal stipulates that if Netanyahu is removed from power by a court decision, there will be automatic elections. As you may recall from a previous week’s newsletter, the Israeli High Court has avoided ruling on whether or not an indicted MK can form a government since it was still hypothetical. Now, of the court rules against Netanyahu on that question, Israel will head to another election. Also, as part of the deal, the Deputy Prime Minister will live in an official, state-funded residence.
Political Positions: Gantz will begin as the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense. Blue and White MKs Gabi Ashkenazi and Avi Nissenkorn will head the Foreign Ministry and the Justice Ministry, respectively. Likud’s Yisrael Katz, the current Foreign Minister, will become the head of the Finance Ministry. Labor’s Amir Peretz will become the Economy Minister (more on this later). There are lots of other appointments, but these are the major ones.
Judicial Appointments: In Israel, one of the most sensitive political issues is the composition of the judicial system. Usually, the committee that appoints judges to the Israeli High Court is composed of members from the cabinet, coalition, and the opposition. In Netanyahu and Gantz’s government, the representative from the opposition will be Zvi Hauser, a right-wing MK from the Derech Eretz faction that broke off of Telem a few weeks ago. You may remember him as one of the MKs that prevented Gantz from forming a minority government with the Joint List’s backing. The implication of the arrangement is that Likud will have its way on judicial appointments because there will effectively be no opposition in the committee.
Legal Positions: One of the most controversial parts of the coalition deal is that Netanyahu, though indicted on three charges, will have a veto over any new Attorney General (the current Attorney General, Avichai Mandelblit, indicted Netanyahu), State’s Attorney, and Police Inspector-General.
Norweigan Law: Gil Hoffman of The Jerusalem Post explains it the best: “Besides the 52 ministers and deputies as well as the Knesset speaker, there would only be 25 functioning Knesset members out of the 78 in the coalition (assuming two MKs from Labor join). Those 25 MKs would constantly have to run between different Knesset committees to do the grunt work of the parliament against the 42 MKs in the opposition. So the coalition agreement allows cabinet ministers to quit the Knesset and the next candidate on the party list to enter. The law would be changed so that in Blue and White, there would only be allies of Gantz that enter the Knesset, bypassing candidates from the Yesh Atid and Telem parties that are in the opposition.”
Remember, the Blue and White party that got elected was really a combined list of three parties. If you were to add members to the Knesset from that list (to replace MKs becoming ministers), there would be representatives from all of the parties. The new law allows the new Blue and White to disregard the members on the list from the other parties.
Annexation of the West Bank: The coalition deal will allow Netanyahu to begin annexing the parts of the West Bank set out in the Trump Administration’s peace plan starting on July 1st.
What else? One interesting storyline is the proverbial “death” of the Labor party. The leader of Labor, Amir Peretz, decided to split his party from Meretz (a liberal party) and join Netanyahu and Gantz’s coalition. A primary within Labor confirmed that the party desired to join the government. While the party is not functionally “dead,” it only won three seats in the recent elections and would not have passed the threshold to join the Knesset if not for its electoral alliance with Meretz and Gesher. Now, the liberal party whose predecessors ushered Israel into existence is joining Netanyahu, its longtime enemy, in forming a government.
Also, thousands of demonstrators in Tel Aviv protested the coalition deal because they oppose having an indicted Prime Minister. The protesters gathered in public but maintained social distancing.
Did Gantz or Netanyahu come out on top? (my opinion) I believe that the coalition deal is clearly a win for Netanyahu. You can certainly make the case that Gantz extracted some critical concessions from Netanyahu; Gantz will become Prime Minister and his party will have as many ministerial positions as the entire right-wing bloc. Ultimately, though, Netanyahu secured favorable arrangements on the issues most important to Israel’s future. Netanyahu has veto power over the appointment of future attorneys who may prosecute his legal cases, a green light on annexing the West Bank, and the ability to control Supreme Court appointments. He has also positioned himself to maintain power regardless of Supreme Court rulings. When Gantz broke his core promise to his voters not to join a Netanyahu government, he said he did it to preserve Israeli democracy. It’s hard to see how this deal accomplishes that mission.
Further reading: https://jewishjournal.com/israel/314668/israels-unity-government-is-a-big-win-for-netanyahu-and-questionable-for-gantz/
Orthodox Jews flock to donate blood plasma:
What happened? After a doctor at Johns Hopkins University reached out to his Orthodox Jewish friend Chaim Lebovits in Monsey, Lebovits began urging fellow Orthodox Jewish COVID-19 survivors to donate their blood plasma. Since Coronavirus survivors have antibodies in their blood that can be used to potentially treat COVID-19, hospitals are desperately looking for blood plasma donors. As of April 22nd, 3,000 Orthodox Jews have donated their plasma, and more than half of Mt. Sinai hospital’s donors are Orthodox Jews. 6,000 more Orthodox Jews are being tested to see if they have the proper antibodies, and Lebovits said that he ultimately hopes to organize 45,000 people to donate their plasma. Lebovits’ efforts are part of a larger campaign to mobilize the Orthodox Jewish community to donate their blood. I encourage you to read about it using the link above.
Why is this important? The Orthodox Jewish communities in New York City and Israel have been hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a Wall Street Journal analysis from earlier this month, two of the zip codes in New York City with the highest rates of Coronavirus were Borough Park and Midwood, two heavily Orthodox areas. The reasons why Orthodox Jews are suffering more are complicated, but it is generally accepted that dense housing arrangements where the elderly live with their children’s families (which are often large) have played a role in the intensity of the outbreak in Orthodox communities. Moreover, since little outside information enters the communities via popular media, some Orthodox Jews have been skeptical of the measures taken by their governments. I encourage you to read this op-ed to get a better sense of why the Orthodox Jewish community has struggled. As a result of the skepticism in the community, there have been severe and public breaches of social distancing guidelines in the Orthodox community that were heavily criticized. However, some have argued that the news coverage is unfair and singles Orthodox Jews out as a “problematic” group. Accordingly, Lebovits’ efforts have been successful both in getting Orthodox survivors to donate plasma and showing a side of the Orthodox Jewish community that has not been widely covered by the media.
Further reading: https://nypost.com/2020/04/23/thousands-of-new-york-orthodox-jews-donate-plasma-to-fight-coronavirus/
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