The right-wing party Israel Our Home, despite spending months speaking against allowing a government supported by leftists or Arabs, has apparently caved in after announcing they will vote for the election of Gantz as president, in order to avoid yet another electoral repeat.

Seem like the time has finally come for Netanyahu. Gantz will struggle big time, as his centrist party Blue&White, will likely be unable to simultaneously get support from the right-wing nationalists of Israel Our Home and the left-wing Labour Party and Democratic Union. Not to mention the Arab List, which would also be necessary to pass laws in a parliament that is otherwise controlled by far-right, nationalist and Orthodox conservative parties (Likud, Shas, United Torah Judaism, Rightwards-Yamina).

It mostly comes down to getting rid of Netanyahu and the widespread corruption of his party, Likud. Israel Our Home will likely block the social-democratic reforms Gantz wants to implement, and the Arab List will obviously continue oppose the colonialist policies of the government, which are expected to be pretty much the same as Netanyahu's.

The change sounds nice, as it would be good news to see Netanyahu out, but I'm not sure Gantz is going to be a great alternative either.

edit: it's now 61 to 60, in favour of Gantz.



This post was edited by zarkadon on Mar 15 2020 12:03pm

It's not a big move overall imo but anything slowing down these horrible neo-zionists is welcome.

Likud is still stronger than Blue-White, and the conservative block is still much stronger than the centrist or center-left block excluding the Arab List. So in the long run, I dont see a way around Likud leading the government - the way I see it, the recent maneuvering only serves one goal: getting rid of Netanyahu, who's the major obstacle in the way of overcoming the gridlock.

As you said, Gantz's coalition will be dysfunctional since its inception and break apart soon. Once Bibi is gone and the process against him has started (which effectively rules out a political comeback), it will take only a couple of months until there's yet another election, which then ends with a grand coalition between Likud and Blue-White. Policy-wise, these two parties arent that far apart anyway.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 17 2020 10:09am

Agreed.

But, also B&W wants to clean up Likud's corrupt scheme. It will take a bit of time before that nevitable coallition forms.

This post was edited by zarkadon on Mar 17 2020 01:33pm

I don't see Netanyahu going anywhere anytime soon

So, Gantz decided to completely change his stance, and sided with Netanyahu, after 2 years denouncing the corruption of the Prime Minister and his party

Seeing, that it would be impossible to form a stable coalition with such a mishmash of right-wing nationalists, centrists, social democrats and arabs, has decided to accept Netanyahu's generous offer of several key ministries for him and his party, in exchange for B&W's support for another Netanyahu led government.

Gantz claims that these harsh times require a broad and stable coalition government, and that may be true, but at the end of the day he's doing the exact opposite of what his party is supposed to represent. He has pretty much sold himself and his party's anti-corruption ideals in exchange for power.

He can blame it on the coronavirus. "I had to sell out for power, because muh stability".