Come Out With Your Hands Up

Health

While the world still struggles with the difficulties of the Covid-19 pandemic, Israel has emerged from the shelters into the open air. Schools reopened. So did restaurants, with limitations, like showing the “green card” that the holder has received two vaccine. The “green card” also allows entry to cultural events, swimming pools and gyms.. Israel TV ran reports of families preparing for the Passover seder with the entire family while last year many families had the Passover seder alone. Passover begins Saturday night.

In Israel, the infection rate fell below 1%, with 830,845 people infected since the start, at 90,332 per million, with 6163 deceased, or 670 per million, with 484 serious cases, and 11,668 active cases. Israel is 26th in the list of most infected countries. The USA is still #1 with 30,774,033 reported positive cases, at 92,576 per million, with 559,744 deaths, at 1.684 per million and 7,018,080 active cases. So far there are 126,068,887 people in the world who have tested positive, at 16,132 per million, with 2,767,376 deaths, at 354 per million, and 24,616,219 active cases.

In Israel, a new nose spray has been developed that reportedly kills 99.9% of the virus. The spray could have prevented much of the world’s COVID-19 infection, its inventor, Dr. Gilly Regev said in an interview with The Times of Israel.

“We are hoping that our nasal spray will now save many lives of people in countries that are waiting for the vaccine,” said Regev, an Israeli-raised biochemist who co-founded the company SaNOtize and developed the spray in Canada. “This will be affordable and can be used for prevention, to protect from any respiratory viral infection.”  Separate research, which isn’t referenced on the packaging, has suggested that the spray can lessen the impact of COVID-19 among those who are infected. According to Regev, the spray could have saved untold numbers of people but was tied up for a year waiting for regulatory approval. The spray has so far been approved for use in Israel and New Zealand, according to Ynetnews.
In related news, Israel TV reports that the Pfizer vaccine has not been proven to be fully effective against the S. African variant of the C-19 virus but is effective against the highly contagious British variant. On Thursday, Israeli health minister Yuli Edelstein called on the  citizenry to “follow guidelines so that the coronavirus does not return.”  To keep wearing masks, maintain social distancing and good sanitary practices. Edelstein also announced that so far Israel has administered two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to more than half its 9.3 million population.  Meanwhile, Pfizer has also begun trials of the C-19 vaccine on children under 12.

  Elections

The final election results from the March 23rd vote show no clear winner and created intense and nail-biting behind the scenes negotiations between various political parties. These negotiations could result in a deadlock so that neither the pro-Netanyahu block, that received only 52-seats, nor the anti-Netanyahu block, that received 57 seats, succeed in reaching  the necessary 61-seat majority in Israel’s 120 seat Knesset. Should that happen, then Israel’s fifth election in two-years will be held by the fall.

The breakdown by party, party leader and number of seats won in the election: Likud (Netanyahu) 30, Yesh Atid (Lapid) 17, Shas (Deri) 9, Blue and White (Gantz) 8, Yamina (Bennet) 7, Labor (Meirav Michaeli) 7, United Torah Judaism (Gafni) 7, Yisrael Beitanu (Leiberman) 7, Joint List (Arab-Israeli)6, Religious Zionist (Shmotrich) 6, New Hope (Saar) 6, Meretz (Horowitz) 6, Raam (Abbas) 4.

As of now, Yamina, a right-wing party lead by Neftali Bennet, whose parents immigrated to Israel from America decades ago, is a potential king-maker with seven seats. But even that isn’t enough to put Netanyahu over the top, according to all of the analysts who appeared on TV. Netanyahu would need the support of Raam, an Israeli Arab Islamists party headed by Mansour Abbas. Raam received 4 votes and should Abbas go in with Netanyahu, who vigorously courted him, and the entire Israeli Arab community, before the election, then Netanyahu would have his majority to form a coalition.

That’s the easy part, say the pundits. The hard part they say is getting the Religious Zionist party, headed by Bezalel Shmotrich, that received 6 seats, to sit in the same coalition as Abbas. Shmotrich has stated categorically that his party, that includes Itamar Ben-Gvir, an ultra-nationalist and Kahane disciple, would not sit in the same coalition with Abbas’ Ram.However, right-wing settler leaders have appealed to Shmotrich to give up his ideology, hold his nose, and accept Abbas in order to let Netanyahu squeeze a new government into power.
 
Ynetnews had an opinion piece that details Abbas’ history, and says Abbas’ party is essentially a branch of the Islamic Brotherhood, a terrorist group according to the USA and the EU.  Abbas has a list of twenty demands, according to the report, and if Bibi accedes to them then Raam will help make him Prime Minister, again. An ironic situation, say the commentators, occurs when an Arab Islamist can decide who runs the country.

On the anti-Netanyahu side, Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, centrist-right leaning, would have to sway Bennet’s right-wing Yamina party to join their coalition in order to gain the majority. However, according to analysts, the egos of others in the anti- Netanyahu block are unlikely to let Bennet in, since his demand would be to become Prime Minister.

What will emerge from these intense coalition talks is still unclear. Israel’s President Rivlin will meet with the parties next week and decide if either block can form a coalition. If so, he’ll give one block or the other two weeks to form a government. If that fails, he’ll call on the other block. If that fails, new elections by the fall.

One commentator on Israel’s Channel 13 TV said the elections were about one thing for Netanyahu, staying out of jail. “He doesn’t need to be Prime Minister. He’s already Prime Minister. So why did he call new elections? Because he needs a 61 seat majority to pass a law that keeps him out of jail. And allows him to change the way the courts can overrule the executive and legislative branch. By changing the laws he can appoint judges and prosecutors favorable to him. In any case, said the commentator, Netanyahu’s trial resumes after the Passover holiday and he will have to appear in court. More to the point, witnesses will begin appearing detailing Netanyahu’s crimes.

Then there’s the new effort by Yisrael Beitanu, lead by Avigdor Leiberman, part of the anti-Netanyahu block, to pass a law in the Knesset before it dissolves that would prohibit a Prime Minister who has been indicted for a crime to stay in office. As of now, ministers and Knesset members, must resign their position if they are indicted, only the PM has immunity. Leiberman wants to change that.

However, while Gideon Saar of the New Hope party, with 6 seats, supports Leiberman’s move, his other partners in the anti-Netanyahu block, according to commentators, want this group to focus more on agreeing on a coalition of at least 61 seats and to form a government than to worry about punishing Netanyahu.  Another obstacle to this group gaining power is that it is not clear who would be the Prime Minister should they succeed in getting 61 seats or more. There is even talk of Benny Gantz, head of Blue and White, who garnered a surprising 8 seats, being the compromise Prime Minister.  

What is clear, according to commentators, is that this election was not about policies or platforms or ideas, but was split into two groups, those who supported Netanyahu, and those who wanted him out of office. Netanyahu’s campaign strategy that focused on his acquiring Pfizer vaccines for the Israeli population, didn’t work as well as he’d hoped. Even though 50 percent of the Israeli population now has had at least one vaccine, and the number of serious cases has dropped to below 500 for the first time in three months, the voters apparently didn’t buy the claim that Netanyahu alone was responsible for the vaccines. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, who cancelled a trip to Israel because his visit might have been used for political propaganda, said he makes deals with countries not with individuals. A similar claim was made by the leaders of the UAE who said the Abraham Accords, the peace agreements with Bahrain, and the UAE, were with Israel not with any one Israeli.

So, according to most analysts, Netanyahu has stepped up to the plate, swung and struck out.

Others say that Netanyahu is like the fugitive in  a move or tv show, holed up in an apartment with the police outside calling over the bullhorn “Come out with your hands up, you’re surrounded.” But Netanyahu is an amazingly successful political animal and may slip out of the building and somehow still emerge victorious in these coalition talks. Although, most analysts say that this time he won’t succeed and, Israel will face new elections, the  fifth in 2 years. And Netanyahu will finally appear in court to face the three felony indictments.