We Christian Americans have a stake in this situation, just as all the other Americans do. But, it is hard to see that the situation can be resolved by any Israeli election. The Palestinian "leader." Mr Abbas, has said that he will never recognize the Jewish state's existence. That is a pretty hard nut to crack. The other Palestinian leadership seems just as hard. In the meantime, Iran's position in the Middle East grows stronger, and they will soon move further towards obtaining nuclear weapons.
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@Francis Walsingham
> Mr Abbas, has said that he will never recognize the Jewish state's existence.
Patently untrue. The Palestinians Authority (which Abbas represents) recognized Israel years ago. Please correct your mistake.
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@Francis Walsingham -- While I and most Americans recognize Israel's existence, so does Arafat.
What Arafat does not recognize is a particular definition of "Jewish state" proposed by right wingers such as Netanyahu, that makes all non-Jews into second class residents against whom the state actively discriminates.
Most Americans including me do not recognize that either, any more than does Arafat.
Yet the distinction is frequently hidden, a smoke screen.
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@Joe Be that as it may, he did say that.
"But in some ways, Israel also seems stuck in the past."
Just what do you expect Mr. Halbfinger at the yearly memorials? Alas, we Jews in Israel are a little different than than many Americans. How many many Americans will mark or remember November 22, 1963?
But much of the past is the present:
"Palestinian terror groups in the Gaza Strip fired 10 rockets into Israel in two separate barrages on Friday night, the army said. One projectile slammed into a house in the town of Sderot, while the Iron Dome system intercepted eight and the tenth fell in open ground."
https://www.timesofisrael.com/rocket-warnings-sound-on-gaza-border-residents-report-loud-explosions/
That is the present.
As you know while Mr. Gantz is all for negotiations with the Palestinians, i.e. in the West Bank, not Hamas-controlled Gaza, his defense policy is normative, i.e. Israeli national suicide is not on the table. He also criticized Mr. Netanyahu for not striking back at Hamas harder.
Thus for many Israelis, same old same old.
While I do not want a third round of elections, sooner or later the electoral deadlock will be broken.
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Why has Netanyahu been Israel's prime minister for so long? Hamas deserves the credit. When Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza in 2005, it created an independent Palestinian state. When Gaza elected Hamas, rockets aimed Israeli civilians began to fall. The rockets did not do much damage to Israel, but they warned Israel that a withdrawal from the West Bank would put Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem within close range of rocket fire.
Israel learned that concessions for the sake of peace do not lead to peace but to increased danger.
If Israelis change to a direct election of prime minister - as some on the right recently suggested - it will become apparent even in Netanyahu’s Likud party, that all Netanyahu cares about is himself and his corruption trials, and not the needs of Israel.
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I don't know enough about Netanyahu's legal trouble to mouth off in that regard but I do know that if I was an Israeli, in negotiations with adversaries, I'd want a hard-nosed character like Netanyahu on my side, not some wimp who would cave and give the store away.
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I believe Mr.Gantz is in the right side of history. The Bibi era is over. It is time to actively seek a two state solution with the Palestinians in their own state with their own administration and borders secured by the Israeli military. This would give the Palestinians a chance to build their own economy and provide better educational opportunities for their youth. The Palestinian leadership must accept the reality of Israeli. And disavow their determination to throw Israel into the sea.
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Interesting. I had no idea that Israel had a prime minister who worked to make peace only to be gunned down by a fellow Israeli. Well that explains why there is no peace in the region: Not because it's impossible for Israel and Palestine to coexist, but because right wing extremists react to peaceful dialogue with assassinations.
How far Israel has fallen from the mid 90s. From a progressive, peace-seeking nation to the fascist ethnostate it is today.
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@Kal Al Clearly, you are well-informed about Israel.
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Neten-Yahoo is no longer PM. His party can propose someone else to serve as rotating PM or a top minister in a coalition gvt with Gantz. This would be ideal as it would remove extremists (from small nutty parties) from the government and curtail their divise influence. In previous governments, the extremists have exerted an influence disproportionate to their seats and share of the vote (like the DUP in the UK). The only problem is that the Likud apparently wants to keep nutty-yahoo in a position of authority.
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Israel is not "stuck in the past." It is situated in its political present and future. What does it mean to say it is focused on its "internal problems" rather than in its "relations with the outside world?" The claim is literally incomprehensible. At this very moment, the US is deeply focused on its massive internal problems. Does that mean it isn't focused on the outside world? The Times needs to get a grip, to check itself. Israel is not an American colony. Get real.
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"Mr. Gantz focused on a different kind of peace process — not with the Palestinians, which seems hopelessly far off — but among Israelis"
As long as AIPAC keeps bankrolling people like Cruz, Rubio, and Cotton into office, and can get corrupt individuals like Trump into the W H., Israel doesn't have to worry about those pesky Palestinians.
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No matter what happens, Israel will continue to disintegrate politically and socially.
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Following in the footsteps of the US I presume.
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@Diogenes -- Right wing extremism cannot last. No extremism lasts.
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More power to the diplomats of Israel who went on strike last week against the government´s strategy to slash its diplomatic body´s budget.
Right wing ´dictators´ are destroying their countries diplomacy in order to place friends and family in strategic positions: US, Brazil, Israel...
I hope more press coverage on the next strike will be given. There is no democracy without diplomacy, and the world needs more skilled negotiators in order to avoid even more conflicts.
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Gantz is right to focus on internal Israeli issues and politics. Without it, he probably won't be able to form a government.
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As someone who lunched with David Ben-Gurion many years ago, I wonder how this wonderful man might have viewed the current Israeli political situation. The three pillars of Trump's so-called Middles East policy are: Nentanyahu, facing indictment, Trump, facing impeachcment, and Mohamed bin Salman, a murderer who has the blood of his Yemenite war on his hands.
Gantz, whatever his strengths and weaknesses, is a decent man who prefers a secular government and less political polarization. I suspect that B-G would prefer Gantz and what he represents over Netanyahu.
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@Keith Wheelock
Ben Gurion expelled the the Arabs in 1948.
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All the best to your efforts to blunt Netanyahu’s far right, Mr. Gantz. And God bless the soul of Mr. Rabin. Peace be with the Israeli people, if the rightists will allow it.
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Excellent article.
If I had written it, I'd probably have written much of the same. My opening sentence, however, would be, "Israel is stuck." It doesn't SEEM stuck; it IS stuck.
It's anybody's guess how the current, unfortunate political game-playing will play out; no matter what happens (unless a modern-day miracle occurs), there will be no real winners - only lots and lots of losers.
Yes, we're stuck, and we've been stuck since Rabin was assassinated. My prayer is that while we'll probably stay stuck for as much time as I have left (now in the beginning of my eighth decade), maybe, just maybe, my children and grandchildren will be able to enjoy at least a little bit of unstuckedness in a country that will finally be able to live up to its true potential in myriad ways.
Sigh . . .
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As an American Jew who lived in Jerusalem, studied at the Hebrew University, and married an Israeli woman who served in the Israeli army, I have felt so depressed over the past few years over what Israel has become. This story about Benny Ganz is one of the most hopeful pieces of news I’ve seen from Israel in a long time. May the peace he is seeking among Israelis — as a first step among many to come — come to pass!
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The Israeli Left and peace camp collapsed after Rabin's assassination because it failed to put down the Right --and Bibi's-- complicity in that murder. Instead it sought "national reconciliation" as if it were co-complicit in that killing. If there is to be any hope at all for an Israeli-Palestinian Agreement, the Right has to be marginalized, not reconciled. Israeli Arab Parties have to be reconciled as legitimate parties for a start.
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@David
Agreed. Further, those on either side who refuse to humanize the “other” are complicit in perpetuating this conflict. Heartbreaking they haven’t learned this lesson yet... but one must have hope.
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@David
The Arab parties are certainly legitimate but they espouse and work zealously to erase the Jewish ethos of the State and eventual replacement with another Arab State. Just because they are legitimate does not make them worthy of support
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