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Netanyahu is out as new Israeli government survives confidence vote

vmception 5y ago
Congratulations Israel, that was a close one. This was a necessary stepping stone to get Lapid into office in a maximum of two years. If this government can stick together long enough to pass the necessary reforms to avoid future PMs from enacting extreme resolutions like Netanyahu did for so long, Israel will be an attractive place to continue funding with US taxpayers as the center government will be able to match US civil rights ideals and implement due process instead of rationalizing destructive responses based on rumors. Its not so absurd to imagine getting a court order to seize a property and prosecute individuals that are using military grade munitions. Right now it might seem to be, but it isn't. If the government doesn't stick together long enough, Lapid gets into office sooner, but it would remain to be seen if there would be any will for restricting the PM power or passing reforms at that point.
- amelius 5y ago
  Close indeed. Undermining democracy seems to be the new trend.
- PKop 5y ago
  >Israel will be an attractive place to continue funding with US taxpayers Hopefully not, US taxpayers should see this aid spent on themselves in their own nation.
  - vmception 5y ago
    Right. But as this is a constant across all US administrations' heads of state, as well as super majority of representatives in Congress it is currently useless to debate that and acknowledge the reality: it will be less objectionable to much of US population if Israel is able to implement due process to all of its citizens that more closely matches what occurs in the US.
    - oogabooga123 5y ago
      > Useless to debate It seems like you just outlined why it is necessary to debate. Think of how many positions used to have overwhelming majority in Congress, only to be overturned after citizens pushed the issue, by publicly debating it when it was unpopular.
    - Alex3917 5y ago
      > But as this is a constant across all US administrations' heads of state, as well as super majority of representatives in Congress it is currently useless to debate that Just wait 10 years until most new cars are electric, and we’ll see whether or not that still holds.
    - Method-X 5y ago
      I would argue that it's supported across all governments in the US because there isn't must debate or awareness surrounding it.
      - vmception 5y ago
        I have my doubts about that one, but that could be because my own filter bubble includes general awareness of it. I usually skip the stages of grief and go straight to acceptance, and looking at how to make it more tenable.
    - rebelos 5y ago
      There are some who believe that not even a single dollar should flow out to foreign aid so long as there is, for example, an American child experiencing hunger (and there are millions of them at this very moment).
      - kergonath 5y ago
        That's a bit short sighted, though. Foreign aid is an investment, and a tool to solidify your soft power.It is worth it even without considering any humanitarian aspect (which you should, but not everybody does). Running a slightly less ridiculous military-industrial complex would free plenty of funds to fix just about any issue there might be in the US (except of course the big one, climate change). Second is having a slightly less ridiculous tax system.
  - yosefk 5y ago
    ...and then Israel can build its own fighter jets? Count us in! It's not "aid." It's fiscal transfer to vassal states (though 75% of it really goes to US corporations' pockets - aid isn't dollars but vouchers to spend on US products at 4x the market price) within the US empire. Just ask any non-voting subject of the empire. BTW in numbers it's $4B/year - $3B to US firms, $1B to Israel. Our GDP is about $400B. Would we buy our independence for $1B per year, if the US was selling/if the world worked that way? You bet! (And don't get me wrong, it might be the best empire to be the vassal of for Israel which is too small to be independent. Just let's call it what it is.)
    - 29athrowaway 5y ago
      Israel is known for selling arms to regimes that abuse human rights. Like Myanmar.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > Israel is known for selling arms to regimes that abuse human rights. Also, for being such a regime.
      - redisman 5y ago
        This is absurdly selective. Are there any arms manufacturing countries, including the Saints in EU and US who haven’t sold arms to repressive regimes? You don’t even have to scratch the surface. Is Saudi Arabia a freedom loving democracy?
        29athrowaway 5y ago
        1. Is this discussion about the Saudi Arabian government or the Israeli government? I also have stuff to say about Saudis too but that's not the topic right now. 2. "Oh but, what about <X>"... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism And by the way I am not anti-semitic, if that is what you were trying to imply with "absurdly selective". Israel has many high value products to export besides weapons. Israel can enjoy prosperity without having to resort to trading weapons with such regimes.
  - throwntoday 5y ago
    The israel lobby is too powerful to ever have their funding cut. Very few in Washington are critical of israel and those that are will be labled anti-semetic because no distinction can ever exist between criticism of israel and anti-semitism apparently. It's truly pathetic how openly American polticians will kowtow to israel and even china these days. Whatever they are getting in return must be worth it.
    - smolder 5y ago
      Compliant politicians don't necessarily have to get anything in return. Punishment and the threat of it can motivate behavior, just like positive reinforcement. Anyway, I wouldn't personify these countries and assign them motivations. Geopolitics is complicated, and there are many people pulling strings across many nations, complete with complicated rivalries and partnerships. The support for a modern Israeli state in the first place started outside of what is now Israel. So, you can't assume pressure to support Israel all comes from Israel itself, purely in its self-interest.
  - baq 5y ago
    Every thousand spent abroad in an unstable country is ten thousand saved ten years later when a military operation is needed or humanitarian aid is sent.
  - pmoriarty 5y ago
    "Hopefully not, US taxpayers should see this aid spent on themselves in their own nation." Are you against the US giving aid to any other country, or just to Israel?
    - tmule 5y ago
      That’s a weird binary - maybe it’s okay to give aid to some countries (that are poor, don’t have half their population espousing racist AF views, that haven’t undermined the US itself)?
- jsharf 5y ago
  "stick together long enough....", I don't think that's going to happen. There's no way this government will last 2 years, I doubt it will even last 3 months.
  - vmception 5y ago
    That's fine though, another far right extremist PM gets outed faster and Lapid gets in sooner. They just need to make it so Netanyahu - a very familiar face in Israel - doesn't get back in, and that a future PM doesn't get in the same endless hold over the public and all resources.
- yyyk 5y ago
  >This was a necessary stepping stone to get Lapid into office in a maximum of two years. It's very debatable whether the coalition would even survive that long. >If the government doesn't stick together long enough, Lapid gets into office sooner Technically yes, but looking at the distribution of parliament, Lapid won't have the votes to pass much, and would have significant difficulty keeping the seat. Nethanyahu or anyone who'd replace him in Likud would have a decent chance of forming a government without an election.
- csomar 5y ago
  > Israel will be an attractive place to continue funding with US taxpayers Probably not. The US supported Israel to keep Iran/Russia in check in the region and frighten the rest. If the US is pulling support, it's probably going to rely on Iran (the legitimate heir?) to run the place. They'll have no incentive to keep propping Israel. Imo, that's why Netanyahu tried to spark a war with Iran. They went on to make several alliances with Arab countries, in a bid to create a military alliance against Iran. He was wrong, however, in that Arab countries (surprise, Saudia Arabia) was more interested in making peace with Iran than starting an all out war. For that, Netanyahu tried to spark a conflict and he had the right ammo for this (he knew the guys in Gaza will retaliate). At surface, it looks like Netanyahu hates the Gaza guys (Hamas) and they hate him. In reality, their existence depends on this conflict. It seems, however, that everyone is willing to move on. There will be peace in the future and also higher oil prices :)
  - vmception 5y ago
    > The US supported Israel to keep Iran/Russia in check in the region and frighten the rest. This is an excuse that Jewish in America and Evangelicals use to rationalize broader support from Americans. It is almost as weak as the 2000 year old land claim arguments from some Jewish Nationalists, and weaker than the doomsday prophecies that Evangelicals feel obligated to accelerate at the expense of everyone else so they can ride away on a cloud with Jesus while the planet descends into chaos. The US has bases in almost every surrounding country of Israel, and literally invaded all the countries that border Iran. It can lob missiles and strike at nuclear facilities in Iran if it wanted to from anywhere. It has the rest of NATO on the European subcontinent to keep Russia in check. The US can easily tell Israel to pound sand and make good on the supposed idea of aligning with Russia. Nothing of value would be lost. If it sounds absurd to imagine the fiction where Peru is paying for Israel's defense budget, then it is absurd for the US to be involved too.
Synaesthesia 5y ago
Eh he's pretty similar to Netanyahu with no difference with regard to the Palestinians. In fact he could be more hawkish.
- JeremyBanks 5y ago
  Even if his policies were identical, a corrupt leader can't be allowed to remain and solidify his corruption even further. He's already been there far too long and done far too much institutional damage.
  - Synaesthesia 5y ago
    That's true.
- kevin_b_er 5y ago
  Except he's in a broad coalition. He can't go jackbooting Palestinians without risking his coalition.
  - ayende 5y ago
    He is in a coalition that has 60 votes in favor out of 120. That isn't broad at all
    - Torwald 5y ago
      Broad in this context means that the coalition is build together out of many parties along a broad spectrum, as opposed to, say, two very conservative parties or so.
    - mcintyre1994 5y ago
      It's broad ideologically, it even includes a party made up of Palestinian citizens of Israel.
- YZF 5y ago
  Bennet is pretty different than Netanyahu. For one thing he is religious. He is probably more hawkish from the perspective of the historical rights of the Jewish people in the region but he is also possibly more pragmatic. The religious zionist parties in the past had no problem sitting in coalition with left wing parties. While the heart of the conflict is probably not something that can be resolved by anyone at this time at least I think he and his coalition will try to steer things in a better direction. This is the first time in Israeli history where we have Israeli Arab (Palestinian) parties in the coalition/government in Israel. That's pretty big step forward. This potentially is the first step towards eventually forming a single state which is in my mind is the only solution that's going to work. For those who think the two state option is a solution this is maybe a step backwards. If you think about a single state then the gap between some of the Israeli right (that considers the lands to be part of that state) and the Israeli left isn't that large. This is sort of what this government is about, that the civil aspects, the day to day life of everyone, can be decoupled from the nationalistic aspect. In a single state the Israeli right gets to "keep" those lands so that problem is solved. The problem of Jerusalem is also solved. That's not to say there aren't a whole bunch of other really difficult questions... Maybe this single state is a federation (so it's two states in the US sense but one country). I'm really hopeful something good will come out of this.
getcrunk 5y ago
Fun fact: lapid does not have a bachelor's degree.
- beckman466 5y ago
  > Fun fact: lapid does not have a bachelor's degree. Genuine question: why is having a bachelor's degree important?
  - yuvalkarmi 5y ago
    Lapid is the alternate prime minister, and the significance is that (correct me if I’m wrong) it’s fairly uncommon for people in political power positions not to have higher education of some sort.
    - redisman 5y ago
      Isn’t that part of the problem. It’s become a political class rather than pulling the best representatives of all facets of society.
    - dilawar 5y ago
      Our (Indian) PM just just faked it! He got a degree printed in a subject that didnt exist, and when the degrees written by hand and in a font that was invented in this century. Not sure if Israelians tolerate white lies from their politicians as we do.
- drusepth 5y ago
  Do most politicians?
  - LatteLazy 5y ago
    95% of Congress have at least a degree. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_111th_United_States_Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_111th_United_St... (under demographics->education) 85% of British MPs https://studee.com/media/mps-and-their-degrees-media/ https://studee.com/media/mps-and-their-degrees-media/
29athrowaway 5y ago
Naftali Bennett is more theocratic than Netanyahu. He defends his arguments saying "The bible says...". He does this even in international interviews, where interviewers are looking for answers that a diverse audience can understand. He served as an education minister in Israel despite being heavily theocratic. In the US, we mock people that try to teach intelligent design in schools. In Israel, you put them in charge of education. You can respect freedom of religion but claiming that the Bible prevails over international law is just absurd. Ratified treaties are law, not scriptures and books sacred to a religion. Many countries do not have an official religion and most states do not have Judaism as an official religion. The bible argument just doesn't work. What is that kind of discourse going to achieve? Clearly making Israel more popular is not among those things.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  As an example: https://twitter.com/mehdirhasan/status/1399079468132622339 https://twitter.com/mehdirhasan/status/1399079468132622339 It’s a wild interview.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "In the US, we mock people that try to teach intelligent design in schools. In Israel, you put them in charge of education." There have been plenty of theocrats in high positions of power in the US, and teaching Intelligent Design is not a laughing matter for large portions of the American population. In fact, we may see some cases supporting the teaching of Intelligent Design come before the Supreme Court before long, and given the conservative dominance of the court those cases could well be decided in Intelligent Design's favor.
- YZF 5y ago
  We should probably say "The Old Testament" since the term "Bible" is ambiguous. The US is predominantly Christian and Christianity has a big influence on day to day life. "In God We Trust" on USD? Or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Orden_v._Perry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Orden_v._Perry ? Many other countries are basically "Christian" countries or "Muslim" countries or insert your favorite religion. It's just not spelled out as such because it's a given. Is Christmas a holiday? Or is it Yom Kippur? It's easy to advocate for freedom of religion when 99.9% of the population is Christian or Muslim or <insert your favorite religion>. The old testament is at least partly a historical document so referring to it as part of understanding the conflict is acceptable. Now if your argument simply reduces to "because g*d said so" then I agree it's not a very strong one, but Bennet is an intelligent person and I doubt that's the only reasoning he gives.
hprotagonist 5y ago
I think the benefits of "having a PM not named netanyahu regardless of literally anything else" are probably more significant than we'd like to admit.
- oh_sigh 5y ago
  The new PM claims that Israel owns Palestine because it says so in the Bible.
  - hprotagonist 5y ago
    my second clause is real broad!
  - csomar 5y ago
    I think any PM of Israel should claim at least the current lands they hold.
chagaif 5y ago
The post with the wiki... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27494690 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27494690
nivertech 5y ago
I wish there were country flags next to HN handles. Why are so many people all over the world interested in the politics of our "microstate"? It's a rhetorical question. I know why ... ;(
- tpmx 5y ago
  > It's a rhetorical question. I know why ... ;( Why?
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    I'm not the OP, but he is correct even if he expressed himself poorly. Israel has since its inception had every transgression, every poor decision, and every flaw magnified in international press far more than any nation, even before accounting for Israel's small landmass and population. Every country has issues, but none have them paraded about as blatantly as Israel does. When was the last time a country of less than 100,000 km^2, or less than 100M population, had a change of head of state as front-page news on HN? Why is this such an important event that every international news organization has it on the front page, when changes to other non-G8 nations' heads of state are not?
    - sebmellen 5y ago
      Every country in Europe aside from Russia has a population smaller than 100 million. Israel is larger than Austria by population. Also, Israel is an ethnostate (of sorts) which has perennially been in some kind of armed conflict since its inception. If Austria had wars and territorial disputes with all its neighbors, and received tens of billions of dollars from the US in military aid, and was nuclear-capable, and had a Prime Minister who wielded strong influence over US politics through an organization like the “American Austrian Public Affairs Committee”, we’d probably hear a lot more about it.
      - joelbluminator 5y ago
        I kinda doubt it honestly. I'm not even positive a regime change in China / Russia would have made it to #1 on HN and they both have much more influence on the U.S (and the world's future) than Israel. And even if China's leader being replaced would have made it to #1, the fact we are actually making this comparison (that Israel is as important globally as China) is surreal to me.
joelbluminator 5y ago
It's a bit creepy how Israel gets about as much attention as a country like China or Russia in social media / news. Does this deserve a mention? Probably does. As the main headline in CNN / BBC / Nytimes ? I'm not so sure, how is Israel so important?
- D13Fd 5y ago
  It gets views, which is what the media wants. Your question is basically “why do so many people care about this enough to view articles about it?”
- ev1 5y ago
  They are one of the world tech powers, regardless of whether you like to think of it or not. There is power concentrated there, and intellectual property. It's similar to how Vatican City will get posted even if there is almost no population.
  - joelbluminator 5y ago
    Most certainly not, Israel has a very nice software industry but it isnt critical. If it stopped tomorrow nothing major will happen. If Taiwan stopped tomorrow the global chip supply collapses.
    - davidf18 5y ago
      Computer chip design in major in Israel. Intel has 2 design centers there. Apple has a design center there. Broadcom, Qualcomm and many others. It is not only software....
- baybal2 5y ago
  Israel is a very weird microstate There is always a lot of outrage about it in the media. Very scandalous Some kind of mess happening there 24*7. Medias like such "scandal porn" Netanyahu was basically a political Kardashian, Trump Donald before it was cool
sharikone 5y ago
How is that related to HN? Anyways, the interesting thing is the total remixing of ideologies that happened. "Rightwing" Netanyahu is considered to be the best for the poor/traditional Mizrachis. "Leftwing" Meretz agreed to have a cabinet dominated by settlers. "Leftist" endeavor of bridging the gaps with the Arabs is bringing anti-LGBT legislation (and was actually started by "right-wing " Netanyahu). Israel needs a new name for the current political divide because right vs left, it is not
krzyk 5y ago
OK, so how is this "hacker news" material?
arthurcolle 5y ago
why was this flagged? Geopolitics and changes in the political arena effect changes on all of us, irrespective of whether or not we know or particularly care about a given country. Israel specifically has tremendous influence in software (maybe adtech is the biggest software industry there?) - perhaps indirectly, or sometimes quite directly as well as in biotech. Wars, conflicts that arise vs Palestine also play a huge role in our daily lives even if they aren't evident in our day to day existence. So it is a little disappointing that an article that is related to current events is flagged just because perhaps some participants don't like the outcome.
- CameronNemo 5y ago
  To be frank, if people do not want to talk about something they will flag it to death. Just the way of the world.
- dang 5y ago
  When you see [flagged] on a submission, it means that users flagged it (this is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html). We can only guess why users flag things, but in this case it's pretty easy to guess - just read the first part of the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. There are plenty of current events sites out there. If such stories weren't mostly treated as off topic here, HN would be entirely a current-events site. Yes, there are exceptions—you can find detailed descriptions of how we approach that in these past explanations: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... But I don't think this submission would make a good exception. It's a political horse race story. I realize that in this case the horse race turned out to be historic, but that's not going to make for a thoughtful, substantive thread (perhaps 20 years from now). As evidence for that, I give you: this actual thread.
  - arthurcolle 5y ago
    Thanks dang, I appreciate the insightful reply - I get what you're saying and can understand the nuance.
davidf18 5y ago
I predict Netanyahu will return. He was on the special forces team that rescued hostages from Sabena 571 injured during the rescue. He went to school at MIT and knows America well. He is very, very intelligent and many people think he is the bests person to deal with Iran, which is the existential threat to Israel. Those that care about Israel's survival will want Netanyahu as PM.

Congratulations Israel, that was a close one. This was a necessary stepping stone to get Lapid into office in a maximum of two years. If this government can stick together long enough to pass the necessary reforms to avoid future PMs from enacting extreme resolutions like Netanyahu did for so long, Israel will be an attractive place to continue funding with US taxpayers as the center government will be able to match US civil rights ideals and implement due process instead of rationalizing destructive responses based on rumors. Its not so absurd to imagine getting a court order to seize a property and prosecute individuals that are using military grade munitions. Right now it might seem to be, but it isn't. If the government doesn't stick together long enough, Lapid gets into office sooner, but it would remain to be seen if there would be any will for restricting the PM power or passing reforms at that point.

amelius 5y ago
Close indeed. Undermining democracy seems to be the new trend.
PKop 5y ago
>Israel will be an attractive place to continue funding with US taxpayers Hopefully not, US taxpayers should see this aid spent on themselves in their own nation.
- vmception 5y ago
  Right. But as this is a constant across all US administrations' heads of state, as well as super majority of representatives in Congress it is currently useless to debate that and acknowledge the reality: it will be less objectionable to much of US population if Israel is able to implement due process to all of its citizens that more closely matches what occurs in the US.
  - oogabooga123 5y ago
    > Useless to debate It seems like you just outlined why it is necessary to debate. Think of how many positions used to have overwhelming majority in Congress, only to be overturned after citizens pushed the issue, by publicly debating it when it was unpopular.
  - Alex3917 5y ago
    > But as this is a constant across all US administrations' heads of state, as well as super majority of representatives in Congress it is currently useless to debate that Just wait 10 years until most new cars are electric, and we’ll see whether or not that still holds.
  - Method-X 5y ago
    I would argue that it's supported across all governments in the US because there isn't must debate or awareness surrounding it.
    - vmception 5y ago
      I have my doubts about that one, but that could be because my own filter bubble includes general awareness of it. I usually skip the stages of grief and go straight to acceptance, and looking at how to make it more tenable.
  - rebelos 5y ago
    There are some who believe that not even a single dollar should flow out to foreign aid so long as there is, for example, an American child experiencing hunger (and there are millions of them at this very moment).
    - kergonath 5y ago
      That's a bit short sighted, though. Foreign aid is an investment, and a tool to solidify your soft power.It is worth it even without considering any humanitarian aspect (which you should, but not everybody does). Running a slightly less ridiculous military-industrial complex would free plenty of funds to fix just about any issue there might be in the US (except of course the big one, climate change). Second is having a slightly less ridiculous tax system.
- yosefk 5y ago
  ...and then Israel can build its own fighter jets? Count us in! It's not "aid." It's fiscal transfer to vassal states (though 75% of it really goes to US corporations' pockets - aid isn't dollars but vouchers to spend on US products at 4x the market price) within the US empire. Just ask any non-voting subject of the empire. BTW in numbers it's $4B/year - $3B to US firms, $1B to Israel. Our GDP is about $400B. Would we buy our independence for $1B per year, if the US was selling/if the world worked that way? You bet! (And don't get me wrong, it might be the best empire to be the vassal of for Israel which is too small to be independent. Just let's call it what it is.)
  - 29athrowaway 5y ago
    Israel is known for selling arms to regimes that abuse human rights. Like Myanmar.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > Israel is known for selling arms to regimes that abuse human rights. Also, for being such a regime.
    - redisman 5y ago
      This is absurdly selective. Are there any arms manufacturing countries, including the Saints in EU and US who haven’t sold arms to repressive regimes? You don’t even have to scratch the surface. Is Saudi Arabia a freedom loving democracy?
      - 29athrowaway 5y ago
        1. Is this discussion about the Saudi Arabian government or the Israeli government? I also have stuff to say about Saudis too but that's not the topic right now. 2. "Oh but, what about <X>"... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism And by the way I am not anti-semitic, if that is what you were trying to imply with "absurdly selective". Israel has many high value products to export besides weapons. Israel can enjoy prosperity without having to resort to trading weapons with such regimes.
- throwntoday 5y ago
  The israel lobby is too powerful to ever have their funding cut. Very few in Washington are critical of israel and those that are will be labled anti-semetic because no distinction can ever exist between criticism of israel and anti-semitism apparently. It's truly pathetic how openly American polticians will kowtow to israel and even china these days. Whatever they are getting in return must be worth it.
  - smolder 5y ago
    Compliant politicians don't necessarily have to get anything in return. Punishment and the threat of it can motivate behavior, just like positive reinforcement. Anyway, I wouldn't personify these countries and assign them motivations. Geopolitics is complicated, and there are many people pulling strings across many nations, complete with complicated rivalries and partnerships. The support for a modern Israeli state in the first place started outside of what is now Israel. So, you can't assume pressure to support Israel all comes from Israel itself, purely in its self-interest.
- baq 5y ago
  Every thousand spent abroad in an unstable country is ten thousand saved ten years later when a military operation is needed or humanitarian aid is sent.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "Hopefully not, US taxpayers should see this aid spent on themselves in their own nation." Are you against the US giving aid to any other country, or just to Israel?
  - tmule 5y ago
    That’s a weird binary - maybe it’s okay to give aid to some countries (that are poor, don’t have half their population espousing racist AF views, that haven’t undermined the US itself)?
jsharf 5y ago
"stick together long enough....", I don't think that's going to happen. There's no way this government will last 2 years, I doubt it will even last 3 months.
- vmception 5y ago
  That's fine though, another far right extremist PM gets outed faster and Lapid gets in sooner. They just need to make it so Netanyahu - a very familiar face in Israel - doesn't get back in, and that a future PM doesn't get in the same endless hold over the public and all resources.
yyyk 5y ago
>This was a necessary stepping stone to get Lapid into office in a maximum of two years. It's very debatable whether the coalition would even survive that long. >If the government doesn't stick together long enough, Lapid gets into office sooner Technically yes, but looking at the distribution of parliament, Lapid won't have the votes to pass much, and would have significant difficulty keeping the seat. Nethanyahu or anyone who'd replace him in Likud would have a decent chance of forming a government without an election.
csomar 5y ago
> Israel will be an attractive place to continue funding with US taxpayers Probably not. The US supported Israel to keep Iran/Russia in check in the region and frighten the rest. If the US is pulling support, it's probably going to rely on Iran (the legitimate heir?) to run the place. They'll have no incentive to keep propping Israel. Imo, that's why Netanyahu tried to spark a war with Iran. They went on to make several alliances with Arab countries, in a bid to create a military alliance against Iran. He was wrong, however, in that Arab countries (surprise, Saudia Arabia) was more interested in making peace with Iran than starting an all out war. For that, Netanyahu tried to spark a conflict and he had the right ammo for this (he knew the guys in Gaza will retaliate). At surface, it looks like Netanyahu hates the Gaza guys (Hamas) and they hate him. In reality, their existence depends on this conflict. It seems, however, that everyone is willing to move on. There will be peace in the future and also higher oil prices :)
- vmception 5y ago
  > The US supported Israel to keep Iran/Russia in check in the region and frighten the rest. This is an excuse that Jewish in America and Evangelicals use to rationalize broader support from Americans. It is almost as weak as the 2000 year old land claim arguments from some Jewish Nationalists, and weaker than the doomsday prophecies that Evangelicals feel obligated to accelerate at the expense of everyone else so they can ride away on a cloud with Jesus while the planet descends into chaos. The US has bases in almost every surrounding country of Israel, and literally invaded all the countries that border Iran. It can lob missiles and strike at nuclear facilities in Iran if it wanted to from anywhere. It has the rest of NATO on the European subcontinent to keep Russia in check. The US can easily tell Israel to pound sand and make good on the supposed idea of aligning with Russia. Nothing of value would be lost. If it sounds absurd to imagine the fiction where Peru is paying for Israel's defense budget, then it is absurd for the US to be involved too.

Synaesthesia 5y ago

Eh he's pretty similar to Netanyahu with no difference with regard to the Palestinians. In fact he could be more hawkish.

JeremyBanks 5y ago
Even if his policies were identical, a corrupt leader can't be allowed to remain and solidify his corruption even further. He's already been there far too long and done far too much institutional damage.
- Synaesthesia 5y ago
  That's true.
kevin_b_er 5y ago
Except he's in a broad coalition. He can't go jackbooting Palestinians without risking his coalition.
- ayende 5y ago
  He is in a coalition that has 60 votes in favor out of 120. That isn't broad at all
  - Torwald 5y ago
    Broad in this context means that the coalition is build together out of many parties along a broad spectrum, as opposed to, say, two very conservative parties or so.
  - mcintyre1994 5y ago
    It's broad ideologically, it even includes a party made up of Palestinian citizens of Israel.
YZF 5y ago
Bennet is pretty different than Netanyahu. For one thing he is religious. He is probably more hawkish from the perspective of the historical rights of the Jewish people in the region but he is also possibly more pragmatic. The religious zionist parties in the past had no problem sitting in coalition with left wing parties. While the heart of the conflict is probably not something that can be resolved by anyone at this time at least I think he and his coalition will try to steer things in a better direction. This is the first time in Israeli history where we have Israeli Arab (Palestinian) parties in the coalition/government in Israel. That's pretty big step forward. This potentially is the first step towards eventually forming a single state which is in my mind is the only solution that's going to work. For those who think the two state option is a solution this is maybe a step backwards. If you think about a single state then the gap between some of the Israeli right (that considers the lands to be part of that state) and the Israeli left isn't that large. This is sort of what this government is about, that the civil aspects, the day to day life of everyone, can be decoupled from the nationalistic aspect. In a single state the Israeli right gets to "keep" those lands so that problem is solved. The problem of Jerusalem is also solved. That's not to say there aren't a whole bunch of other really difficult questions... Maybe this single state is a federation (so it's two states in the US sense but one country). I'm really hopeful something good will come out of this.

getcrunk 5y ago

Fun fact: lapid does not have a bachelor's degree.

beckman466 5y ago
> Fun fact: lapid does not have a bachelor's degree. Genuine question: why is having a bachelor's degree important?
- yuvalkarmi 5y ago
  Lapid is the alternate prime minister, and the significance is that (correct me if I’m wrong) it’s fairly uncommon for people in political power positions not to have higher education of some sort.
  - redisman 5y ago
    Isn’t that part of the problem. It’s become a political class rather than pulling the best representatives of all facets of society.
  - dilawar 5y ago
    Our (Indian) PM just just faked it! He got a degree printed in a subject that didnt exist, and when the degrees written by hand and in a font that was invented in this century. Not sure if Israelians tolerate white lies from their politicians as we do.
drusepth 5y ago
Do most politicians?
- LatteLazy 5y ago
  95% of Congress have at least a degree. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_111th_United_States_Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_111th_United_St... (under demographics->education) 85% of British MPs https://studee.com/media/mps-and-their-degrees-media/ https://studee.com/media/mps-and-their-degrees-media/

29athrowaway 5y ago

Naftali Bennett is more theocratic than Netanyahu. He defends his arguments saying "The bible says...". He does this even in international interviews, where interviewers are looking for answers that a diverse audience can understand. He served as an education minister in Israel despite being heavily theocratic. In the US, we mock people that try to teach intelligent design in schools. In Israel, you put them in charge of education. You can respect freedom of religion but claiming that the Bible prevails over international law is just absurd. Ratified treaties are law, not scriptures and books sacred to a religion. Many countries do not have an official religion and most states do not have Judaism as an official religion. The bible argument just doesn't work. What is that kind of discourse going to achieve? Clearly making Israel more popular is not among those things.

ceejayoz 5y ago
As an example: https://twitter.com/mehdirhasan/status/1399079468132622339 https://twitter.com/mehdirhasan/status/1399079468132622339 It’s a wild interview.
pmoriarty 5y ago
"In the US, we mock people that try to teach intelligent design in schools. In Israel, you put them in charge of education." There have been plenty of theocrats in high positions of power in the US, and teaching Intelligent Design is not a laughing matter for large portions of the American population. In fact, we may see some cases supporting the teaching of Intelligent Design come before the Supreme Court before long, and given the conservative dominance of the court those cases could well be decided in Intelligent Design's favor.
YZF 5y ago
We should probably say "The Old Testament" since the term "Bible" is ambiguous. The US is predominantly Christian and Christianity has a big influence on day to day life. "In God We Trust" on USD? Or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Orden_v._Perry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Orden_v._Perry ? Many other countries are basically "Christian" countries or "Muslim" countries or insert your favorite religion. It's just not spelled out as such because it's a given. Is Christmas a holiday? Or is it Yom Kippur? It's easy to advocate for freedom of religion when 99.9% of the population is Christian or Muslim or <insert your favorite religion>. The old testament is at least partly a historical document so referring to it as part of understanding the conflict is acceptable. Now if your argument simply reduces to "because g*d said so" then I agree it's not a very strong one, but Bennet is an intelligent person and I doubt that's the only reasoning he gives.

hprotagonist 5y ago

I think the benefits of "having a PM not named netanyahu regardless of literally anything else" are probably more significant than we'd like to admit.

oh_sigh 5y ago
The new PM claims that Israel owns Palestine because it says so in the Bible.
- hprotagonist 5y ago
  my second clause is real broad!
- csomar 5y ago
  I think any PM of Israel should claim at least the current lands they hold.

chagaif 5y ago

The post with the wiki... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27494690 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27494690

nivertech 5y ago

I wish there were country flags next to HN handles. Why are so many people all over the world interested in the politics of our "microstate"? It's a rhetorical question. I know why ... ;(

tpmx 5y ago
> It's a rhetorical question. I know why ... ;( Why?
- dotancohen 5y ago
  I'm not the OP, but he is correct even if he expressed himself poorly. Israel has since its inception had every transgression, every poor decision, and every flaw magnified in international press far more than any nation, even before accounting for Israel's small landmass and population. Every country has issues, but none have them paraded about as blatantly as Israel does. When was the last time a country of less than 100,000 km^2, or less than 100M population, had a change of head of state as front-page news on HN? Why is this such an important event that every international news organization has it on the front page, when changes to other non-G8 nations' heads of state are not?
  - sebmellen 5y ago
    Every country in Europe aside from Russia has a population smaller than 100 million. Israel is larger than Austria by population. Also, Israel is an ethnostate (of sorts) which has perennially been in some kind of armed conflict since its inception. If Austria had wars and territorial disputes with all its neighbors, and received tens of billions of dollars from the US in military aid, and was nuclear-capable, and had a Prime Minister who wielded strong influence over US politics through an organization like the “American Austrian Public Affairs Committee”, we’d probably hear a lot more about it.
    - joelbluminator 5y ago
      I kinda doubt it honestly. I'm not even positive a regime change in China / Russia would have made it to #1 on HN and they both have much more influence on the U.S (and the world's future) than Israel. And even if China's leader being replaced would have made it to #1, the fact we are actually making this comparison (that Israel is as important globally as China) is surreal to me.

joelbluminator 5y ago

It's a bit creepy how Israel gets about as much attention as a country like China or Russia in social media / news. Does this deserve a mention? Probably does. As the main headline in CNN / BBC / Nytimes ? I'm not so sure, how is Israel so important?

D13Fd 5y ago
It gets views, which is what the media wants. Your question is basically “why do so many people care about this enough to view articles about it?”
ev1 5y ago
They are one of the world tech powers, regardless of whether you like to think of it or not. There is power concentrated there, and intellectual property. It's similar to how Vatican City will get posted even if there is almost no population.
- joelbluminator 5y ago
  Most certainly not, Israel has a very nice software industry but it isnt critical. If it stopped tomorrow nothing major will happen. If Taiwan stopped tomorrow the global chip supply collapses.
  - davidf18 5y ago
    Computer chip design in major in Israel. Intel has 2 design centers there. Apple has a design center there. Broadcom, Qualcomm and many others. It is not only software....
baybal2 5y ago
Israel is a very weird microstate There is always a lot of outrage about it in the media. Very scandalous Some kind of mess happening there 24*7. Medias like such "scandal porn" Netanyahu was basically a political Kardashian, Trump Donald before it was cool

sharikone 5y ago

How is that related to HN? Anyways, the interesting thing is the total remixing of ideologies that happened. "Rightwing" Netanyahu is considered to be the best for the poor/traditional Mizrachis. "Leftwing" Meretz agreed to have a cabinet dominated by settlers. "Leftist" endeavor of bridging the gaps with the Arabs is bringing anti-LGBT legislation (and was actually started by "right-wing " Netanyahu). Israel needs a new name for the current political divide because right vs left, it is not

krzyk 5y ago

OK, so how is this "hacker news" material?

arthurcolle 5y ago

why was this flagged? Geopolitics and changes in the political arena effect changes on all of us, irrespective of whether or not we know or particularly care about a given country. Israel specifically has tremendous influence in software (maybe adtech is the biggest software industry there?) - perhaps indirectly, or sometimes quite directly as well as in biotech. Wars, conflicts that arise vs Palestine also play a huge role in our daily lives even if they aren't evident in our day to day existence. So it is a little disappointing that an article that is related to current events is flagged just because perhaps some participants don't like the outcome.

CameronNemo 5y ago
To be frank, if people do not want to talk about something they will flag it to death. Just the way of the world.
dang 5y ago
When you see [flagged] on a submission, it means that users flagged it (this is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html). We can only guess why users flag things, but in this case it's pretty easy to guess - just read the first part of the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. There are plenty of current events sites out there. If such stories weren't mostly treated as off topic here, HN would be entirely a current-events site. Yes, there are exceptions—you can find detailed descriptions of how we approach that in these past explanations: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... But I don't think this submission would make a good exception. It's a political horse race story. I realize that in this case the horse race turned out to be historic, but that's not going to make for a thoughtful, substantive thread (perhaps 20 years from now). As evidence for that, I give you: this actual thread.
- arthurcolle 5y ago
  Thanks dang, I appreciate the insightful reply - I get what you're saying and can understand the nuance.

davidf18 5y ago

I predict Netanyahu will return. He was on the special forces team that rescued hostages from Sabena 571 injured during the rescue. He went to school at MIT and knows America well. He is very, very intelligent and many people think he is the bests person to deal with Iran, which is the existential threat to Israel. Those that care about Israel's survival will want Netanyahu as PM.