Netanyahu says he won’t cave to Gantz’s budget demands
PM and Katz pledge to toughen stance even if it means new elections
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Israel Katz met late Monday and decided not to give in to Blue and White’s demands to pass the 2021 state budget by the end of the year, even if it means initiating another election, sources close to Netanyahu said Monday night.
The sources confirmed a KAN News report that Netanyahu and Katz decided against compromising and would instead toughen their stance in the dispute.
“We will not surrender,” Katz said. “If Blue and White continues to make demands, it would already be better to go to elections.”
The decision not to give in to Blue and White came after a day of threats by its leaders.
If the 2021 budget is not advanced by the end of the month, Israel will go to elections, Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi said Monday.
“We entered this government to save Israel from the [ coronavirus] crisis,” he told Ynet. “The business isn’t working. If it does not change, it’s over.”
Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz told the Blue and White faction he met
with Bank of Israel Governor Amir Yaron, who agreed with him that the 2021 budget must be passed immediately.
“I am not prepared to be held hostage in anyone’s political situation,” Gantz said. “My priorities are the priorities of the country, not my own. It should be the same way on the other end.
“We are prepared to cooperate in the context of a functioning government where a budget is taking shape. If we don’t see that happening, we’ll choose other alternatives, whether dissolving the Knesset or taking other measures. Things certainly cannot continue as they are.”
Netanyahu on Monday told the Likud faction he was not concerned about polls indicating that Yamina leader Naftali Bennett could form a government without the Likud.
“I never succeed in the polls, only in the elections,” Netanyahu said.
Yamina MK Ayelet Shaked said Yamina would form the next government. She mocked Blue and White, calling its MKs “Netanyahu’s dishrags.”
In response, Gantz told Channel 13: “Everything Bennett has talked about I went
and did.”
Netanyahu faced criticism in a special Knesset session with him initiated by the opposition. Opposition leader Yair Lapid said Netanyahu lived in such a bubble that he was not even aware of his failures in handling the coronavirus.
Lapid on Monday told his Yesh Atid faction at the Knesset he believes haredi ( ultra- Orthodox) institutions that violate coronavirus restrictions must be fined NIS 100,000 instead of the current 5,000 and then lose all their funding if there are repeated violations.
“An educational institution that doesn’t abide by the law wouldn’t get a shekel from the state,” he said. “It’s not against the ultra- Orthodox, it’s in favor of the ultra- Orthodox. It will save their lives.”
Lapid said he blamed recent violations of coronavirus directives in the haredi community on Netanyahu.
“What’s happened in the last few days isn’t the fault of the ultra- Orthodox,” he said. “It’s what they’ve been told for years. Netanyahu told them that the rules don’t apply to them. It’s a deal they have: They let Netanyahu stay on as prime minister, and in exchange he will make sure they receive budgets and that the rules won’t apply to them. But this time it’s harming the ultra- Orthodox public, not helping them.”
Israel needs to help the haredi communities by allowing them to study and pray in the open air, to transfer authority to mayors, to invest more in explaining the situation, to ensure that there are solutions for big families in isolation and, if necessary, to hire large holiday camps for that purpose, Lapid said. But Israel also needs to tell the ultra- Orthodox public it must abide by the rules, he said.
“Because of his trial, Netanyahu is running away from a clash with the ultra- Orthodox parties,” Lapid said. “He needs them, so he surrenders to them. That surrender harms everyone, but first and foremost it harms the ultra- orthodox public. The state has a responsibility to stand up against those who break the law.” •
one- sided agreement.
The right- wing and Orthodox parties have a majority of just seven delegates, but the Zionist organizations, which have now intervened, have a total of 147 delegates, meaning they could easily vote down the proposed agreement if they so wish.
“We are turning to you out of a deep concern for the future of the Zionist movement and its institutions, to stand up for the principle of wall- to- wall coalitions, and to include changes in the coalition agreement which you made, in order to balance as far as possible the representation of the parties and the [ religious] streams, and to lead the Congress in a spirit of peace and agreement between all its components,” the Zionist organizations wrote.
Duvdevani said that he was willing to sit and discuss how the coalition agreement could be amended, but insisted that he had already sought to offer a fair solution and said that it was the fault of the Reform and Masorti leadership for never responding to his offer.
The proposal at the time was that the Likud would get the chairmanship of the WZO, while there would be a rotation deal for the chairmanship of Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael- Jewish National Fund with a Mizrachi Olami and the centrist Yesh Atid Party sharing the role.
The Post understands that the Yesh Atid candidate for the position was its liberal religious- Zionist MK Elazar Stern.
“The Reform and Conservatives come to the negations with the dirtiest hands there can be. Three weeks ago I came to them with a wall- to- wall agreement which was much more balanced than the current one,” said Duvdevani.
“I wanted to create majority with them [ the progressive streams], a portion of the Left and a portion of the Right, and then with this majority force it on the right- wing, and I promised that I would be able to bring the Right into this proposal.
“But they didn’t answer me, and they began a war instead of responding,” he continued.
“The first thing streams need to do is come to the table and talk. If they really want to get something they need to come and sit and say what they want. I am willing to see how we can get something to sell to the right- wing.
“But this situation is entirely their fault, they created it, and they cannot now claim that the right- wing demands are too great. I can’t convince the Right as long as the Left doesn’t come to negotiate without a gun to the head.”
Duvdevani warned that it would be unconstitutional for the Zionist organizations to vote to topple the coalition agreement, and said they would be taken to court if they did so.
Kariv rejected Duvdevani’s claims however, saying that his offer was still unequal, and gave the center- left, progressive bloc the leadership of KKL for the second period of the chairmanship for just two years, while the rightwing would have the chairmanship of WZO as well.
He argued that the balance of power in the WZC was very even with just a slight advantage to the right- wing religious block, and that therefore Duvdevani’s proposals had not been acceptable.
Kariv insisted that his block had made a counter offer either to continue the current KKL chairman Danny Atar’s tenure for the whole five years and have Likud obtain the chairmanship of WZO and Keren Hayesod, or to have rotation agreements for both WZO and KKL, with Atar starting as KKL chair.
“If the right- wing is willing to sit and negotiate a decent agreement that gives some advancement to the Right, but still creates real partnership, if they are willing to make fundamental changes then lets do that
and have a wall- to- wall coalition,” said Kariv.
“If they just want cosmetic changes then we are not willing to accept that.”
He also called on the Zionist organizations, particularly Hadassah, WIZO and Na’amat which are involved in advancing the status of women in Israel, to ensure the current agreement, which gives the ultra- Orthodox Eretz Hakodesh Party in charge of the large KKL education budget, is toppled. • without signs of life, and we had to determine her death at the scene.”
A few hours later in Beersheba, police were summoned to assist a man who was standing on the roof of an apartment building, threatening to commit suicide.
Police contacted a family member who had a key to the apartment and let the officers in, where they found his spouse unconscious. An MDA crew pronounced her dead at the scene, from an apparent head trauma, according to initial reports. The woman was identified as 67- year- old Irina Greenberg,
“They are a very nice couple,” one of their neighbors told KAN News. “I have not seen anger or heard screams.”
Another neighbor said: “Recently, they hadn’t been getting along. There was friction because he wasn’t working, and she wanted him to go to work. They fought... He worked as a guard and was unemployed. He told me he wanted to move because they were not getting along. They have been together for 18 years.”
“People are together 24/ 7, and that’s what happens,” the neighbor added. “Last night, I saw him in a stairwell, and he did not feel well. He behaved strangely, barely spoke and moved like a ghost. His reactions were very slow. He has had heart problems recently.”
In response to the incident in Haifa, Na’amat chairman Hagit Peer said: “The wave of terrorism against women continues, the writing is on the wall, and the government just does not care. The best evidence of this is the plan to combat domestic violence that was already approved in 2017 by the government and to this day has not been implemented.”
MK Orly Fruman ( Yesh Atid- Telem) tweeted: “2 women were added to the statistics today. Women who have paid with their lives for the incompetence of the government in dealing with domestic violence.”
“The implementation of the plan against domestic violence that was approved at the beginning of the year should have happened a long time ago,” she wrote. “Eradication of the phenomenon of violence and murder of women cannot be put off any longer.”
According to data from the Avraham Initiative, 67 people have been murdered in the Arab community since the beginning of the year, including 13 women, not including Monday’s two suspected homicides. •
addressed. The IDF said it hoped to start formulating a solution in summer 2021.
The IDF acknowledged the report’s contribution to efforts to maintain readiness, while disagreeing with some conclusions.
One area where the IDF disagreed was its claim that it has clear directives at its different levels for dealing with WMDs despite the report’s criticism that there are deficiencies in that area.
A 2014 comptroller report on the issue made virtually identical criticisms, signaling that the lack of addressing the issue over the last six years shows that the issue is not a priority for the IDF.
Part of the debate dates back to Syria’s elimination of large aspects of its chemical weapons stock in 2013. This led to many officials claiming that continued investment in gear and other chemical weapons defense measures was a waste of funds and should be redirected elsewhere.
However, even after the Assad regime was supposed to have eliminated its entire chemical weapons stockpile, it continued to use chemical weapons as the Syrian civil war dragged on years later.
In 2016, concerns also spiked that Iran and the Assad regime were trying to smuggle chemical weapons to Hezbollah for use against Israel.
As far as Israel is concerned, Israeli intelligence has in the past said that the chemical weapons used by Assad in Syria are primarily chlorine and not the more dangerous chemical weapons such as sarin, VX and sulfur mustard.
Until ISIS was routed in 2017, the US had also said that ISIS was using a small volume of poorly weaponized mustard gas.
Against the backdrop of the IDF being unprepared for a chemical weapons attack, the Israeli government also years ago halted its program to mass distribute gas masks to the public.
Besides a reduced volume of Syrian chemical weapons, some Israeli national security officials have also concluded that the destruction that the IDF could bring down on Syria currently is so great that this threat in and of itself is a sufficient deterrent. •