80 stranded Israelis spend night in Frankfurt Airport
Exactly half of the 160 Israeli passengers who had intended to depart were actually able to board a Lufthansa rescue flight from Frankfurt to Israel on Tuesday evening. The rest had no choice but to stay in the airport indefinitely.
The remaining 80 passengers left later Wednesday night, after being informed in the morning that they would be rescued from the airport following an uncertain night in the airport. They received their boarding passes about 13 hours after the flight was canceled.
Currently, only 200 Israelis are permitted to enter Israel each day in order to quell the infection rate in the country, and prevent the spread of coronavirus mutations from abroad.
The experience of the rescue flight, according to Alana Ruben – a playwright who flew to Canada back in October to care for her parents and was stranded at the airport – was “a complete disaster.”
After being told that they wouldn’t be able to board, passengers were looking at flights on Friday, Saturday – or even Sunday and Monday – with no option to leave the airport until then, meaning that the travelers would not make it to Israel in time for Purim.
(known in the past as the Left) bloc to the pro-Netanyahu (in the past known as the Right) bloc.
There is no real reason to think, nor are the polls indicating, that people are going to dramatically change their voting patterns in this fourth election. And since the candidates are pretty much the same this time as well – though with some creative party hopping here and there – if the country is to avoid going to a fifth election, the parties need to change their postelection modus operandi.
And the place to start is by leaving options open, not closing them.
A situation where one party won’t joint a coalition with a second, or where this faction will refuse to join a coalition if it is supported by a third party, needs to change. Those types of boycotts will only lead Israel to yet another political dead end.
Which is why some of the political developments of the last few days are so disheartening.
Instead of parties and party leaders saying that they will wait until after the elections to determine whom they will recommend to form the government and with whom they are willing to sit in a coalition, they are already ruling out other parties or hypothetical coalitions led by other candidates.
And that is bad because without parties regaining flexibility, the country could be locked in its current stalemate for years.
On Tuesday, the heads of the haredi parties, Moshe Gafni and Ya’acov Litzman of United Torah Judaism, and Arye Deri of Shas, signed a pledge – as they did during the last elections – saying that they will throw their weight behind Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to form the next government, a Netanyahu tactic aimed at preventing them from negotiating after the elections with New Hope’s Gideon Sa’ar or Yamina’s Naftali Bennett about joining a coalition under their respective leadership.
Why is that bad? Because what if Netanyahu can’t form a government, but perhaps Sa’ar or Bennett could? Will the haredim honor their oath to Netanyahu and send the country spiraling to yet another election?
And Bennett, who up until now adroitly positioned himself as the kingmaker – a position in the past held by the haredi parties – started closing off options on Wednesday
“Yamina will not sit in a coalition led by the Left, including [Yesh Atid head Yair] Lapid at its head,” he stated unequivocally on KAN Bet. “We will not sit in a government headed by the Left.” Bennett added, however, that he would not have a problem with Lapid sitting in a Yamina-led government.
But what if Lapid, whose Yesh Atid Party is consistently polling as the second-largest party, after the Likud, can mathematically unseat Netanyahu if only Bennett will join, while if Bennett joins Netanyahu they still will not have the magic 61 seats to form a coalition? Then what will Bennett do – not join Lapid because he unnecessarily handcuffed himself in a radio interview that will then be played over and over if he reneges on his pledge?
Also on Wednesday, Yisrael Beytenu’s Avigdor Liberman called on Bennett, Sa’ar and Lapid to sign an oath with him that none of them would ever join a Netanyahu government, again a move that closes doors and could possibly lead to yet another inconclusive election.
Israel is in a logjam. Since it is impossible to replace the voters – they are who they are and vote how they vote – and no new leader is riding in on a white horse to save the political day, then the only way to get out of the current mess is for the parties not to repeat coalition-making mistakes of the past.
Coalition governments are by their nature governments of compromise. Parties give up some of their goals in order to sit in a government with other parties doing the same, so that all of them can achieve at least some of their aims and so the nation can have political stability.
But a party can’t make those compromises if at the outset it rules out working with others.
Blue and White‘s Benny Gantz should be a cautionary tale for all. Prior to the last election the Blue and White head said he would not join a Netanyahu government, and then was pilloried for doing exactly that.
Gantz’s mistake was not his willingness to sit with Netanyahu last May when the coronavirus was on the rampage and the country desperately needed a government to try to get things under control. His mistake was in not securing a fail-safe agreement that would guarantee that the rotation agreed upon would be honored.
Now, since Gantz said he wouldn’t sit with Netanyahu, and turned around and did so anyhow, he is on the verge of paying a huge political price. As such, it turns out he would have been better off simply not having made that pledge at all.
The leaders of the other parties, watching as Blue and White is wavering on the cusp of the electoral threshold and getting into the next Knesset, will naturally be hesitant to go back on their preelection promises on this particular issue, because it could be tantamount to political suicide. Yet the result of that inflexibility could be another round of elections.
After three inconclusive elections, the parties – all the parties – need to keep their options open, not close off possible pathways to forming a stable coalition needed to pull the country out of its current political morass.
A spectacular Olivier Giroud overhead kick gave Chelsea a 1-0 win over Atletico Madrid in Tuesday’s Champions League last-16 first leg in Bucharest.
The French striker broke the deadlock in the 68th minute with an outrageous bicycle kick which was flagged offside but eventually given following a lengthy VAR review as the ball had come off Atletico’s Mario Hermoso before Giroud hit it.
Joao Felix had attempted an overhead effort earlier in the second half, but missed the target in one of few chances for Atletico, which was forced to play the home leg over 3,000 kilometers from Madrid due to Spanish restrictions on arrivals from Britain to control the spread of COVID-19 infections.
Chelsea looked more likely to find a second goal than Atletico did an equalizer, but Thomas Tuchel’s side will be without Mason Mount and Jorginho in the second leg at Stamford Bridge on March 17 as they will be suspended after being booked.
“We came here with strong intentions to win, play our game and we knew how to cause them trouble offensively,” said match-winner Giroud.
“We have been strong at the back in the defensive shape and we’re very pleased with the win, it was a deserved win tonight.”
Atletico ’keeper Jan Oblak said his side had been too anxious in attack, but insisted the players’ spirits remained high.
“In the dressing room I saw a team with its head held high and I’m convinced we’re going to improve,” he said.
Atletico has led the La Liga standings for most of the season, but has experienced a dip in form in February and went into Tuesday’s match smarting from a shock 2-0 defeat at home to Levante after drawing two of its previous three games.
Deprived of the usual raucous atmosphere it would normally expect for a European knockout game at the Wanda Metropolitano and forced to take a four-hour flight to the game, there was little sense of Atleti having a home advantage.
It played with little ambition or intensity and could not manage a single shot on target to bother Chelsea ’keeper Edouard Mendy.
“I don’t think this is a crisis for us, it’s just a little different,” added Oblak. “In a difficult situation you see how strong a team really is and I’m sure we’re going to come out of this period and keep moving forward.”
Chelsea played with more confidence and purpose and was only let down by its final pass.
Luckily for the Blues, they could count on the improvisation of Giroud when Hermoso’s attempted clearance sent the ball looping backwards and within range of the Frenchman.
“I didn’t know what to think about the goal, I just focused on hitting the overhead kick and was pleased to see it go in the back of the net, I had no clue about being offside,” Giroud said.
“We know the importance of the away goal in European Cups so I was pleased to help the team win the game.”
Meanwhile, in Rome, Robert Lewandowski became the Champions League’s third top scorer of all time as holder Bayern Munich put one foot in the quarterfinals with a 4-1 thrashing of Lazio in their last16 first leg.
The Polish striker pounced on a poorly judged back pass after nine minutes to steer in his 72nd goal in the competition.
In doing so, he surpassed former Real Madrid striker Raul in the competition scoring charts to reach a total only bettered by Juventus’s Cristiano Ronaldo, with 134 goals, and Barcelona’s Lionel Messi, with 119.
Bayern’s 17-year-old midfielder Jamal Musiala doubled the advantage with a well-taken strike that made him the youngest English player to score in the competition.
Leroy Sane tapped in a third before the break and a Francesco Acerbi own-goal stretched the visitors’ advantage early in the second half, but Joaquin Correa soon pulled one back for Lazio, whose unbeaten run in the competition came crashing to an end.
“We attacked Lazio from the start,” Bayern captain Manuel Neuer told Sky Sport.
“I liked our intensity, we showed our best face, different from what we’ve shown recently in the Bundesliga. We’ve certainly made our lives easier for the second leg.”
It was an 18th consecutive match without defeat for Bayern in the Champions League, 17 of which have been victories, leaving the German champion in a dominant position ahead of the second leg in Munich on March 17.
Bayern came into the game with a point to prove after earning one point from two league games since winning the Club World Cup earlier this month.
It soon demonstrated its pedigree against a Lazio side competing in its first Champions League knockout match since 1999.
Lewandowski anticipated a loose pass from Mateo Musacchio and rounded Pepe Reina to tap in, but Lazio was furious when penalty claims were waved away after Sergej Milinkovic-Savic was felled in the box.
England Under-21 international Musiala, who is also eligible to play for Germany, fired into the bottom corner after 24 minutes.
Bayern then put the contest beyond doubt when Sane tapped in from a Reina parry and Acerbi diverted a cross into his own net either side of the break.
Lazio produced chances of itsr own, finishing the game with 14 attempts to Bayern’s 13, but Correa’s weaving run and finish was the only successful effort.
“We knew beating Bayern Munich was difficult,” said Lazio midfielder Lucas Leiva. “But we helped them by how we played. This isn’t the Lazio that we know, it was a difficult night.
“We need to learn from this defeat and take the experience, then we’ll go to Munich to play with pride and mentality.” (Reuters)
Champions League last-16 first-leg results: Tuesday: Atletico Madrid 0, Chelsea 1; Lazio 1, Bayern Munich 4. Wednesday: Atalanta vs Real Madrid (late); Borussia Moenchengladbach vs Manchester City (late).