Israeli election update #6 - Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu party has found its second member. In addition to former US Ambassador Michael Oren, the party now has Israel Prize laureate Eli Alaluf. Alaluf is the former Chairman of the Rashi Foundation (rashi.org.il - the current chairman is Gabi Ashkenazi), which helps poor communities in Israel, and was the head of the gov’t appointed Alaluf Committee to Fight Poverty. Allah was just recently in the news urging Bibi to appoint a replacement Welfare Minister, which as you might remember from my last update was a position handed over the the Jewish Home party shortly after Alaluf made his comment. The political direction of Kulanu’s party still seems up in the air as Kahlon was known as a right-winger when in Likud, but seems to be shifting left in his new party, where he has stated he would not hesitate to give up land for peace. - The Likud comptroller has now sought to disqualify a second candidate from the primaries. After saying that Netanyahu was disqualified from running in the primaries and leadership race, he now has said that Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon is also disqualified, as he used a defense department employee to communicate with party officials. Obviously the comptroller isn’t interested in keeping his job much longer. - Likud MK Danny Danon who is the only person running against Bibi Netanyahu in the Likud leadership race, has said that if the UN recognizes Palestine, Israel must annex the west bank. Interestingly, Moshe Kahlon took a similar stance when in the Likud, and now seems to be supporting land for peace. - In my last update I mentioned Danny Danon’s campaign to ban MK Haneen Zoabi from returning to the Knesset because of her support for terrorism. It seems Danon has posted a video for his campaign (https://facebook/video.php?v=834060653283841) which has a wild-west theme where Danon is the sheriff, and makes fun of Zoabi (it’s music is the tune of Oh Sussana, but is Oh Zoabi instead) and shows her in jail with Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh and former Balad-party head Azmi Bishara. It seems Zoabi didn’t like the video very much, and has complained to the police that it constitutes incitement. While the video is a bit crude, I suspect it won’t be a problem for Danon, as it hardly seems to be incitement. - In a battle with futility, former Shas MK Chaim Amsalem, who in the last election ran under his own party Am Shalem, and who joined Likud earlier this year, and who recently said his constituents prefer him to join Jewish Home, might actually be entering his own part Am Shalem into the election. It would thus seem that his efforts to get on the Jewish Home slate were rebuffed. He likely cannot return to Shas, nor join Eli Yishai’s party as it was Yishai who was in charge when he left Shas, so he has nowhere to go. It seems that this further splintering of the Sephardi vote will just hurt Deri and Yishai, and can’t possible get him into the Knesset (he came close last election, but the threshold is much higher now). Perhaps starting his own party again is a negotiating tactic to get Deri or Yishai to welcome him back into a secure slot on the slate. Certainly other parties would be happy for him to dilute Shas and Yishai’s vote. - Something I didn’t mention last time when I mentioned how many Hatnua members had quite is that there are only two members left - Tzipi Livni herself and Amir Peretz. What makes that particularly interesting is that Hatnua has more reserved spots on the joint list than two, so it should be interesting to see what she does with them. One of them could be for Manuel Trajtenberg, who was previously announce as joining the slate, but seemed to be doing so through Hatnua, not Labor. - A recent poll by the Jerusalem Post has found Yisrael Beytenu’s predicted seats dropping precipitously to just 5 seats. Previously they had polls around 7-8 seats, and in the current Knesset they have 13 seats. It seems the corruption scandal that has involved several Yisrael Beytenu members is having an effect on their popularity, although it remains to be seen if that will stay that way through March. If they drop any further, however, they could potentially be out of the Knesset, as 4 seats is the minimum number of seats in the next Knesset – ironically due to a law put in place by Yisrael Beytenu lawmakers. - In another interesting twist for the Jewish Home primaries, a former Peace Now activist, Dr. Anat Roth, who advised both Ehud Barak and Amram Mitzna, has decided to run in the Jewish Home primaries. She said The Labor movement and the Israeli left have stocks in the creation of Israel and the Zionist enterprise, but the facts have changed and reality has set in, and the Labor party cannot handle them.” There’s an interesting article in Israel Hayom that was posted back in October about how Roth’s views changed, starting with her coverage of the Gaa disengagement: israelhayom/site/newsletter_article.php?id=20657.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 08:20:05 +0000