The 33rd government has been
announced by Prime Minister Netanyahu in its final permutation. The list
of ministers (22 in number) and deputies is provided at the end of this
posting. You may want to save it.
After the balagan of establishing
the coalition, with all of its extraordinary tensions and game-playing, I am
finding that there truly are enough good people in the government so that there
is some reason to be hopeful.
A handful of changes from the
prior list I had shared, which was still tentative, are worthy of note here:
Yuval Steinitz (Likud),
former Finance Minister, will be holding the position of Minister for
International, Intelligence and Strategic Affairs -- an important position that
includes handling strategic dialogue with the United
States.
Credit:
Reuters
I had assumed -- incorrectly
-- that the responsibilities of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, which had
been headed by Moshe Ya'alon, would be subsumed under his new Defense Ministry
position. As it turns out, it has been decided that strategic affairs, along
with intelligence, will fall within Steinitz's new bailiwick. This
new ministry was actually created for him.
Steinitz,
who previously served as a chair of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense
Committee, will also sit on the committee overseeing negotiations, such as they
may be, with the Palestinian Arabs.
~~~~~~~~~~
The left-wing Ofer Shelah
(Yesh Atid) will not be Deputy Defense Minister under Ya'alon after all.
Instead that position will be filled by the nationalist Danny Danon
(Likud).
Credit: Emil
Salman
~~~~~~~~~~
Ze'ev Elkin (Likud), former
coalition head, now has a new position as Deputy Foreign Minister.
Credit:
TimesofIsrael
There is question as to how much
power Elkin will have in the current absence of foreign minister designate
Avigdor Lieberman: will he be temporary de facto minister, or was his a
political appointment? The question is all the more intriguing because
Elkin, who is a nationalist, has not exactly seen eye-to-eye with Netanyahu over
a period of time.
According to Israel Hayom,
professionals at the Foreign Ministry, unhappy about the lack of clear
definition about Elkin's role, are also smarting because they have not been
assigned a place in strategic negotiations with the US or in negotiations with
the PA.
What I begin to wonder is how much
ministry there will be left to head, should Lieberman return to his prior
post.
~~~~~~~~~~
Perhaps most surprising is that
fact that Moshe Feiglin (Likud) -- who has been a persistent challenge to
Netanyahu, and someone the prime minister, until now, has tried his best to
sideline -- has been given a position as Deputy Speaker of the
Knesset. Not the most powerful of positions -- he will on occasion
run Knesset sessions when the Speaker Yuli Edelstein is unavailable -- it still
marks the first time that Netanyahu has accorded Feiglin, a staunch nationalist
ideologue, any recognition.
This is just one of the
appointments that makes me wonder, all over again, exactly who Binyamin
Netanyahu is. He is not consistent in the message he gives. (Please,
do not write to share your theory about the prime minister.)
~~~~~~~~~~
The new ministers have been sworn
in, and the prime minister held his first Cabinet meeting shortly
thereafter. He told those gathered:
“There are excellent people here,
fit people, experienced people. The only way to be successful will be to work
together, which I’m sure we will do. The citizens of Israel are expecting
us to work together..."
Faction heads within the coalition
are making the appropriately conciliatory noises: Everyone is talking
about standing behind Netanyahu and being of assistance for the sake of the
nation. They should only take a hard look now at what's coming down the
road and mean what they say!
~~~~~~~~~~
Tzipi Livni made her little speech
about how she'll work diligently to advance "peace talks."
But Yisrael Beitenu Chair (and
Foreign Minister designate) MK Avigdor Lieberman called a press conference to
mark the beginning of the new government, at which he said that there would be
no more progress in peace negotiations in the next four years than there has
been in the past four.
He further said that Israel would
"emphatically oppose any attempt to reimpose a [building] freeze."
~~~~~~~~~~~
We have been confronting increased
Palestinian Arab violence of one sort and another in Judea and Samaria of
late. A Shin Bet report indicates that there were a total of 139
attacks, including firebombings and the use of improvised explosives, in
February, compared to 83 in January.
Of the many incidents that might
be mentioned, I want to call attention to two specific ones
here:
Just today, a 70 year old
man was shot in the legs on a road outside Kedumim in Samaria.
According to an Israel National News report, the assailant, in a car, had
stopped to ask directions, and then shot him.
While last Thursday night, on a
road outside of Ariel, also in Samaria, Arabs threw rocks that hit a truck,
causing it to veer off course and collide with a car. The woman driving
the car and her three young daughters were all injured, but it was the youngest,
Adelle Biton, age two, who was hurt critically. She is still fighting for
her life.
~~~~~~~~~~
It is, first of all, important
that incidents such as this be widely publicized. But beyond this, there is the
need to respond more forcefully to this low-grade terrorism. And it is
here that I have hope.
Shortly after Adelle Biton was so
seriously injured, Naftali Bennett made a statement:
"Some people take rock throwing lightly, and
prevent action against them. Rock throwers are trying to murder and they need to be
treated accordingly."Let us pray for the life of the baby girl."
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/166240
How correct he is, and how refreshing to hear someone call it as it is, advocating a new and necessarily tough stance. Many is the time I've heard rock throwing minimized -- "just kids throwing stones." Look again.
~~~~~~~~~~
Then today, after the man was shot in the legs, MK Moti Yogev, a colonel in the reserves and former commander of an elite infantry unit, called for changing the rules of engagement with terrorists:
"The event in Samaria is, in effect, a development from events where rules of engagement were changed. If we are willing to [tolerate] rock attacks, then the fire bombs follow. If we are lax on fire bombs, then we experience the gunfire. This is how it was in the past, and this is apparently what is happening now.
"...I hope that the IDF, under the new incoming defense minister...Minister Moshe Yaalon, together with the new deputy defense minister, Danny Danon, will set a policy that will make clear, first, that the Land of Israel belongs to the nation of Israel, and this policy is also what gives us quiet from terror attacks, and that he will set a clear policy regarding rules of engagement, and the all-out war against the terrorists."
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/166333
More welcome words, which must be followed by appropriate action. An all-out war against the terrorists, indeed, without fear of how it would be spun in the international press, or what other nations expect from us.
~~~~~~~~~~
MK Avigdor Lieberman expressed a very similar sentiment when he called upon Defense Minister Ya'alon to instruct soldiers to open fire at "rock-throwing terrorists....
"Rock-throwing [should] be treated like shooting using firearms, only this kind of change will stop civilians and soldiers from being targeted by Arab rioters and prevent disasters."
~~~~~~~~~~
Well, I was on King David Street today, site of the King David Hotel, where President Obama will be staying, and saw some of the security preparations being set up. For local residents, the president's visit means an inability to move about the city.
All in all, there's no way to avoid the fact that he's coming. So stay tuned...
Talk continues unabated with regard to the fact that the US Embassy, on behalf of the president, invited Israeli university students to hear his speech at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem (Binyanei Ha'uma) on Thursday, but excluded those of Ariel University in Samaria for what seem to be political reasons. Obama is trying to reach out to young people, but has set a negative tone before the event has even taken place.
Uri Reshtik, Israel Student Union Chair, has sent a letter to the Embassy in which he refers to the exclusionary invitation as "discrimination based on ulterior motives. Such discrimination is not respectable and not acceptable."
MK Nachman Shai (Labor) has gone further,
calling on student's to boycott Obama's main speaking event:
"It is shocking to think that you can disqualify
students just because they learn in the West Bank. I do not understand how
President Obama wants to conduct a dialogue with the Israeli public when he is
consciously excluding part of it."
How lovely it would be if students in large
numbers heeded the call of this left-wing MK.
~~~~~~~~~~
Binyamin Netanyahu (Likud) --
Prime Minister
Moshe (Bogie) Ya'alon (Likud)
-- Defense Minister
Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) -- Finance
Minister
Gideon Sa'ar (Likud) -- Interior
Minister
Shai Piron (Yesh
Atid) –- Education Minister
Naftali Bennett (Habayit Hayehudi)
–- Economy and Trade Minister
Tzipi Livni (Hatnua) --
Justice Minister
Yael German -– Health
Minister
Yisrael Katz (Yisrael
Beitenu) -– Transportation Minister
Gild Erdan (Likud) –-
Communications and Home Front Defense Minister
Silvan Shalom (Likud) –- Regional
Development, Water and Energy Resources Minister
Uri Ariel (Habayit Hayehudi)
–- Housing Minister
Steinitz (Likud) –- Minister
for International, Intelligence and Strategic Affairs
Uri Orbach (Habayit
Hayehudi) –- Minister for Pensioners Affairs
Meir Cohen (Yesh Atid) --
Welfare Minister
Ya'akov Peri (Yesh Atid) –-
Science Minister
Amir Peretz (Hatnua) –-
Environmental Protection Minister
Sofa Landver (Yisrael
Beiteinu) –- Immigrant Absorption Minister
Uzi Landau (Yisrael
Beiteinu) -– Tourism Minister
Yair Shamir (Yisrael
Beiteinu) –- Agriculture Minister
Yitzhak Aharonovitch
(Yisrael Beiteinu) –- Internal Security Minister
Limor Livnat (Likud) –-
Culture and Sports Minister
Eli Ben-Dahan (Habayit
Hayehudi) -– Deputy Minister for Religious Affairs
Mickey Levy (Yesh Atid) –-
Deputy Welfare Minister
Danny Danon (Likud) –-
Deputy Defense Minister
Ze'ev Elkin (Likud) –-
Deputy Foreign Minister
Avigdor
Lieberman (Yisrael Beiteinu) –- Foreign Minister-designate
~~~~~~~~~~
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Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner,
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