Last Sunday my favorite radio host, Jay Shapiro, has finally talked a bit about the Israeli coalition talks going on in Israel between Benjamin Netanyahu and the various parties that made it to the Knesset.
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The thing about coalition talks in Israel, is that it often doesn’t reflect the real ideologies of the parties. To most Israeli parties, the coalition talks is just about looking for a job, even a non-portfolio job!
As Jay’s put it, there was a Yiddish joke about a guy asking a rabbi for a job, so the rabbi tells him to stand on the top of a lighthouse and wait for the Massaiah, the guy asked how much he’ll be getting, the rabbi told him just a penny! The guy was like “do you expect me to work for such a low salary?” The rabbi said “well, the salary might not be that high, but it’s still a steady work!”.
That joke applies to Tzipi Livni who signed an agreement with Likud-Beiteinu to be a minister of justice, but to also be responsible for the talks with the Palestinian Authority. A job that would last for her life time as well as many people’s life time, Jay pointed out.
Jay asks how Hatnuah (The Movement Party, lead by Tzipi Livni) could get 6 seats while it has no platform to run for, except for their position on the famous peace negotiations.
Another subject he touched on was the controversial voters’ betrayal which is famous worldwide, when a party runs on certain principles and then when they get into the parliament, they would make alliance with other parties who exactly oppose those principles!
That was exactly the case for the two parties Yesh Atid lead by Yair Lapid and Habayit Hayehudi lead by Naftali Bennett. The first is all against settlements and stands with the two-state solutions, while the second is pro settlements and opposes the existence of a future Palestinian state. Yet, they both agreed that neither of them would join a government without the other!
One last thing Jay Shapiro talked about was the comparison between the two men, Yair Lapid (who was successful enough to bring 543,458 voters together) and Naftali Bennett (who also got a great number of votes, 345,985 to be exact). Those votes secured 19 seats for Lapid’s party Yesh Atid and another 12 seats for Bennett’s party, Habayit Hayehudi.
Though these two men agree that it’s just fair that the Haridim serve in the military, they still set two different examples of military service. Though Bennett served the hard way in the special forces, Lapid had it all easy, serving the country through talking everyday on the IDF radio.
Listen to the whole program here.
[wpaudio url=”http://dwnmedia.israelnn.com//arutz7/shows/js/jay130224.mp3″ text=”Listen to Jay Shapiro’s show online”]
The program is hosted on Arutz Sheva official website. Check Jay Shapiro’s page here.
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