Israeli opposition parties strike coalition deal, paving the way for Netanyahu's exit

 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/02/middleeast/israel-coalition-deal-intl/index.html

 The new government ​consists of a number of parties from across the political spectrum, from the left-wing Meretz to Bennett's right-wing Yamina party.

In a historic moment, the small Islamist party United Arab List also decided to join the coalition, the first time an Arab-Israeli party has joined a coalition. The party is unlikely to have a minister in the government, but will have negotiated with the coalition on issues important to them.

Not much unites the parties other than their desire to oust Netanyahu, and the parties differ in their stances on some of the country's most pressing issues, especially relations with the Palestinians.

Lapid announces: I have succeeded in forming a government

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/307378

 Lapid spoke to the president on the phone and informed him that the government will comprise Yesh Atid, Blue and White, Yamina, Labor, Yisrael Beytenu, New Hope, Meretz and Ra’am.

Yamina chairman Naftali Bennett will be Prime Minister and Yesh Atid chairman MK Yair Lapid will be Alternate Prime Minister..

 Lapid spoke to the president on the phone and informed him that the government will comprise Yesh Atid, Blue and White, Yamina, Labor, Yisrael Beytenu, New Hope, Meretz and Ra’am.

Yamina chairman Naftali Bennett will be Prime Minister and Yesh Atid chairman MK Yair Lapid will be Alternate Prime Minister.

Mansour Abbas signs with Yair Lapid

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/307377

Ra'am Chairman Mansour Abbas has signed a document allowing Chairman of Yesh Atid Yair Lapid to notify the president he has succeeded in forming a government after Abbas reached an agreement on his demands with Lapid.

Ra'am chairman Mansour Abbas demanded that the government's guidelines not include laws in favor of the LGBT community.

This is a significant withdrawal on the part of some of the left-wing bloc parties from their positions in principle on the issue, for the sake of the formation of a government not led by Netanyahu.

Abbas also demanded the repeal of the Kaminitz law and the regulation of illegal construction in the Arab sector, and it has not yet been announced which of these he received in talks.

 

 

 

Why Are Conservatives More Susceptible to Believing Lies?

 https://slate.com/technology/2017/11/why-conservatives-are-more-susceptible-to-believing-in-lies.html

 But, the gullibility of many on the right seems to have deeper roots even than this. That may be because at the most basic level, conservatives and liberals seem to hold different beliefs about what constitutes “truth.” Finding facts and pursuing evidence and trusting science is part of liberal ideology itself. For many conservatives, faith and intuition and trust in revealed truth appear as equally valid sources of truth.

Against Lapid Bennet coalition

 

The Big Lie is the GOP’s one and only truth

 https://www.vox.com/22420764/liz-cheney-trump-republicans-democracy-2024

Remaining in the GOP’s good graces requires that elected officials either actively embrace lies about 2020 or, at very least, refuse to condemn them. As a result, 2020 conspiracy theories are exerting a dominant influence on the party, shaping both legislation and the base’s worldview.

Yamina refuses coalition demands made by United Arab List

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/307353

 MK Naftali Bennett, who chairs the Yamina party, has declared his opposition to the fulfillment of a central demand by United Arab List (Ra'am) chair MK Mansour Abbas.

As a condition for his party's support of the proposed minority government, Abbas has demanded the cancellation of the Kaminetz Law, which allows administrative enforcement of laws against illegal construction and increases the severity of punishment for these crimes.

Sources involved in the coalition talks have claimed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and those close to him are pressuring Abbas to stick to his guns on the Kaminetz Law and demand it be canceled, knowing that Bennett will not agree to such a demand. Netanyahu has promised Abbas that the illegal Bedouin settlements in southern Israel will be normalized.

 

For the Conservative movement, an audit of ethics policies might be overdue

https://forward.com/news/470405/for-the-conservative-movement-an-audit-of-ethics-policies-might-be-overdue/ 

As the R.A. begins its revision process, a parallel soul-searching is happening in the Reform movement. Last month, a probe by Manhattan’s Central Synagogue found that its senior rabbi in the 1970s and 1980s, Sheldon Zimmerman, had engaged in “sexually predatory behavior” with at least three female congregants and employees, including a teenager. The Central Conference of American Rabbis — which suspended Zimmerman in 2000, forcing him to step down as president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion — along with several other Reform movement institutions are investigating their own processes for handling misconduct.

 

New government still not ready as Lapid's deadline looms

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/new-government-still-not-ready-669875

 "It's all on Ayelet Shaked now," a source at coalition talks told The Jerusalem Post. "She's the only real issue left."

Lapid Aims to Announce New Government With Bennett at the Helm

 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/LIVE-lapid-aims-to-announce-new-government-with-bennett-at-the-helm-1.9866751

 As negotiations to secure a coalition continue, lawmakers and party members say they expect Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett to announce a government before a Wednesday deadline expires and even as early Wednesday at 11 A.M., sending Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the opposition benches after 12 years in power.

This would mean the confidence vote for the new government will be slated for next  Wednesday at the latest.

In case talks are delayed and no final agreements are reached by that time, the Knesset speaker could formally inform the parliament of the new government on Monday, effectively postponing the vote by another week.

Judicial appointments the only remaining snag as Lapid set to declare government

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/judicial-appointments-the-only-remaining-snag-as-lapid-set-to-declare-government/

 Negotiations by the various parties set to make up the so-called change coalition advanced dramatically overnight Tuesday, leaving a disagreement over a judicial appointment panel as the sole remaining issue.

Yamina No. 2 Ayelet Shaked is demanding she be given Labor chief Merav Michaeli’s spot on the Judicial Selection Committee and has threatened to block the formation of the new government if she does not receive the posting.

Though Labor officials have said they would not back down on the committee position, having already completed their negotiations and agreed to join the government, a compromise was nonetheless expected, with political sources telling Hebrew media outlets that the formation of the government would not be prevented by the dispute.

As Israelis Await Netanyahu’s Fate, Palestinians Seize a Moment of Unity

 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/world/middleeast/palestinians-netanyahu-government.html?action=click&module=In%20Other%20News&pgtype=Homepage

 To Israelis, Mr. Netanyahu’s possible departure constitutes an epochal moment — the toppling of a man who has left a deeper imprint on Israeli society than most other politicians in Israeli history.

 The Palestinian polity has long been physically and politically fragmented between the American-backed Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank; its archrival, Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza; a Palestinian minority inside Israel whose votes have increasingly counted for making or breaking an Israeli government; and a sprawling diaspora.

Yet alongside last month’s deadly 11-day war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and the worst bout of intercommunal Arab-Jewish violence to have convulsed Israel in decades, these disparate parts suddenly came together in a seemingly leaderless eruption of shared identity and purpose.

In a rare display of unity, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians observed a general strike on May 12 across Gaza, the West Bank, the refugee camps of Lebanon and inside Israel itself.

Yamina issues ultimatum as unity government talks stall

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/307328

 With Lapid's mandate set to expire Wednesday night, change bloc remains deadlocked over judicial appointments committee.

A Clash of ‘Alternative’ and ‘Facts’

 https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-clash-of-alternative-and-facts-1485454691

 When Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Donald Trump, went on NBC’s “Meet the Press” last Sunday, she uttered two words that critics found emblematic of a new “post-truth” era in American politics: “alternative facts.”

Ms. Conway was commenting on a series of false statements that the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, had made inflating the size of the crowd at Mr. Trump’s inauguration. “You’re saying it’s a falsehood, and Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that,” she told NBC’s Chuck Todd. He responded, “Look, alternative facts are not facts. They’re falsehoods.”

Ms. Conway found a more receptive audience for her phrasing in a Monday interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News, who said that “alternative facts” simply provide “a different perspective.” But the damage had been done. The phrase swiftly became a full-fledged meme on social media, with the #alternativefacts hashtag humorously deployed to satirize Orwellian doublespeak. (An example from Twitter : “Officer, I am not drunk, I am alternative sober, #alternativefacts.”)