(Israel) Coalition partners threaten to bolt government

[IndianaGreen]

Exit Labour and the Pensioners, enter Bibi and Likud.

If this were to happen, it would put Bibi's upcoming visit to Dick Cheney "to discuss war with Iran" in a totally new light.

Israel, like the Palestinians, never "miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity."

Last update - 06:05 05/09/2006

Coalition partners threaten to bolt government

By Mazal Mualem

The Labor Party, Shas and the Pensioners are threatening to vote in the cabinet against the budget if it turns out that the social welfare cutbacks are included in the budget book.

Despite the agreement reached on Monday between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Finance Minister Abraham Hirchson to rescind plans to raise university tuition, Kadima's coalition partners are threatening a crisis unless the treasury also retracts planned welfare cuts.

Labor Party leader, Defense Minister Amir Peretz, told confidants on Monday that "if they don't revoke the intention to freeze the minimum wage, it will lead Labor to quit the government. That is a red line as far as I'm concerned. It is the central achievement of the coalition agreement."

Labor's ministers are set to convene by week's end to formulate a stand on the budget. "If Olmert wants to preserve the coalition, he will have to back down," Peretz associates said.

Senior Laborites said it looked like Olmert had "put on a show" with the issue of tuition, and that it seemed as though the PM had coordinated with Hirchson, "to make it look like he cares about social welfare."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/758699.html

[Scurrilous]

1. Bye Bye Kadima (Moshe Arens)

<snip>

"Soon it will be time to say good-bye to Kadima, this incongruous political party that, like a flash in a pan, suddenly appeared on the Israeli political scene, brandishing a single issue platform - disengagement, unilateral withdrawal, convergence, realignment, or whatever else you want to call it - claiming that this was the panacea for all of Israel's ills, and a recipe for the existence of Israel as a "democratic Jewish state" that would become "a fun place to live in." Nothing resembling this phenomenon has ever been seen on the Israeli political scene, or for that matter in other democratic countries.

Spin doctors and snake-oil salesmen succeeded in marketing it to much of the Israeli public. It will surely be fertile ground for future doctoral dissertations in political science and mass psychology. There have been new-born parties that appeared at election time, here and elsewhere, but they have never before succeeded in winning an election. The time is approaching - better sooner rather than later - when this party will leave the political scene. What began as a political "big bang" will be going out as a whimper. Curtain time is approaching for Kadima.

This party is composed of chameleon-like politicians, renegades from the Likud and rejects from Labor, in addition to some naive novice politicians who believed there was nothing more noble than answering Sharon's call to enlist in the cause of disengagement. Unilateral withdrawals served as the common ideological denominator for the men and women on Kadima's Knesset list. That, in addition to the public opinion polls predicting a great victory for Kadima in the elections, and the knowledge that by a wave of the hand by Sharon or Olmert, without having to electioneer among the non-existent rank and file of the Kadima party, they would be assured of a seat in the Knesset. Now that the concept of unilateral withdrawals, in Lebanon and Gaza, has been exposed as a no-brainer for all to see, and the leaders of Kadima - Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni - have been shown to be incompetent to fill leadership positions in times of crisis, the only question that remains is how much longer Kadima will hang in there and continue to lead Israel at this crucial time.

There is the possibility that some of the Likud renegades in Kadima, rueing the day on which they decided to throw in their lot with that ill-starred political creation, will return to the ranks of the Likud. And that some of the Labor rejects, now eating humble pie, will be mercifully accepted into the ranks of Labor. And that a politically reshuffled Knesset will bring down the Olmert government and vote confidence in a new prime minister and his government. Or else, perish the thought, new elections. This political uncertainty is painful to contemplate at a time when Israel faces a most serious crisis, which is the direct result of the Olmert government's handing Hezbollah a victory in Lebanon. Voices, silent for many years, are being heard in the Arab world that Hezbollah has now again demonstrated that it is possible to defeat Israel by the use of force. It is a relatively short distance between this conviction and aggressive action against Israel. Some advocates of the Olmert government already argue that just because of the approaching danger, the Olmert government should remain in power so that it will manage the coming crisis without wasting any time. That would be a grave error. Israel can certainly not afford another mistake like the mismanaged Lebanon war."

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