Twenty-Eight More Days of National Misery !!!

Its’ a fact. An unpleasant one. President Rivlin, in his frustration, tapped Bibi Netanyahu for the first round of the premiership. Netanyahu has twenty-eight days to form a coalition, one that will not see Blue and White representation.

Benny Gantz had agreed to cooperate with Likud only but not with the rest of the gang of chiselers and zealots who are much disliked by the Israeli public.

So where does it leave us now? Amit Segal of channel 12 news predicts a third round of elections in February. What if the public objects and boycotts the election? Or what if the election produces the same or similar results of the first two. Will there be a fourth election?

Please excuse my laughter but I cannot help it. We are becoming the laughing-stock of almost every democratic country.

What is wrong with Israel, they ask? They can produce massive weapons and world-renowned hi-tech but they cannot form a government. Democracy in Israel hangs in the balance. Thus sayeth the nations.

I have pity for our aged and distinguished President Reuven Rivlin. He has made every humanly possible effort to bring the two leaders, Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz (the 2 Benjamins) together in order to form a coalition government.

Gantz has indicated that he would not sit in a government with Netanyahu due to the impending indictment to be rendered for his alleged criminal activities, nor in a government with the ultra-orthodox parties. Gantz wants a secular government, not one dictated by halachic rabbinic laws.

And Netanyahu prefers not to sit in a coalition with Joint List Arab elected members.

And the national “king-maker”, Avigdor Lieberman, head of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, refuses to join a coalition containing haredi zealots and Arabs. Racism has not died in Israel !

So we Israeli citizens must sit biting our nails to await the outcast of Netanyahu’s twenty-eight days.

President Rivlin maintains optimism. In spite of his well-known dislike of Bibi Netanyahu he is hoping for a successful coalition in twenty-eight or less days. Failure to form a government, Netanyahu will be given fourteen more days to try.

What is the point? If he cannot form a government in twenty-eight days how does he expect to be successful in fourteen additional days?

In this period of high national political tension, it seems reasonable to me that Netanyahu should reject leading a coalition government at this time and rather, he should spend all of his energies preparing for his hearing with the attorney general Mandelblit.

His team of million-dollar lawyers can use the time to prepare him for what he can say and for what he must refrain from saying.

It is either the premiership now or the prison soon. The choice is not only up to him. Only Sara can dictate the terms. She is not happy about having to leave the Balfour residence in Jerusalem, but she should look forward to hearing the splashing of the waves in the blue Mediterranean Sea close to her Caesarea home.

None of us in Israel have ever faced such a dilemma in 71 years of our independence. Is it something we must learn to live with or is there a practical or impractical way out?

In the meantime I am counting the days from one to twenty-eight. In gematria twenty-eight is equal to ten. Just like the Ten Commandments which God revealed to Moses at Mount Sinai.

The tenth commandment is especially meaningful for Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu.

“Lo tachmod”. “Thou shalt not covet”.

It means that one should not desire to have something which should not belong to him.

Covetous Bibi should bear it in mind. The Israeli public spoke loud and clear on September 17.

Twenty-eight more days of national misery !!!