Is it just seven hours before the process to vote in (and swear in) a new government in Israel, and so far I am not seeing any plans for a largescale protest outside the parliament. No buses, no public calls.
Nothing is done until it's done. This isn't Jan 6, a technical procedure for an already-decided outcome. A rebellion of just two or three Knesset members could sink the planned government before it's seated. It's happened before.
At the moment, it seems like there are 61 members out of 120 ready to vote for the government. It doesn't look like there are any surprises. But, well, they wouldn't be surprises if we expected them.
If somehow Netanyahu unexpectedly survives the vote today, that might well point to some dodgy political deal. But whether the new government is seated or defeated, it wouldn't be a 'coup' or an abuse of the process. It IS the process.
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One thing I was asked was about Ra'am, the Islamist party that joined the new coalition. They joined because they wanted to be part of a government and have influence.
Ra'am would have joined Netanyahu instead if he had the numbers. In fact, they tried to, but the far right parties refused to be in a coalition with them.
By joining the Bennett/Lapid government, they won policy commitments on stuff their voters care about: investment in Bedouin towns in the Negev desert, easing of demolitions, a plan to fight organised crime in Arab communities.
The Knesset, Israel's parliament, begins the process of testing the confidence of the government-designate. President Rivlin is joining the session.
Naftali Bennett, Prime-Minister designate, takes the podium to introduce the new government. Immediately, hecklers from Likud and their allies start shouting, screaming and preventing him from speaking
The Speaker (currently Likud's Yariv Levin, but about to be replaced) orders right-wing leader Bezalel Smotrich out of the chamber for intense heckling. Heckles continue. Far right leader Itamar ben-Gvir now ordered out too.
Opponents of the planned new government will protest outside the Knesset, Israel's Parliament, tonight. The Knesset itself isn't sitting tonight and members will have gone home for the weekend.
So far, I haven't seen any moves to organise a protest or march on Sunday, the day the Knesset has to vote on the new government.
That obviously makes a Jan 6 type storming of the Knesset during the vote on Sunday unlikely because the mass numbers probably won't be there.
This is an insightful piece. But it also demonstrates a problem with the Biden Doctrine: the US-China threat is not identical with the challenge to democracies being posed by autocracies. These are two different things.
There is overlap, of course. China's success could be a model to the non-democratic world. But the authoritarians in Russia, Turkey, Hungary and Poland don't look to China for their model.
Is the issue that China is the poster-child for authoritarian *success*? Which side of this great divide do the US-aligned Gulf states fall on?