As Israel’s vote draws nearer, the electoral map is changing faster than Taylor Swift’s outfits. What if Benjamin Netanyahu’s party merged with right-wing wunderkind Naftali Bennett?
Polls only show what would happen if the Israeli election were held today, not how unexpected events might influence voters. The shifts can be dramatic, J.J. Goldberg reports.
Netanyahu is reported to be stalling the nomination of Israel’s next IDF chief. His reasons are a topic of hot speculation — but J.J. Goldberg says the facts speak for themselves.
Israel’s defense establishment is bracing for what’s shaping up to be an ugly, if familiar, confrontation: the selection of the next IDF chief of staff.
The Israeli military has sent what amounts to a barely disguised message to the political leadership and the troops in the latest round of senior command promotions.
Small minds might expect that with everything going in Egypt, Israel’s senior defense officials would have spent the last week focused on what happens next along Israel’s long, undefended southern border. But of course, that’s not how things work these days, now that Israel has Ehud Barak, the most decorated soldier in Israel’s history, as minister of defense.
Must reading on Barak’s resignation from Labor: Haaretz military correspondent Amir Oren writes today about the very complicated relationship between Barak’s defection, the retirement of Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and his replacement by Yoav Galant, and the Turkish flotilla.