{"id":38931,"date":"2019-04-09T11:22:56","date_gmt":"2019-04-09T11:22:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=38931"},"modified":"2019-04-09T11:22:56","modified_gmt":"2019-04-09T11:22:56","slug":"israelis-go-to-polls-in-referendum-on-netanyahus-long-reign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=38931","title":{"rendered":"Israelis go to polls in referendum on Netanyahu\u2019s long reign"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nJERUSALEM: Israelis began voting in an election on Tuesday that could hand conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a record fifth term or see him dethroned by an ex-general who has pledged clean government and social cohesion.
Polling stations opened at 7 a.m. across the country and close at 10 p.m. But the victor may not be decided immediately. No party has ever won an outright majority in the 120-seat parliament, meaning days or even weeks of coalition negotiations will lie ahead.
Dubbed \u201cKing Bibi,\u201d Netanyahu has rallied a rightist camp hardened against the Palestinians and played up Israeli foreign policy boons that are the fruit of his ties with the Trump administration.
But the 69-year-old Likud party leader\u2019s hope of overtaking Israel\u2019s founding father, David Ben-Gurion, as longest-serving premier in July has been dented by a looming graft indictment. He denies any wrongdoing.
Critics warn of \u201cBibi fatigue\u201d and argue that the parliamentary election should bring fresh faces to high office.
Stalking Netanyahu in the opinion polls has been Benny Gantz, a former chief of the armed forces and centrist political novice. Buttressed by two other former generals at the top of his Blue and White party, Gantz, 59, has sought to push back against Netanyahu\u2019s self-styled image as unrivalled in national security.
After the election Israel\u2019s president, Reuven Rivlin, will consult the leaders of every party represented in the Knesset and select the person he believes has the best chance of forming a government.
Voting at a polling station in Rosh Ha\u2019ayin near Tel Aviv, gynecologist Yaron Zalel, 64, said he supported Netanyahu\u2019s chief opponent, the centrist former general Benny Gantz.
\u201cI\u2019m feeling excited because I think we are going into a new era, and we are going to change the government today,\u201d he added.
\u201cNetanyahu did a lot of great things for Israel, really, a lot of great things. But he is 13 years in power and enough is enough,\u201d he said.
\u201cHe has had enough, he did enough. Now when he feels his earth, the political earth, is shaking, he is destroying everything. This has to be stopped. I am here for my kids and the next generations. There is no one who can\u2019t be replaced.\u201d
Backing Netanyahu was another voter at the same polling station, Avi Gur, 65, a lecturer at Ariel University in a settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
\u201cVery excited, very excited. I hope that rightism will win,\u201d he said, adding that the Likud leader was \u201cthe best prime minister there has ever been\u201d in Israel.
\u201cWe are leading in high tech, we are leading in security, we are leading in the economy now. That\u2019s good.\u201d
In Jerusalem, Ronza Barakat, a librarian belonging to Israel\u2019s Arab minority, said she backed the left-wing Meretz party.
\u201cI voted for them hoping for change, a change in the racism that exists here,\u201d she said. \u201cWe live together in a place of peace, why should hate exist between people?\u201d
With little policy daylight between the two main candidates on issues such as Iran and relations with the Palestinians, much of the voting will be guided by judgments on character and personality.
In vitriolic campaigns waged largely over social media rather than in town squares or street corners, they have traded escalating accusations of corruption, of fostering bigotry and even of conspiring with Israel\u2019s adversaries.
Netanyahu casts himself as the victim of media bias and judicial overreach. \u201cThis is a choice between a strong right-wing government under Netanyahu or a weak leftist government under Gantz,\u201d his Likud party said in a pre-election statement.
Gantz casts himself as a salve for Israel\u2019s religiously and ethnically riven society and its ties with liberal Jews abroad. \u201cNetanyahu is not the messiah, nor an irreplaceable legend,\u201d Gantz told Reuters in the run-up to the election. \u201cThe people of Israel long for something else.\u201d
But the distinctions between the leading parties in Israel were not as vivid as they had been in past decades, said Nabil Shaath, a veteran adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
\u201cThere were times when elections were important, because there was really more than one camp in Israel, there was a left and there was a right,\u201d he said on Monday.
\u201cBut now, what are you talking about? It\u2019s the right, and then further to the right and then the extreme right and then further to the extreme right, there is really no left, left is Israel.\u201d
Both Netanyahu and Gantz have publicly ruled out a future alliance in a \u201cnational unity\u201d coalition, but some analysts predict a rethink, especially if the candidates agree to tackle together a widely expected US plan for Middle East peace.
That plan\u2019s sponsor, President Donald Trump, told Republican Jewish supporters on Saturday: \u201cI think it\u2019s going to be close … Two good people.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JERUSALEM: Israelis began voting in an election on Tuesday that could hand conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a record fifth term or see him dethroned by an ex-general who has pledged clean government and social cohesion.Polling stations opened at 7 a.m. across the country and close at 10 p.m. But the victor may not be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":38932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}