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The Daily Edition

What Matters Most On Wednesday, December 23, 2020

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Analysis

Haviv Rettig Gur

The rivals on the right: Why the new election will be much tougher for Netanyahu

The Knesset dissolved at midnight, triggering automatic elections in exactly 90 days’ time, on March 23, 2021. It will be the fourth snap election in less than two years. The general consensus is that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has won the day. By enticing rival Benny Gantz into a unity government after three indecisive elections,... Continue Reading

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seen during an election campaign tour in the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem on April 8, 2019. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and Likud MK Gideon Sa'ar, right. (Flash90)

As Knesset dissolves, Likud leads in polls but no clear majority for Netanyahu

Coalition MKs watch the final moments of the 23rd Knesset tick away in the Knesset plenum on December 23, 2020. (Knesset spokesperson)

Israel media reviewLooking at fourth and long: What the press is saying on December 23

By Joshua Davidovich

Knesset disperses after midnight deadline for budget expires

Israel calls 4th election in 2 years as Netanyahu-Gantz coalition collapses

By Raoul Wootliff

New vote set for March 23 after ‘unity’ government crumbles in just 7 months; Netanyahu promises huge win, but polls suggest tough race, with main threat from parties to his right

Chairman of the Labor party Amir Peretz during a press conference in Tel Aviv, March 12, 2020. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

Amir Peretz announces he’s stepping aside as Labor leader

Likud MK Sharren Haskel announcing her resignation from the Knesset and the Likud party, on December 23, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Sharren Haskel is latest Likud MK to defect to Sa’ar’s new party

By Raoul Wootliff

Party leaders ahead of the 2021 elections (from left): Yair Lapid, Naftali Bennett, Benjamin Netanyahu, Gideon Sa'ar, Benny Gantz (Courtesy)

Op-Ed

Whoever wins, we’ll be a fundamentally changed Israel when this election is over

It’ll be Bibi. Or maybe it won’t be Bibi. But our next leadership and legislature will be unprecedentedly right-wing. Unlike in the US, our political pendulum has stopped swinging

Ballot boxes at the Central Election Committee to be sent to polling stations ahead of election day, March 6, 2019. (Raoul Wootliff/Times of Israel)

Israel leads democracies in number of elections held since 1996 — think tank

Lawmakers vote against a bill to delay the budget deadline on December 22, 2020 (Danny Shem Tov/ Knesset Spokesperson)

Ministers okay interim financial package as new elections set to be triggered

Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat (1st from left), Senior White House Adviser Jared Kushner (2nd left) and Moroccan King Mohammed VI (1st from right) at the royal palace in Rabat, December 22, 2020 (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO)

Israel, Morocco ink deals, agree to reopen mutual liaison offices within weeks

By Judah Ari Gross

Joint US-Israeli delegation meets with King Mohammed VI, other senior officials during visit to Rabat; Kushner praises ‘huge strides’

US President Donald Trump listens as Adam Boehler, CEO of U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, speaks about the coronavirus in the Rose Garden of the White House, Tuesday, April 14, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Trump administration offering Indonesia billions in aid for Israel normalization

By TOI staff and JTA

David Schenker, US assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, in Beirut, Lebanon, on September 9, 2019. (Hussein Malla/AP)

US warns Chinese investments in Israeli tech could pose a security threat

The national flags of Morocco, Israel and the United States on an El Al plane to Morocco flying a delegation to finalize a normalization deal between Jerusalem and Rabat, at Ben Gurion airport, near Tel Aviv, December 22, 2020. (Judah Ari Gross/Times of Israel)

Reporter's notebook

Judah Ari Gross

For Israeli delegation in Rabat, a muted ‘welcome back’ marks resumption of ties

Unlike the UAE and Bahrain, Morocco already had relations with Jerusalem once, a fact highlighted by a less effusive reception, despite the historic first flight to Morocco

A resident of the Dan Panorama hotel in Jerusalem, which is being run by the military as a quarantine facility, protesting conditions, December 21, 2020 (screen shot)

Occupants of Jerusalem COVID hotel fear it’s a breeding ground for UK strain

By Nathan Jeffay

‘Come for quarantine, leave with coronavirus’: Residents decry dire hygiene standards, chaotic mismanagement of facility, say army utterly unequipped to deal with influx

Illustrative: Ultra-Orthodox Jews walk in Bnei Brak on October 14, 2020, during a nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19. (Yossi Aloni/Flash90)

Health Ministry set to push immediate 3-week lockdown amid rising cases

People shop for groceries at the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem on December21, 2020 as ISrael ponders a third national lockdown (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90

Netanyahu, Gantz said to agree on imposing 3rd national virus lockdown

Bishara A. Bahbah

A Christmas message to Hamas

You who have brought zealotry and intolerance to Gaza are not worthy to lead a Palestine where Christians have always played integral roles

My daughter is FlatbushGirl and I couldn’t be prouder

When a Brooklyn newspaper wouldn’t print a photo showing her face, she took bold action to effect change. For that, she has paid a high price

Jamila Begum, 35, cries when talking about how members of Myanmar's armed forces accused of massacring civilians in her village Maung Nu, in Myanmar's Rakhine State, killed her son and husband, in an interview with The Associated Press in Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh, November 26, 2017. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Myanmar activists accuse Israeli firm of abetting military’s Rohingya atrocities

By Simona Weinglass

Report highlights alleged role of Gilat Satellite Networks in helping Myanmar military set up telecom company, spread anti-Muslim propaganda before 2017 rule banning exports

This combination made from file photo shows Blackwater guards, from left, Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, Nicholas Slatten and Paul Slough. On Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2020, President Donald Trump pardoned 15 people, including Heard, Liberty, Slatten and Slough, the four former government contractors convicted in a 2007 massacre in Baghdad that left more a dozen Iraqi civilians dead and caused an international uproar over the use of private security guards in a war zone. (AP Photo/File)

Trump pardons 4 Blackwater contractors convicted of 2007 Iraq massacre

Ze'ev Elkin announces his resignation from Likud as he joins Gideon Sa'ar's New Hope party, December 23, 2020 (video screenshot)

Live updates (closed)

Accusing Netanyahu of destroying Likud, Elkin quits party to join Sa’ar

PM’s confidant says Likud leader has let his personal interests triumph over Israel’s interest, makes promises he doesn’t keep, created a climate of fear

7:15 pm

Netanyahu said to pause cabinet meeting on lockdown
7:12 pm

Israel set to quarantine all arrivals to country in army-run hotels
6:58 pm

Sa'ar welcomes Elkin into party, underlines his extensive political experience

Participants of a delegation from Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates pose for a photograph with residents of the Bedouin town of Zarzir during a visit to Israel on December 16, 2020. (Judah Ari Gross/Times of Israel)

After making friends with Gulf, Israel brings in influencers to reach its people

By Judah Ari Gross

Jerusalem District Court Judge Rivka Friedman-Feldman. (Israeli Judicial Authority)

Head judge in Netanyahu trial gets COVID-19, three weeks before key hearing

By Michael Bachner and TOI staff

Judiciary says Jerusalem District Court’s Rivka Friedman-Feldman, 62, is feeling well, will be quarantined until January 1

Shaul Elovitch arrives at the Jerusalem District Court on May 24, 2020. (Amit Shabi/Pool/Flash90)

Bezeq ex-owner Elovitch indicted in case that led to probe against Netanyahu

By Michael Bachner

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference at the Health Ministry in Jerusalem on December 9, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

AG tells High Court: Netanyahu is bound by conflict of interest agreement

Times of Israel former diplomatic correspondent Raphael Ahren, left, and current science and health reporter Nathan Jeffay, right. (Courtesy)

Times of Israel Podcast

LISTEN: TOI diplomacy reporter debriefs on following Netanyahu around the world

Departing diplomatic correspondent Raphael Ahren reveals what happens on the road with the prime minister, and health writer Nathan Jeffay advises on the pandemic’s final stretch

More Headlines

United Nations Secretary General António Guterres, left, speaks with Volkan Bozkir, president of the seventy-fifth session of the United Nations General Assembly, ahead of the General Assembly's seventy-fifth session, September 22, 2020, at UN headquarters in New York. (Rick Bajornas/UN via AP)

UN condemned Israel 17 times in 2020, versus 6 times for rest of world combined

Illustrative: Israeli Jews and Palestinians talk to each other during a coexistence meeting in the West Bank, on July 22, 2015 (Nati Shohat/Flash90)

US Congress approves $250m for Israeli-Palestinian dialogue programs in omnibus

Ronen Plot attends an Economy Committee meeting at the Knesset on May 20, 2014. (Hadas Parush/Flash 90)

Amid leadership controversy, Yad Vashem appoints Ronen Plot as acting chairman

Rock singer Aviv Geffen, left, sang a duet of his song, 'Drought,' with ultra-Orthodox entertainer Avraham Fried (Courtesy YouTube screen grab)

Unlikely duetAviv Geffen and Avraham Fried sing about societal ‘drought’

By Jessica Steinberg

(R-L) Dr. Osnat Luxenburg, Prof. Avishai Eyal, Eitan Stibbe, Prof. Orit Shefi, Prof. Ehud Bachar, Ran Livna, Eliran Hemo, Inbal Kreis, Avi Blasberger, Prof. Dan Bloomberg. (Yossi Zigler)

Scientists asked to submit experiments to be conducted by 2nd Israeli in space

Defense Minister Benny Gantz arrives at the Knesset in Jerusalem on December 2, 2020. (Alex Kolomiensky/Pool/AFP)

Defense minister orders seizure of $4 million sent by Iran to Hamas

A helicopter flies over a base of the UN peacekeeping force, in the town of Naqoura, Lebanon, October 14, 2020, during the first round of talks between Lebanese and Israeli delegations on the countries' maritime border. (AP/Bilal Hussein)

Pompeo regrets Israel-Lebanon stalemate on maritime border, offers US mediation

By AFP

Electricity-generating solar panels. (Danny Shechtman)

Lawmakers fast-track environmental initiatives as Knesset set to dissolve

Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem clash with police as they protest against the arrest of a draft-dodging yeshiva student, December 22, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Ultra-Orthodox protesters surround car of IDF general, who pulls out pistol

Illustrative: Palestinian bedouins stand next to their belongings after Israeli soldiers demolished their tents in an area east of the village of Tubas, in the West Bank, on November 3, 2020. (AAFAR ASHTIYEH / AFP)

Democrat group pans lawmakers who called Palestinian hamlet’s razing illegal

Intensely fragrant wild narcissi flowering out of the rock just outside of the city of Dimona, in southern Israel, December 21, 2020. (Sue Surkes/Times of Israel)

On the scentAs winter starts, Negev desert daffodils herald the coming spring

New York City's Sanitation Department helps retrieve a man's lost tefillin in December 2020 (New York City Department of Sanitation via JTA)

Not lost for eternityNY sanitation workers help Jewish man retrieve lost tefillin from dump

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