Israeli News: A Daily Analysis

Major Events in Israel and the Middle East
A Daily Analysis
By Marc Schulman

Government Survives No Confidence Vote- Crisis Contineus

Monday May 7, 2007

A series of no-confidence [in the government] votes failed today as the Knesset's summer session opened only a week after the Winograd Commission published its damning interim report. A large number of Labor members came down with headaches and other short lived medical problems, resulting in their need to be absent from the vote, which allowed the government to survive another hurdle.

The scenario that I first mentioned yesterday regarding future coalition troubles has now become conventional wisdom in Israel. When either MK Ami Ayalon or former Prime Minister Ehud Barak is elected as head of the Labor party on May 29th, the party will threaten to leave the coalition if Prime Minister Ehud Olmert does not step aside. There is a small chance that Olmert could get support from the Ya'hadut Ha'Torah party and hold his majority, but it is hard to image that scenario occurring. It is clear that Olmert's attempt to maintain his position will be challenged in the coming few weeks, to say the least

Israel continues to be faced with the ongoing dilemmas of what to do about the Qasaam rockets that are fired daily from Gaza. Unfortunately, there is not a simple solution to the problem. So far, no military action, regardless of how severe, has helped curb the problem that has plagued the area for five years.

A major topic of discussion in Israel today was a traffic accident that occurred yesterday in the Tel Aviv area which resulted in a motorcyclist's death. It was not the accident itself that was the issue, but rather security tapes of the accident that showed it took two full minutes until another car stopped to try to help. The tape clearly showed dozens of motorists ignoring the accident, which included a person laying on the road and an overturned motorcycle, and driving on while the motorcyclist lay dying on the pavement. What has the society come to?