Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opponents pushed Thursday for a quick parliament vote to formally end his lengthy rule, hoping to head off any last-minute attempts to derail their newly announced coalition government. The latest political maneuvering began just hours after opposition leader Yair Lapid and his main coalition partner, Naftali Bennett, declared they had reached a deal to form a new government…
“The coalition consists of eight parties from across the political spectrum with little in common except the shared goal of toppling Netanyahu after his record-setting 12 years in power. The alliance includes hard-liners previously allied with Netanyahu, as well as center-left parties and even an Arab faction — a first in Israeli politics.” AP News
Both sides agree that the new government is unlikely to significantly change Israeli policies:
“If Netanyahu is anxious about his future, he needn’t worry about his political legacy. His signature achievements as prime minister — the rightward lurch of domestic politics, the hobbling of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the normalization of relations with Arab countries — will not be challenged by the Lapid-Bennett combine…
“Lapid and Bennett are not far apart in their assessment of the threat to Israel from Iran and its catspaws, especially Hamas in Gaza and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. They have each served in Netanyahu-led cabinets, and both men supported Netanyahu’s use of force last month, not only in retaliation against rocket attacks by Hamas, but also against Israeli-Arab protesters…
“There is some sunlight between the two on how Israel ought to deal with the Palestinians… [But] The unlikely partners are already signaling that they will not make major policy changes… Lapid and Bennett may share a loathing for the man they intend to replace, but his legacy is safe in their hands.”
Bobby Ghosh, Bloomberg
“A Bennett-Lapid premiership will not really change Netanyahu's strategy toward the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza. Hamas's lack of interest in serious peace negotiations and the political weakness of the Palestinian Authority means that any such peace effort would have little prospect of success anyway…
“Beyond this, Lapid would be likely to push for a more conciliatory stance on sensitive issues surrounding the sovereignty of Jerusalem and the construction of new settlements in the West Bank. However, Bennett will oppose such compromises unless they involve more valuable concessions from the Arab world, the broader international community, and/or the Biden administration. As for Iran's nuclear program, which is seen by the Israeli security establishment as a threat to the nation's very existence and the looming means of a second Holocaust, both leaders can be expected to continue the current policy.”
Tom Rogan, Washington Examiner
Both sides also note the fragility of the new government, but express hope that it will allow Israel to move forward:
“The new government, if it can survive the week, will certainly be the most ideologically disparate one in Israel’s history, and may be the most unlikely governing coalition anywhere in the world… The eight parties that would make up the government include the far-left and the far-right, two-staters and annexationists. The coalition would be led by Israel’s first yarmulke-wearing Orthodox Jewish prime minister, and would be the first to include a Reform rabbi, an openly gay party leader (Nitzan Horowitz of Meretz), and an Islamist… The fact that such an unholy mutant of a government could even be a possibility is a testament to just how polarizing Netanyahu has become…
“A government that exists solely for the purpose of removing one man from government seems unlikely to be one that makes any historic changes, but it was still necessary. As long as Israel lurched from inconclusive election to inconclusive election and the dominant political issue of the country was the Bibi psychodrama, any sort of long-term planning, much less political risk-taking, was impossible. The new government may not last long, but it would at least allow the country to think more than a week ahead.”
Joshua Keating, Slate
“Even if Bibi is successful in collapsing the new government [after it takes power], a new election may prove particularly challenging. First, he will not be running as prime minister, which is a more difficult position to be in, especially considering the distraction caused by his ongoing corruption trial. Second, he is in a difficult position in his own party, with many MPs — mostly backbenchers — recognizing that Bibi’s behavior has turned voters away from Likud. As a result, they may take action to oust him as party leader before a fifth election…
“If Bibi goes, this could be good news for Israel. A government formed of parties representing different ideologies and a wide range of views and factions may be unstable, but it may also be able to mend the many rifts in Israeli civil society. Leaders of the parties have declared they will prioritize working together to heal deep divisions — between left and right, Jews and Muslims, Orthodox and secular, and Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews. For many Israelis, this will be a new dawn: flawed, uncertain, but bringing much-needed hope for a positive change after 12 years of Bibi and a long-standing political stalemate.”
Limor Simhony Philpott, Spectator USA
Other opinions below.
“The ouster of Mr. Netanyahu, if it happens, won’t be because the public turned against muscular security policy but because the conservative bloc grew so large that it fractured. Mr. Lapid was able to recruit Mr. Bennett away from Mr. Netanyahu with the promise of his own turn at the Prime Ministership. Mr. Netanyahu’s polarizing personality may have finally worn out its welcome…
“Yet his contributions have been great. He strengthened Israel’s ties with countries from India to Brazil, and normalized relations with Arab states in the region through the Abraham Accords. His economic reforms helped the country escape from its postwar, union-dominated socialism and make it a technology powerhouse. The country’s sustained growth—per capita GDP increased 42% between 2010 and 2019—improved its diplomatic standing as its economic leverage increased.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“The sad thing is that much of the situation which brought us to this point of ending Bibi’s tenure is his own doing. Israel went through four elections in two years, suffering without a real government, a budget, and an endless and divisive political season. Much of the responsibility for having these elections and not being able to form a stable government is because of Bibi. When he did form a coalition last year that could have been stable, before the ink was dry on the coalition agreement, it was clear he had no intention to honor it. Eventually, what could have been a stable government failed, largely because of Bibi…
“In the bigger picture, if Bibi hadn’t pushed aside capable leaders and successors from within Likud, there might not be multiple parties in the incoming coalition founded by former Likudniks and Bibi supporters who turned their backs on Bibi to compete rather than collaborate…
“He could have cultivated one stable right-wing block, with Likud leading nearly 50 percent of the Knesset. It remains to be seen if any of these parties would merge back, and their founders bring a more unified leadership back into the Likud fold. Ideologically, this would be a powerful political force that could dominate Israeli politics for decades. But it couldn’t happen under Bibi’s divisiveness.”
Jonathan Feldstein, Townhall
“[Netanyahu] instantly defined the Bennett coalition as a leftwing government against which all rightwing Israelis must fight, and then focused his campaign against Palestinian citizens of Israel, attacking the concessions, as he sees them, that Mr Bennett made to Ra’am. These so-called concessions include such apparent outrages as more Arab police, a new hospital for Israeli Muslims, and changes to building-permit regulations to lessen the discriminatory way in which they are applied. Mr Netanyahu’s ethnically divisive politics could not have been made clearer…
“Netanyahu will use every weapon in his armoury to chip away at the majority before the vote. His ousting, if it happens, is a moment of opportunity. But as long as Israeli politics remains on a knife edge, the opportunity will be hard to seize. There will be little incentive for the post-Netanyahu regime to bring new approaches to relations with the Palestinians or with any of the major regional issues on which the former leader thrived so destructively. It may be the end of an old era. But it is not yet the start of a new one.”
Editorial Board, The Guardian
Others note that “A few weeks ago, when Israel’s president granted Lapid a chance to try to form a government, Lapid declared that ‘we’ve had enough of anger and of hate’ and that his goal was to ‘start something different.’… In many ways, the unlikely coalition that has come together in Israel to try to unseat Bibi is Israel’s equivalent of Bidenism — a movement of people who believe that society has to repair its torn political fabric, back away from the brink and restore respect for institutions and for one another…
“I am still wary that this Israeli ‘change coalition’ can actually hold together long enough to assume office… But if there is a silver lining that can never be taken away, it is the fact that not only Israeli Jewish parties, but Israeli right-wing Jewish parties, have agreed to serve in an Israeli national unity coalition — and not only with an Israeli Arab party, but with an Israeli Arab Islamist party. With that taboo now broken, who knows what new possibilities will open up in the future to improve relations between Israeli Arabs and Jews, and also — maybe, maybe, maybe — between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.”
Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times
