by Nitzan Kedar, translated and adapted by Hillel Fendel
The following analysis of the prospects and strategies of attaining unity in the national-religious-Zionist camp as we approach the Israeli elections was written several days ago in the Besheva newspaper. This was before Betzalel Smotrich announced that his new "Religious Zionism" party would not be running together with Naftali Bennett's "Yemina" [To the Right"] party. However, it is important to note that Smotrich qualified his remarks by stating that if Bennett "wakes up and returns to himself," the two could run together.
Before every Israeli election – the upcoming one will be the fourth one in the past two years – MK Naftali Bennett, head of the Yemina party, faces the same dilemma. On the one hand, he sees flattering national polls, which he interprets as a call to break out of the "religious Zionist" niche and actively run for Prime Minister – his long-coveted goal.
On the other hand, he sorely remembers the April 2019 elections, when he broke away from the religious-Zionist parties – and proceeded to receive insufficient votes to even get him into the Knesset! (The religious parties received five Knesset mandates.) This, of course, sent him running right back to his national-religious base.
This time, unlike in the other elections, he faces a national-religious leader – Betzalel Smotrich – who is strong and firm, and who has more than signaled that he will not remain passive as Bennett takes his time to make up his mind.
Ever since the elections were declared three weeks ago, and even before that, Bennett has been seeking to position himself as non-sectarian and all-national. Though he has significant support from the general population, his thinking is that in order to bolster his voter base, he must have more messages that resonate with more of the public. It's not that the religious-Zionist public will stop being a large part of his campaign, for he will surely continue to dedicate great efforts to this group. Rather, in Bennett's opinion, backed by several of his advisors, if his ties with the religious-Zionists are too tight, it could cost him votes from other sectors.
Let us note Bennett's curious behavior over the past couple of weeks towards Smotrich and his party. First there was a smattering of mutual accusations, and then came negotiations with the remnants of the Jewish Home party – possibly a signal to Smotrich that he has options other than the Religious-Zionism party (i.e., the National Union party, as it was/is formerly known).
It might appear to be to Bennett's advantage to negotiate separately with the Jewish Home and Smotrich's party, for he could then play one against the other. But on the other hand, too many headlines featuring Bennett and one or another religious-Zionist party would send Bennett's public image right back to the sectarian position he has been trying to shed. Bennett's main rival, former Likud MK Gid'on Saar (see below), is just waiting to label Bennett's Yemina as a "niche" party.
Just to complicate things a bit, keep in mind that the Jewish Home is in the midst of choosing a new leader. Outgoing chairman Rabbi Rafi Peretz, to his credit, announced his departure two weeks ago, and the front-runner to succeed him is the party's Director-General, Nir Orbach. Bennett and Orbach see eye-to-eye on many matters, and an Orbach-headed party would most certainly "view with favor" running together with Yemina on one list.
It is eminently clear that for Bennett and Smotrich to run separately means a loss in votes for each, and possibly not even receiving the 4% required for Knesset participation. This is why most of the religious-Zionist leadership, including leading rabbis, journalists, and others, is urging the two of them to unite. The feeling is that they must sit together with the clear understanding that they simply cannot run separately, and talk until white smoke appears.
Smotrich, for his part, has long said that his primary desire is to run together with Yemina, and not separately. Even if the Jewish Home closes a deal with Yemina, it is probable that it will first do so with the National Union – as the two of them are religious-Zionist parties by definition, and only afterwards will they deal with Bennett. "We do not have the privilege of dividing the religious-Zionist public," Orbach said this week.
At the same time, Smotrich has indicated strongly that he is perfectly ready to run without Bennett – and is making plans to do so. He does not want to be surprised at the last minute. The differences between the two leaders encompass both matters of substance and the ratio between Yemina and National Union candidates on the list. When it comes to content, some of Bennett's past statements and positions, and especially the more-than-occasional reports of a possible merger between Yemina and the largely secular Blue-and-White party, do not contribute to the chances of success for a religious-Zionist merger.
Smotrich faces accusations that he has unilaterally determined that he himself and his brand of religious-Zionism represents the movement more than any other stream thereof. However, in fact, he has made a clear case that he wishes to embrace all types of religious-Zionists, and that his party will actually be the successor to the flailing Jewish Home party. No poll has given the Jewish Home, if it runs on its own, the slightest chance of making it into the Knesset in the coming election.
The question is, given the indisputable political logic in uniting the lists, only when it will happen. At present it appears that we are on the same dizzying and dangerous path that we took before recent elections, which generally ended with at least partial religious-Zionist unity at nearly the last moment. The repetition of such a scenario again, however, could leave the religious-nationalist parties in a most precarious position on the eve of the election, and cause even many supporters to abandon the joint list in disgust.
Here's my friendly advice to all the parties: Choose a day in the coming week, sit together in a room for intense and energized negotiations, agree on what not to agree, compile the list of candidates such that no side gets everything it wants, and finish it all up. In that way we'll all win – instead of three parties losing.
And this of course brings us to possibly the largest competitor, outside of the Likud, to the religious-Zionist parties: Gideon Saar's "New Hope" party. Saar will grab some 16 Knesset seats, according to the polls – fewer than the polls gave Bennett two months ago, but more than they do now. Saar has submitted a detailed proposal for a topic that is very dear to the hearts of most Yemina voters: a revamping of Israel's justice system.
Saar's number-two man, Ze'ev Elkin, who left his ministerial position as a Likud member in order to join up with Saar, explained to us that while several parties have made vague promises to reform the judiciary in recent years, in fact little has come of these (although Ayelet Shaked of Yemina served as Justice Minister for one short term and arguably made some welcome changes).
New Hope's plan for the judiciary includes the division of the position of Attorney-General – currently held by Avichai Mandelblitt – into two: One person would head the Prosecutor-General's department, which is responsible for law enforcement and includes the State Attorney's Office. At the same time, another official would be responsible for giving legal advice to the Government and government bodies, serving as the duly authorized interpreter of the law vis-a-vis the State entities. "For one person to both advise the Prime Minister and government ministers and also oversee their indictments when necessary is totally illogical, and has conflict of interest written all over it," Elkin says.
Other changes proposed by Saar's party include the appointment of Supreme Court judges only after a public hearing for each candidate. Interestingly, a bill with similar objectives submitted a while ago by Elkin and Likud MK Yariv Levine was opposed by none other than Gidon Saar. But Elkin points out that his bill provided for a hearing in a Knesset committee, whereas the current proposal specifies that the Committee for the Appointment of Judges, which chooses the judges, should be the one to hold the hearings.
"This might not be a brilliant move for us politically," Elkin says, "since some of our potential voters come from Blue and White, which has resisted judicial change. But we won't back off from our truth, and so far it appears that the public is supporting us."
Saar has announced that his party will be the "new home" for religious-Zionist voters. The polls show that he does, in fact, have some support from this sector – not a little due to Elkin himself, who has made his imprint on party policy from the moment he joined.
On the other hand, some religious-Zionist pundits say that, in the end, the religious-Zionist public prefers a candidate whose private life might not be as Halakhic as it could be, but whose public positions represents their own, over a politician like Saar who has begun to observe the Sabbath and dons tefillin, but whose policies might be a bit left of their liking.
Would Yemina and New Hope join forces? This would be a most intriguing idea. If it happens at all, and if it happens before the coming election, it would likely prevent Binyamin Netanyahu from forming a government – for Saar has declared that he would not sit in such a coalition (Bennett has specifically not made such a promise). More likely, however, is that such a merger could occur, if at all, only after the election.
Not to worry, however: The election is only ten weeks away, during which time close to everything can still change…