by Hillel Fendel
"If this nightmare comes true, and a Bennett-Lapid government is formed with all the left-wing and center-left parties, with the passive support of Mansour Abbas' Arab party and possibly even those of Ahmed Tibi and Ayman Odeh, it will be primarily the fault of the nationalist parties' leaders – Binyamin Netanyahu, Naftali Bennett, and Gideon Saar."
So wrote a few days ago Emanuel Shilo, long-time editor of the B'Sheva weekly newspaper – a publication of the Bet El and Petach Tikva-based Arutz Sheva group. Since then, the situation has only become more sharply exacerbated. As of early Monday afternoon, Naftali Bennett (who heads the 7-seat religious-Zionist leaning party Yamina) and Gideon Saar (who heads the 6-seat right-wing leaning break-off from Likud) are seeking to join Yair Lapid (who heads the 17-seat left-leaning party Yesh Atid), and are ironing out the final wrinkles on their anti-Bibi, left-center-right government. There is still no guarantee that it will ultimately come to fruition, as significant wrinkles still exist, but vociferous fears are being expressed by the Likud and others.
Shilo places Netanyahu first on the blame list:
"With his problematic personal behavior, he has brought upon himself the situation in which those who are ideologically close to him refuse to work with him and sit in his government. Their aversion for him is so great that they prefer even to sit with the furthest-left parties rather than to serve under him. The list of senior officials who used to be his associates but are now his bitter rivals is so long that even those who admire his great accomplishments cannot deny that it is Netanyahu himself who brought upon himself this impossible political entanglement into which he has fallen."
Specifically, it is widely felt that Netanyahu has broken so many political promises, and gained his reputation for political mastery at the expense of so many of his former allies, that neither Bennett, Ayelet Shaked (2nd on Bennett's party list), Betzalel Smotrich (head of the 6-seat Religious Zionism party), Saar, nor any of the other players in this high-stakes game are willing to stake their futures on Netanyahu's word.
Shilo also faults Netanyahu for being the first to introduce the entire idea of staking an Israeli government upon the passive support of an Arab party: "It was his incessant flirting with the idea of forming a government reliant on Mansour Abbas that provided a 'kosher' certificate to Bennett and Saar to try to form such a government themselves – but without the Likud and Netanyahu."
We may be reminded that such a government, comprising purely the right-wing and religious parties, but with tacit Arab support, could still be formed this very day – if it were not for the consistent and strong opposition of Betzalel Smotrich and his Religious Zionism party. Probably no one in the political establishment has been as unswerving, from the day the election results were announced two months ago, as Smotrich has been in his position. His principled opposition to an Arab-backed Jewish government was even endorsed by Bennett himself, as well as many others who had previously blasted his "stubbornness," during the recent battles with Hamas.
Shilo, too, agrees with Smotrich: "Relying on the Arab Ra'am party is unacceptable, whether we're talking about a right-wing government or Bennett-Saar-Lapid-Meretz. It is the responsibility of Bennett, Saar, and Netanyahu as well to work together to [ensure that this does not happen]."
Shilo next blames former Likud MK Gideon Saar, head of the New Hope party that ran on the banner of replacing Netanyahu:
"There is no way that Saar can fulfill all his election campaign promises, for they have proven to be mutually exclusive. He promised that he would not sit in a Lapid-led government, nor in a government reliant upon anti-Zionist Arab parties, nor in one led by Netanyahu. What remains, therefore, is to decide which promise to fulfill and which one to violate. If he goes with the left and the Arab parties, it means he has made a personal, emotional choice based on hatred and vengeance, instead of an ideological decision. Saar and his colleagues will have shown that they are less nationalist than they are small-minded politicians who allow personal issues to dictate their choices."
As an example of the incredibly high stakes involved, Shilo noted the fact that six new Supreme Court justices are to be chosen in the near future. Regarding this, however, Bennett's close ally Ayelet Shaked has conditioned her support for the proposed government upon her being appointed a member of the judge-choosing committee, instead of extreme left-winger Labor party head Merav Michaeli. (Michaeli does not agree, of course, but she probably does not have much say in the matter.)
"If Saar and his party members choose to form a government with the left," Shilo sharply warns, "a place of honor will be saved for them in the company of Bar Kamtza and his ilk, people who because they felt personally insulted brought about a national catastrophe."
Finally, though he has taken the most high-profile position in everything regarding the formation of the new government, Naftali Bennett is only third in line in being apportioned blame by Shilo. Bennett now stands to be Prime Minister for the coming two years before being replaced, according to the rotation agreement in formation, by Yair Lapid. Shilo writes:
"Bennett has not stopped zig-zagging, sometimes to the left and sometimes to the right. Instead of committing himself to the right-wing bloc, he has been negotiating with both sides, [appearing to] strive for an agreement with whomever offers him the most. But it's not only his fault; Netanyahu is not giving him an easy time, making promises and then withdrawing them. He at one point offered Bennett to be Prime Minister first in rotation, but he then changed his mind, indicating that he would prefer new elections – for a fifth time in just over two years! – in which Bennett's party would most likely be decimated. But in truth, Bennett must realize that with only seven Knesset mandates, compared to the Likud's 30, he has no genuine right to try to squeeze the Prime Ministership from Netanyahu. Political blackmail is no substitute for the support and trust of the voters."
It should be noted, as well, that though the proposed government is being presented as an example of broad national unity, it does not include any religious party. On the contrary: The proposed Finance Minister, whose party will apparently also receive the chairmanship of the Knesset Finance Committee, is the avowed anti-hareidi Avigdor Lieberman.
And last but not least: Even some of the strongest Netanyahu supporters do not deny that yet another election campaign is one of the last things Israel needs at this point. They hope that a new government will be able to pass a national budget or two, restore a measure of normalcy to the country, and not do too much damage to nationalist interests in the short time that will likely pass before it is toppled.