by Hillel Fendel
Does PM Bennett still belong to Israel's right wing? While his partners in the Yemina (Rightwards) party continue to maintain eye-contact with the long-loyal nationalist public, in both words and actions, Bennett is already quite actively looking for support in new sectors.
Besheva's Knesset correspondent Ze'ev Kam notes that the Knesset marked this week, with neither pomp nor circumstance, exactly four months to the day that the current government – often known as the Bennett-Arab government – was sworn in. The tensions among the various coalition partners are quite evident, but they are being forcefully kept under wraps until after the national budget is passed less than four weeks from now. [If the budget is not passed by Nov. 14th, the government automatically falls and new elections must be held in February 2022.] But as the deadline looms closer, increasingly more hints are surfacing indicating the infighting that is liable to blow the government apart and bring about new elections.
It's no longer a secret, Kam writes, that Prime Minister Bennett is likely to seek out new population sectors for support. Bennett is feeling full well the cold winds blowing from the direction of the camp from whence he came and on which he has turned his back. Some of his advisors still feel that significant portions of the right-wing camp will vote for him whenever elections are next held, even though he established a government together with left-wing and Arab parties. However, it is clear to all that he has lost many of his voters for good. Bennett and his "Rightward" party will clearly have to look elsewhere other than rightward if they wish to be elected to the next Knesset.
Kam keenly notes that Bennett and his long-time ally, Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, have taken different approaches over the past several weeks. Shaked continues to take many right-wing positions, hoping that these and her sharp reactions to left-wing provocations from within the government will assure her the support of her past voters. However, after having left his camp without looking back, and without even trying to maintain eye contact with his former supporters, Bennett has made a strategic choice to find favor with the center, left-wing, and anti-religious camps – and has already started doing so.
Two events of this past week show clearly his intentions. One of them happened in the Knesset, at what has become a monthly meeting between the Prime Minister and the opposition. One of the parliamentary tools with which the opposition can make its case is the option of gathering 40 MKs' signatures and calling a special session that the Prime Minister must attend. Bennett must thus sit for a few hours and listen to all the opposition's complaints against him. In the last few years of Netanyahu's reign, the opposition all but stopped using this tool, after concluding that Netanyahu actually enjoyed these sessions. He received the chance to speak to the plenum, followed by the leader of the opposition. Almost each time, Netanyahu would leave quite satisfied with the sharp attacks he was able to level against the opposition – which finally learned its lesson and stopped calling these special sessions.
With the new government, the new opposition has renewed the practice. Unlike his predecessor, Bennett does not enjoy it at all, no matter how much he tries to hide or deny this. The MKs of the Likud, United Torah Judaism and Shas, who yell out and disturb his speech throughout, display burning political hatred. And then, to add fuel to the fire, Netanyahu, as opposition leader, gets up to speak following Bennett, and the differences between them are blatant to all. Bennett surely awaits the end of these sessions with great anxiety.
But at this past week's 40-signature Knesset session, Kam notes, Bennett not only did something unprecedented, but gave away his own personal political intentions: He stridently praised the latest proposed army enlistment bill that has raised hareidi ire. After many years of staying far away from issues involving or irking the hareidi public, it was clear that Bennett was changing direction. And if this was not enough, the very next day he took part in a conference and sharply attacked the hareidi parties: He actually said aloud that their public influence must be diminished. Many in the Knesset noted that for Bennett to take such a sharp turn, not only once but twice in a row, was no fluke. Rather, the talk is, the Prime Minister is headed away from the right-wing pastures in which he once grazed happily – he actually served as head of the Yesha Council for several years – and towards other population sectors and ideologies.
Besheva editor Emanuel Shilo addressed another political development of this month, and had some words of caution and reproof for his favored Prime Ministerial candidate, Binyamin Netanyahu. The issue was the announcement by former Netanyahu ally Yuli Edelstein, a popular senior Likud official who served as Speaker of the Knesset and as Health Minister, that he would seek the party's top spot in the next party primaries.
Edelstein is the only Likud member to thus challenge Netanyahu as Likud leader – and some in the Likud went public with their anger at him for doing so.
However, Shilo wishes to remind the Likud, and especially Netanyahu, not to take that path. He writes that the last time they refused to accept a democratic challenge to Netanyahu's leadership, and held grudges against those who took such a step, it ended in the Likud's fall from power. Specifically, it was Gideon Saar who challenged Netanyahu two years ago in the party primaries, and though Netanyahu won handily, he did not forget Saar – and did not appoint him to a ministerial position. This, indirectly, led Saar to leave the Likud, form his own party, win 6 seats (some of which would certainly have otherwise gone to the Likud), and prevent Netanyahu from being able to form a government.
Shilo feels that Netanyahu's treatment of Bennett over the years - especially when he did not offer his party a significant role in the government formed in 2020 - contributed significantly to the turning of Bennett's back on Netanyahu earlier this year.
Shilo thus warns Netanyahu not to treat Edelstein the same way, but rather allow the democratic process to proceed without personal grudges – and thus help the Likud to succeed both in winning the elections and forming a government.