The government’s first four weeks
On Sunday, Israel’s new government, headed by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, celebrated four weeks to its existence.
This government – which was formed legally, and is at least as legitimate (if not more so) than the governments that Benjamin Netanyahu tried to form between April 2019 and April 2021 but failed to do so, despite all sorts of tricks and schticks – isn’t enjoying the customary 100 days of grace granted to new governments.
Under the circumstances it has done pretty well – even exceptionally well, given its extremely complicated makeup. Despite the relentless efforts by the Jewish part of the opposition, Bennett’s government managed to get through most of the bills it brought to the Knesset, to duck several motions of no-confidence against it being approved, while avoiding losing its composure and wits in face of vicious, frequently wacky attacks, filled with libelous lies, falsehoods, blatant ignorance, unparliamentary language (including outright curses) and not a single grain of goodwill.
The fact that in the plenum, the speaker and deputy speakers from the coalition run the sittings which they chair calmly, without losing their tempers, politely thanking MKs from the opposition, who have just ended giving speeches that are nothing less than scandalous – seems almost miraculous.
In the Arrangements Committee the situation is not as calm, largely because the matters dealt with in it are more urgent, the circumstances are more intimate, and the MKs from the opposition are even more unbridled in their behavior than they are in the plenum, but also because the chairwoman of the committee is inexperienced.
True, the law popularly known as the Citizenship Law (in its full name as the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law), which prevents the spouses and families of Israeli-Arabs from the West Bank and Gaza Strip from receiving Israeli citizenship or any civil rights in Israel, originally passed in 2003 as a temporary measure that must be renewed annually, failed to pass. But this was largely because the Likud, which had supported it for the previous 18 years, decided to cut its nose off to spite its face and vote against its renewal, solely in order to embarrass the government.
However, in certain respects, this was a blessing.
The Citizenship Law is a nasty, racist piece of legislation, which is not worthy of entering the law book of any state that
considers itself a democracy.
I do not deny that Israel has an absolute right to do whatever necessary to defend its security, nor that Israel has a potential demographic problem – which are the two arguments in favor of the law.
However, it is not several tens of thousands of Palestinians, only a few scores of whom have been involved in security events, who pose a real threat to Israel’s security, or to the Jewish majority in the State of Israel. I would argue that it is all those in Israel who refuse to try to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by peaceful means who pose a security problem to Israel, and all those who advocate Israel’s annexation of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip who threaten the demographic balance in the State of Israel.
As to the fact that the opposition has so far failed in its efforts to pass motions of no-confidence in the government, this does not indicate that it will not succeed in future. However, it can bring down the government by means of a vote on a motion of no-confidence, only if it will manage to offer an alternative prime minister and government supported by at least 61 MKs. In the current Knesset, no government led by Netanyahu has the support of 61 MKs – there are only 53 MKs (including Amichai Chikli from Yamina) who support such a government.
There are only two ways that the current government can be brought down. One is if it will fall apart from within. However, as long as the opposition continues to act as it does, there is a strong motivation within the coalition to continue to collaborate
and make compromises, no matter how great the difficulties. The second way is by means of the Knesset dissolving itself and calling for new elections – and currently there is no majority for such a move either.
Looking at the bravado of the current Jewish opposition – and I am still regularly watching the Knesset plenary sittings, at various hours of the day and night – I would make the following observation.
First of all, it is questionable whether the opposition will continue to have the energy and motivation to keep the coalition up for nights on end for no purpose other than to disrupt its routines, and to keep spewing vast quantities of mostly empty, inaccurate or libelous verbality, without any tangible results.
I do not know whether Netanyahu himself has already grasped, now that he has finally moved himself and his family out of the official residence on Balfour Street, that he is unlikely to return there soon, if ever. A growing number of Likud MKs openly admit that the current “dangerous” government is likely to survive “for a year or more.” Under the circumstances the opposition has no alternative but to change its disc.
THOUGH I have no illusions about the life of the current government turning easy, I do believe that it will manage to achieve many of its goals, and do good, not least of all because its members are highly motivated, serious people, doing their best to avoid falling into pits that the opposition is busy digging for them.
So far, the opposition refuses to give the
government any credit for anything it has done. Bennett’s sincere efforts to start mending relations with Jordan have been greeted with mockery and contempt, as was Lapid’s comment, while opening the Israel Embassy in Abu Dhabi two weeks ago, that, as the architect of the Abraham Agreements, Netanyahu deserves thanks. Hopefully, this attitude will change, because it is unworthy.
The next important station in the government’s activity will be the biennial budget for the years 2021-2022, which is already in the making. After over a year and a half without a budget and an accompanying Economic Arrangements Law, the Likud – which is exclusively responsible for this ruinous, budget-less period – will need a lot of gall to try to prevent the budget and Arrangements Law from being approved by the Knesset by December. It is assumed, however, that the budget will be approved, with or without the cooperation of the Likud.
I only wish that Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman will make an effort to avoid in future superfluous malice in the measures he proposes. It is certainly justifiable to try to get yeshiva students to go out and work, at least part-time, but denying subsidies for nursery children, one of whose parents refuses to go out to work, is sheer counterproductive malice.
The writer was a researcher in the Knesset Research and Information Center until her retirement, and recently published a book in Hebrew,