Strutting global stage... then battling over budget
THE FINAL meeting on Naftali Bennett’s schedule on Tuesday evening, before the Israeli delegation left the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, was with Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis. But 10 minutes into the meeting, the prime minister’s aides started darting in to the room trying to get him to cut it short. Mr Bennett waved them away.
His team’s concern was that they had received word that there was a mechanical issue with the El Al Boeing 737 that was scheduled to fly them back to Israel that evening and they may be forced to stay another night in Glasgow.
This would have been awkward, as the Prime Minister was due to chair cabinet first thing on Wednesday morning, kicking off a grueling 24 hours in which the coalition, with its sliver of a majority, planned to pass its first budget in a session that would include no less than 780 votes on the opposition’s objections.
They urgently needed him to strategise their next step if he was delayed in Scotland.
But the Prime Minister wanted to keep talking to the chief rabbi and by the time they finished, the update from the flight-deck was that the issue had been resolved and the plane would be taking off before midnight as planned. Mr Bennett landed at Ben Gurion at 5am and was with his ministers by seven. This was only one of many ways in which the delicate situation back home intruded on proceedings in Glasgow.
Naftali Bennett would have much preferred for COP26 to take place a week later. That way, assuming the budget passed, he could have basked in the summit limelight with a calm mind.
It’s not an uncommon predicament for world leaders to be in. Showing the flag abroad, smiling for photo opportunities and mouthing pleasantries, while the ship of state is riding a storm thousands of miles back in the home port. What makes Mr Bennett’s case rather unique is that while he represents the entire state of Israel overseas, in Jerusalem he is leader of one of the smallest parties in the Knesset As Prime Minister, he can lead only with the consensus of the leaders of the seven other coalition partners.
To his credit, and to the surprise of quite a few of his Israeli contemporaries who struggled to see him fill the shoes of his predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu, he’s bringing it off. He’s acquired the statesman’s swagger.
It’s partly down to his selfconfidence, ambition and natural arrogance, but also to a key realisation he arrived at in his first days in office.
The manner of his coming to power, the fact that he managed to leverage his position as leader of a small party to become prime minister of the most diverse Israeli coalition ever, and above all, the fact that he was the one to take down the eternal leader Netanyahu, has made him an object of fascination among his counterparts abroad. Especially those who would like to see similar coalitions being formed in other countries where a certain type of populist leader rules.
So far, that image of a pragmatic problem-solver, who can bring nationalists and progressives and Islamists together (though the credit for this should really go to the actual architect of the government, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, who will replace Mr Bennett in August 2023) has bought Mr Bennett time. Especially when it comes to any serious pressure on Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians.
His interlocutors, especially US President Joe Biden, know that he has a difficult coalition to keep together and must pass the budget to avoid another election.
The real challenge may be keeping that up once the budget is passed and the Bennett government’s international honeymoon is over.
Photos with world leaders as ship of state at home is riding a storm
His challenge now is to keep this difficult coalition together