All about Netanyahu
Oops, the Israeli government fell. It slipped out of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s hands and broke apart.
For just over a year, an abnormal, unexpected normalcy pervaded Israeli politics. After last year’s election, a government was actually formed. It passed a budget. The prime minister did not constantly attack the media or try to control it. He was not under criminal investigation or indictment. He did not trumpet his relations with a Republican leader in the United States or fight publicly with the Democratic president.
This is the way things are supposed to work, and often did in the past. But after 12 straight years of Benjamin Netanyahu’s rule, it seemed peculiar, almost quaint, like phonograph records.
So much for that. On Monday night, Bennett announced that he’d ask parliament to approve a new election—the fifth since 2019. Bennett will immediately step aside as prime minister in favor of current foreign minister Yair Lapid.
In reality, the months without Netanyahu in power were an illusion. He was the force that created Bennett’s government; his parliamentary ploy brought it down. He will again be the main issue in the election.
It was Lapid who managed to put together the ruling coalition last year. Perhaps the coalition’s greatest accomplishment was that it included a party—the United Arab List—representing Israel’s Arab minority. This should be unremarkable, but it was a breakthrough. Netanyahu and his minions regularly claimed that the government rested on “supporters of terror,” a falsehood intended wholly to exploit racism against Arabs.
Bennett’s coalition can also be credited for governing without such rhetoric—for governing more quietly. Netanyahu had put himself at the center of the fight against the pandemic, exploiting panic during the first wave, then prematurely declaring victory, then playing up his role in bringing vaccines to Israel. Bennett’s government sought to control subsequent waves of covid-19 with less drama.
Most conspicuously, Bennett’s coalition of ideological opponents evaded addressing the Palestinian issue. Bennett explicitly ruled out a Palestinian state during his term. Defense Minister Benny Gantz appears unable to curb settler violence in the West Bank.
In the end, disagreement about the occupation was the government’s undoing. The regulations that allow West Bank settlers to live under Israeli laws expire at the end of this month. In the past, they’ve been renewed periodically with little fuss. Two weeks ago, the government tried to extend them again. But several Arab members of the coalition refused to legitimize the occupation by voting in favor. Netanyahu’s opposition bloc voted against, despite its support of settlement.
Bennett could have waited to see if Netanyahu caved in before the regulations expired. Or he could dissolve the Knesset, which would leave the regulations in force for the time being. In the political game of chicken, Bennett blinked first.
In the next election, like the past four, the main issue will be Netanyahu. A court hearing earlier this month provided a flashback to how surreal his reign became by the final years. Netanyahu, his wife, Sara, and their elder son Yair are suing another former prime minister, Ehud Olmert, for libel. In two television interviews, Olmert said that the three of them were “mentally ill.” They say his words were “harsh, ugly falsehoods.”
The more important question is whether it will help remind enough Israeli voters of why Netanyahu lost power, and why it would be a mistake to return him to office.