Netanyahu wants to demonstrate gov’t can’t govern

If the first three weeks of the current Bennett-Lapid government is any indication, expect at least one major political challenge to the coalition per week.

The first significant challenge to the government came on its second day of existence, when it had to deal with the postponed Jerusalem Day flag march in the Old City. Last week’s challenge came in the form of how it would deal with the illegal settlement outpost of Evyatar. And this week’s challenge is the passage, or non-passage, of the oneyear extension to the family reunification law preventing Palestinians who marry Israeli Arabs from acquiring Israeli citizenship.

Three weeks, three challenges thrown at the government by Benjamin Netanyahu and the opposition. Nobody said it was going to be easy.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, in a speech to the Yamina faction in the Knesset just hours before the vote on the reunification law, said that in his conversations with the world’s leaders since he took office, he describes the current Israeli government – one that represents a rainbow of diverse opinion – as the “Great Experiment.”

“This is an experiment – not only at the national level, but at the international level – of how reasonable people with goodwill and fundamentally different opinions on the most basic issues facing Israel, how do they succeed? And how they do it is through trust and dialogue,” he said.

With each challenge, the various components of the coalition “have to demonstrate restraint. It is hard, but it is a test for all of Israel,” Bennett said.

Politicians and pundits alike have characterized each of the challenges thrown at the coalition so far as a “test” for the government: an indication of how it will operate; how it will be able to reconcile its vast ideological differences.

While it was not known until late Monday evening how the coalition would deal with the family reunification challenge, it dealt with the first two challenges through compromise.

The flag march went ahead as scheduled, though the route was altered to reduce points of friction with Palestinians. And the settlers voluntarily left Evyatar after receiving assurances that the structures there would remain, a military outpost would be established, and – after a determination is made regarding whether the land was state land or privately owned – a yeshiva may be set up there.

Both of those land mines placed in the path of the nascent coalition were dismantled through compromise.

The members of the delegation will be divided into four teams of 27 participants, including a commander with a rank of lieutenant-colonel and above, as well as a guide who deals with the Holocaust, who will accompany the troops throughout the journey. One of the guides will be Lt.-Col. (ret.) Simcha Goldin, the father of Lt. Hadar Goldin, whose remains are being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Goldin joined previous IDF delegations to Europe, including in 2017, when he participated alongside his wife, Leah, and former chief of staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot in the March of the Living.

The mission’s goal is to bring the participants to Europe, where they can feel the history and understand the importance of what Szenes and her fellow paratroopers did during the Holocaust.

“The main goal of this journey is to strengthen the sense of mission and the memory of heroism,” Gez said, adding that “we understand how historic this mission is.”

Szenes joined a group of parachutists organized by the Hagana in 1942 to rescue prisoners of war and organize Jewish resistance against the Nazis. In 1944, she parachuted into the former Yugoslavia and was arrested by Hungarian police when she tried to cross into Hungary.

She refused to reveal anything except her name, despite being tortured in prison, and in October 1944 she was tried for treason. She was executed by a firing squad in November 1944.