Crisis in Israel is bigger than Netanyahu
War between prime minister and Gantz is now manifest in every aspect of political life
Atypical analysis of Israel’s ongoing political crisis no longer suffices. The turmoil in Israel is not just about an obstinate, divisive leader who is manipulating public opinion, the media and the various political groups to remain in power and to avoid legal accountability for his corruption.
Israel is suffering a crisis of political legitimacy, one that goes beyond embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and his coalition with the head of the Kahol Lavan (Blue and White) centrist party, Benny Gantz. The political marriage between Netanyahu’s Likud and Gantz’s Kahol Lavan last April was fundamentally odd and unexpected. The announcement that Gantz — who endured three general elections in less than a year to finally oust Netanyahu — was uniting with his arch-enemy has devastated the anti-Netanyahu political camp, forcing Gantz’s partners, Yair Lapid and Moshe Ya’alon, to abandon him.
But the new coalition government between the right and Centre became dysfunctional immediately it was formed. Israel’s political marriage of convenience is likely to end in an ugly divorce.
The war between Netanyahu and his main coalition partner is now manifest in every aspect of Israel’s political life: in the Knesset (parliament), in media headlines and on the streets.
When the new government assumed its duties after one of the most tumultuous years in Israel’s political history, the mood, at least immediately, was somewhat calm; both Netanyahu and Gantz seemed united in their desire to illegally annex nearly a third of the occupied Palestinian West Bank. Israel’s right wing camp was delighted; the Centre tagged along.
Fading popularity
However, the international response to the annexation scheme forced Netanyahu to rethink his July 1 deadline. Now that annexation has been postponed indefinitely, Netanyahu is being denied a major political card that could have helped him replenish his fading popularity among Israelis, at a time when he desperately needs it.
On July 19, Netanyahu’s corruption trial resumed. Although the Prime Minister did not attend the opening session personally, his image — that of a strong commanding figure — was tarnished, nonetheless.
Gantz, who already agreed to the annexation plan, was too clever to fully associate himself with the risky political endeavour. That task was left to Netanyahu who knew the risks affiliated with a failed political scheme, but with no option except to follow through with it.
Awaiting the right opportunity to pounce on his beleaguered ‘partner’, Gantz found his chance in a report published by the Israeli daily newspaper, Haaretz.
On July 22, Haaretz reported that “Netanyahu decided to not pass the budget for 2020 and to call a general election to take place on November 18,” to avoid the possibility of being forced to “hand over the keys to Defence Minister and Kahol Lavan Chairman, Benny Gantz”.
According to this claim, Netanyahu only agreed to swap the Prime Minister seat with Gantz come November 2021 just to buy time and to avoid a fourth election that would leave him vulnerable to an electoral defeat and to a corruption trial without a political safety net.
Likud conspiracy
Despite the risk of yet another election, Netanyahu is keen to wrestle the Justice Ministry from Kahol Lavan’s hands, because whoever controls the Justice Ministry controls Netanyahu’s fate in Israeli courts. Leaving Gantz with such a powerful card is not an option for the Likud, and certainly not for Netanyahu.
Hence, the Likud is insisting that the budget agreement can only last for one year, while Kahol Lavan is adamant that it must cover a period of two years. The Likud conspiracy, as revealed in Israeli media, suggests that the Likud Finance Minister, Israel Katz, plans to use the next budget negotiations as the reason to dismantle the right-Centre coalition and demand another election, thus denying Gantz his chance to serve his term as a Prime Minister, per the unity government agreement.
Meanwhile, thousands of Israelis rallied in the street against the government’s mishandling of the coronavirus crisis, following a massive surge of Covid-19 cases in the country, further illustrating the growing sense of disenchantment among ordinary Israelis with their government’s failure.
However, the crisis is larger than the dispute between Netanyahu and Gantz. While Israel has long prided itself on being “the only democracy in the Middle East”, the truth is that Israeli ‘democracy’ was, from the start, fraudulent, in that it catered to Israeli Jews and discriminated against everyone else.
In recent years, however, institutionalised racism and apartheid in Israel were no longer masked by clever political discourses. Netanyahu, in particular, has led the charge of making Israel the rightwing, chauvinistic, racist haven that it is today.
The fact that Netanyahu recently became Israel’s longest-serving Prime Minister, elected repeatedly by Israel’s Jewish citizens, indicates that the Israeli leader is but a reflection of the larger ailments that have afflicted Israeli society as a whole.
Reducing the discussion to Netanyahu’s many failures might be convenient, but the demonstrable truth is that corrupt leaders can only exist in unhealthy political systems. Israel is now the perfect example of that truism.