Are Gaza rockets bad news for a viable anti-Netanyahu bloc? - analysis

It wasn't bad enough Israel lacks a government to deal with tensions that are ratcheting up with Iran and the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic. Now Netanyahu also has to weigh a possible war with Hamas.

By TOVAH LAZAROFF
Palestinians protest during an anti-Israel protest over tension in Jerusalem, in Gaza City, April 24, 2021. (photo credit: ATIA MOHAMMED/FLASH90)
Palestinians protest during an anti-Israel protest over tension in Jerusalem, in Gaza City, April 24, 2021.
(photo credit: ATIA MOHAMMED/FLASH90)
Nothing like a barrage of Gaza rockets to add to the chaos of the coming week as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership capabilities are under political siege.
The adage “when it rains it pours” wouldn’t even begin to describe the current situation.
It wasn’t bad enough that Israel lacks a government to deal with tensions that are ratcheting up with Iran and the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition, over the coming eight days Netanyahu must continue to prepare for his trial and find a way to form a government by May 4.
Now, Netanyahu also has to weigh a possible war with Hamas in Gaza and/or a serious military engagement, should the rockets continue.
The rockets might be timed to impact the upcoming Palestinian elections, but they will also have an impact on the Israeli leadership crisis.
Given that the threat of Hamas rockets is widely acknowledged, it’s strange that the issue was almost never raised in the last election cycle.
It was as if the country had some form of collective amnesia about the Hamas quagmire. This included the three wars Israel has fought with Hamas in Gaza between 2008 and 2014 – two of them under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. There was also the border violence under the “Great March of Return” from 2018-2019 and the three-day violent IDF-Hamas engagement in May 2019.
Prior to taking office, Netanyahu promised he could do better than former prime minister Ehud Olmert in combating Hamas.
Olmert was the originator of Israel’s Gaza policy in the aftermath of the 2007 Hamas coup that ousted Fatah from the Strip. It was under his tenure that Israel fought its first war with the militant terror group in December 2008 and January 2009, known as Operation Cast Lead.

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But instead of ending the Gaza conflict, Netanyahu, like his predecessor, found himself in a perpetual no-win situation, in which he upheld the policy of border restrictions and violent flare-ups.
Netanyahu didn’t fall sway to the more stringent voices on the Right who wanted to restore Israeli military control to Gaza, or those on the Left who called on him to lift the border restrictions and allow for Gaza to thrive economically.
He had no qualms about appearing weak on terror by allowing for a cash understanding in which Qatar gave humanitarian assistance to the Hamas-ruled enclave to help ensure calm.
Netanyahu has not suffered politically for failing to end the Hamas violence, nor is it likely that any other right-wing leader could resolve the Gaza conflict.
Even Yamina Party leader Naftali Bennett, who in the past has tried to bolster his leadership capabilities by attacking Netanyahu over Gaza, has been quiet on this topic of late.
But what Netanyahu or any other right-wing leader would have with respect to Gaza is a fair amount of consensus, should he want to act militarily against the coastal enclave or increase border restrictions to force Hamas’s hand.
But what about the anti-Netanyahu coalition? What happens if the Right fails to form a coalition and an alternative one is cobbled together – either by Bennett or Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid, or both?
The idea is that this government, which would include parties on the Right, Center and Left, could function because it would focus on issues of consensus.
In a pandemic-focused universe, with issues regarding the economy and democracy atop Israel’s agenda, there is some wisdom in that outlook.
Part of the reasons that a government embracing diverse political bedfellows such as Yamina on the Right and Meretz on the Left might possibly function, is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is largely dormant.
There is no peace initiative to argue about, and the United States is expected to constrain settlement activity even if the Right is in power.
But what about Gaza? How could a Lapid- or Bennett-led government, without a right-wing majority, gain enough consensus to react to the rockets or even continue the current policy?
True, Israel often rallies in times of war, including on the Left and Center. But Gaza isn’t a classic war, it is a policy of inches: the extent of the response, when to level a heavy hand, when to try and ease restrictions.
Bennett spoke on Monday in the Knesset about the need for a unity government should the Right fail to form a coalition.
He called on all parties to join that government, noting that there might be some differences, but they should not prevent such a coalition.
He listed the West Bank as one of the problematic areas, but was strangely silent on Gaza.
Yet it is the Gaza rockets or other unrest in the Strip that could shatter any slim consensus such a coalition would have.
It could possibly stymie any policy and/or military action, inevitably breaking up such a coalition and sending Israel back to the ballot box.


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