And crises there will be. Just this coming week, it will have to manage a planned flag march in Jerusalem and decide on what to do with the illegal outpost of Evyatar.
Other issues will definitely come up fairly quickly. The opposition – the Likud, Religious Zionist Party and the Haredi factions – will test it all the time. Wednesdays in the Knesset – the day on which legislation is traditionally voted – will become a regular battlefield between the opposition trying to embarrass the new government, and the new government trying to hold its ranks.
But all of that will be background noise if the new government, led by Bennett in partnership with Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid, wants it to be, and if they can keep their eyes focused on the main goal – stabilizing Israel.
The new government should ignore the attacks from the opposition (it won’t be easy) and focus on what brought its different parts together from the Left, the Right and the Center: stabilizing the nation after nearly three years of political upheaval and mudslinging.
It can pass a two-year budget, provide ministries with the tools they need to work and do everything it can to create quiet in the country. People want to stop reading about politics all day in the newspapers and on websites or watch the latest shouting match from a Knesset committee hearing on the evening news.
This government won’t be able to control what the Likud Party does, but it can stay out of the fray and let outgoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s backbencher allies yell on their own without a sparring partner.
This new government, because of what it consists of, has the opportunity to show Israelis a different kind of politics and way of governing. It can show how MKs from the Right and the Left can get together to promote issues and policies that benefit all Israelis no matter their ideology, religion or political leanings. The partnership with the Islamist Ra’am (United Arab List) Party provides the opportunity – needed so desperately after the recent mixed city riots – to show how Jews and Arabs can work together in Israel.
Ra’am’s participation in the government is a manifestation of what Zionism was intended to be – a return to the land of Israel and the establishment of an independent Jewish state while safeguarding the rights of the Arab minority who also live here. Every country has challenges incorporating and integrating minorities. For Israel, this could be an historic turning point.
Looking outward, this new government has the chance to reset Israel’s relations with the United States and Europe. For too long, Israel appeared like a branch of the Republican Party in the Middle East, weakening bipartisan ties in Washington and relations with the Democratic Party. In Europe, Israel is constantly under attack, allying as a result with nationalist leaders from places like Poland or Hungary.
The challenge is great and won’t be solved just because Israel has a new prime minister or alternate prime minister in Jerusalem. But that will give it some points and a clean slate. The world will be watching and the inclusion of Ra’am in the government will give it some leverage unlike previous Israeli governments. It will be hard, for example, for members of the so-called “Squad” in Congress to call Israel an apartheid state when Mansour Abbas, Mazen Ghanaim, Waleed Taha and Saeed Alharomi are members of the governing coalition.
We know that none of this will be easy and such an ideologically split government will be hard to manage. But, we hope it will succeed.
Israelis need a new beginning and a government that works for the people, without letting personal interests – court cases, police investigations or individual political survival – get in the way.
Good luck, Bennett and Lapid. You will need it.