Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin, a Netanyahu loyalist, stalled as long as he could in setting a date for the next government to be sworn in; the vote is now set for Sunday. He had been dragging his feet in order to give the losers more time to prevent formation of the new coalition. Their goal had been to peel away members of Prime Minister-designate Naftali Bennett’s right-religious party, Yamina, to prevent a majority vote.
Key to Netanyahu’s strategy is the bigotry card. He’s done it before. This time he’s railing against a coalition that for the first time ever includes Arab parties. A couple of elections back he warned his followers to hurry to the polls because the Arabs were voting in “droves.”
A frantic Netanyahu is trying to hang on by offering to share the job. In one version he suggested taking a year off from politics while someone else sits in the PM’s chair awaiting his reinstatement (sound familiar?). In another he offered a three-way rotation for the top job.
Shin Bet director Nadav Argaman warned that the violent rhetoric from the losing side – Likud and its ultra-religious partners – could spark an Israeli January 6 and a march on Knesset hill. Several figures of the new coalition and Knesset members have been provided extra security after Likud figures called for demonstrations outside their homes.
Bennett appealed to Netanyahu to leave with honor. Without mentioning the former American president’s bitter attempts to cling to power, Bennett said, “In a few days we will swear in a new government. It is not a catastrophe, nor is it a disaster. It is nothing but a change of government, as is normal in every democratic country. Israel is not a monarchy; no one has a monopoly on who will rule,” Al-Monitor.com reported.
Gideon Sa’ar, head of the New Hope Party and part of the incoming coalition, accused Netanyahu’s supporters of putting pressure on Knesset members and their families to block approval of the new government, calling their efforts “a desire to hold on to power at all costs.”
That was after Likud Knesset member May Golan compared Bennett and Sa’ar to “suicide bombers.”
Netanyahu is a secular Jew, but he has made alliances with religious extremists in both Israel and America. Both he and Trump have even had the chutzpah to question their opponents’ belief in God.
ONE OF THE bitterest condemnations of the new government came not from an Israeli but a former Trump adviser, Mike Evans, an American Evangelical leader. Claiming to speak for his 77 million followers, he accused Bennett and his allies of trying to “crucify” his friend Netanyahu.
He wrote to Bennett, “You’re a pathetic, bitter little man so obsessed on murdering Netanyahu that you’re willing to damage the State of Israel for your worthless cause.” He said the new government would lose all support from the US Evangelical community.
“I will use every bit of my energy and power to destroy them before they destroy the nation,” Evans wrote, and that God had chosen Netanyahu, not “any of these fools.”
The new coalition runs gamut from Right to Left, unlike Netanyahu’s, whose spectrum goes from far Right to extreme Right.
Netanyahu has rejected any accusations of incitement and accused the Bennett-Lapid coalition of “the greatest election fraud... in the history of any democracy,” Reuters reported. Bennett responded by calling on him to accept the decision of voters and “to let go and allow Israel to move forward” and not leave a “scorched earth.”
Michael Malkieli, a member of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party and a Netanyahu supporter, has vowed to play the obstructor-in-chief role in the next Israeli government that Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, carved out for himself in the Obama and Biden presidencies. “We will make life miserable for the government,” he vowed, in the words of the Arutz 7 headline.
Another haredi leader, Moshe Gafni, head of the United Torah Judaism Party, declared, “There will be war here against this evil one [Bennett].” He called on the religious-Zionist public to “reject, boycott and excommunicate these people [Bennett’s followers] from your midst.”
Taking another page from Trump’s playbook, Netanyahu has accused his opposition of conspiring with the “deep state.”
Like Trump, Netanyahu has an older son who plays daddy’s social media attack dog. Yair Netanyahu has just been temporarily suspended from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for rants against his father’s critics, and calling for demonstrations targeting a Knesset member. He denounced the social network platforms as “Bolsheviks” and “big tech, deep state.” He has a history of lawsuits and legal threats for his incendiary attacks on numerous platforms.
Netanyahu won’t be out on the street if he loses his lease on government housing. He is not an avid golfer like Trump, but he may invite the former president to visit since “right next to my home in Caesarea in Israel is a terrific golf course.” He’s not in Trump’s income category (Trump may not be either, at least not as rich as he brags), but the Israeli leader owns a $6 million villa in Caesarea, a $3 million penthouse in Jerusalem, and a third place in Jerusalem he inherited, according to YNET.
Once out of office he will be focusing intensely on regaining power and dominating his party, but the first priority for both men is staying out of prison. Trump is under investigation in New York and Georgia, and deluged with subpoenas, according to one of his sons. Netanyahu is already on trial for fraud, bribery and breach of trust.
Politics and policy aside, the new Israeli government, if and when it gets sworn in, will immediately enjoy better relations with the Biden administration for one simple reason – because it genuinely wants to.