Yamina and its partner Sa’ar represent the classic worldview of the Herut movement from 50 years ago.
They believe that the State of Israel should extend from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. This is almost Greater Israel that Menachem Begin dreamed about and longed for. Decades after Begin realized that this dream was not meant to come true, because it may endanger the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, these two leaders are doing everything they can to maintain the possibility and the hope to build the future of the State of Israel in the land that is inhabited by 7.5 million Jews, as well as a similar number of Arab-Palestinians.
Apparently, Bennett and Sa’ar’s allegiance to the so-called “greater” Israel can’t undermine their belief that the State of Israel should be a tolerant state, based on a democratic worldview, on equal rights between all its citizens, Jews and non-Jews. How they’ll succeed in sustaining the country based on such a deep internal contradiction, we’ll wait and see. In the meantime, they’re looking to form a government that’s supported by parties that have significant gaps among them.
On the extreme Right is Bennett and Sa’ar and their friends, and on the other extreme is the Muslim Ra’am, led by Mansour Abbas, and next to him is Meretz, and to the Right is the Labor Party, led by Merav Michaeli.
In between the two sides are Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu and Benny Gantz’s Blue and White.
How do you form a government like this that is supposed to correct a significant part of the distortions created by the Likud government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu?
This can only be done if they decide to distance themselves from the behavioral patterns and tricks used by the government that they want to replace.
I feel the need to warn of the possibility that Bennett and Sa’ar are already up to the old political tricks, which is worrying and a cause for concern, in case they haven’t learned anything from the difficult experience they and the entire State of Israel have been through in recent years inspired by the same government, which must be replaced.
Indeed, the move by the parties now identified as the “change” bloc is no easy step. Bennett and Sa’ar need to detach themselves from their parent parties, and most importantly, connect to the parties that were the subjects of attacks, harassment and incitement by the political bodies from which Sa’ar and Bennett came. It is a step that requires courage and valor.
When the two parties put together (12 MKs) join another 45-46 other Knesset members, and request that the government be equal, this is an exaggerated expectation that’s unparalleled. There may be no avoiding it, given the huge gaps and constraints involved in establishing it. But, when 12 MKs expect to get between six to eight ministers in the government, this is already a perversion that indicates a course of direction that could lead to a quick crash.
We often hear these days about the pressures being exerted on the leaders of Yamina and New Hope. There is no doubt that Netanyahu’s gang won’t spare any measures that will lead to the downfall of Yamina and New Hope. Anyone who’s been following Netanyahu’s political moves should have expected that he wouldn’t give up carrying out any move, corrupt, unusual, delusional or despicable, so as not to let go of the reins of power and to continue holding on to Balfour Fortress, where he and his family have lived for almost a generation.
THERE IS no doubt that the pressure Netanyahu and his people are exerting is unpleasant, not to mention vile and disgusting. It is not easy to deal with them. It’s hard to resist them. It’s a walk on a thin tightrope - and there is no guarantee that this walk will succeed.
This is exactly the moment when the quality and maturity of Bennett, Sa’ar and the other partners who join them to be national leaders will be measured.
These pressures are nothing compared to the pressures they will face when they have to bear the burden of leading the country. They don’t yet know the intensity of the pressures and constraints that a prime minister has to deal with. Some of them have been ministers. Some successfully. There is no resemblance of the pressures a minister faces in comparison to when the ultimate responsibility for state affairs is in the hands of someone else who holds the final authority. Everything that Bennett, Sa’ar, Lapid, Gantz and Liberman know is nothing like what they will have to deal with when they are the government and they make decisions that no one else will thwart or stop.
This difficult first test they’re dealing with now is just the beginning. Really just the first step. I’m concerned that already now they’re shaking. One is afraid of his party members who may abandon him, another fears that those who joined him when he founded his party will not be satisfied and that their bitterness could harm the stability of the government.
The solutions they are trying to adopt are neither appropriate nor practical. I believe that the new bloc must adhere to the traditional position of Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid. The new government must include no more than 18 ministers, including the prime minister.
Bennett and Sa’ar must use all their leadership power and persuasiveness toward their friends to bring them back to reality. They will not be able to form a government in which they have control over all the senior government ministries, which will set the priorities of the State of Israel, as if the public’s trust, or at least most of it, was given to them exclusively, and that Labor and Meretz don’t count at all.
True, the attempt to form this government, to connect all sides together, to seat around one table both the dreamers of a Greater Israel and those who wish to divide it, to connect religious people who support the rule of the traditional religious Orthodoxy, and those who demand a complete overhaul of religion and state requires extraordinary and unprecedented skill. Some of those involved have in the past tried maneuvers that have required such skills. It is possible, when we lower expectations and tone down the desire for accolades and positions of power, and divide them in a way that declares in advance that this is a government of low expectations but of high decency and especially modesty, which seems to have almost completely disappeared from our public life. You don’t eliminate excessive and unbridled lust for positions of power by creating new positions that are just like that.
Bennett, Sa’ar, Lapid and the other partners must now demonstrate the power to do these things. Whoever of their friends is not willing to join such an ensemble – reserved, humble, small, one that is fundamentally different from what we have experienced in recent years – let him return to Bibi Netanyahu’s “warm” fold.
If we are doomed to form a government based on uncontrollable desires, with a number of ministers almost as large as the number of Knesset members who support the government, we had better go to a fifth round of elections.
Another election is a despicable option. Every effort should be made to avoid it, at almost any cost. Not at any cost.