Neftali Bennet was sworn in as Israel’s 13th Prime Minister in Israel’s 36th Knesset, the first Prime Minister from a religious party, putting an end to Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-year rule. This will be the first ever coalition to include an Arab political party and the first since 2013 not to include representatives of the ultra-Orthodox parties
Naftali Bennett as an officer in the elite Maglan reconnaissance unit in the 1990s,
Patrick Henry said, in 1767 “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party,” the epithet later mongrelized to “aid of their country,” is exactly what the Israeli ‘change government’ leaders and members did. US President John F. Kennedy said, “Do not ask what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country,” And that’s what the ‘new government did, as well. (CORRECTION: The quote has often been attributed to Patrick Henry but there is no evidence he ever made that famous statement. Rather, the statement was used in an 1867 typing exercise, and has been used ever since.)
After 12 years of the rule by Israel’s outgoing Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, a rule longer even than the legendary leader David Ben Gurion, a new government, and according to pundits, a new approach to Netanyahu’s style of governing will be taken. One observer said, “No longer will this be what can the government do for me, as Bibi looked at his role of head of state, but what the new leaders can do for the country.”
This new government is made up of 8 different parties cobbled together to form a razor-thin 61 seat majority in the 120 seat Knesset. But when the vote was finally counted the tally was only 60 seats for the new government and 59 for Netanyahu’s Likud.
Up until the vote, Netanyahu had been working tirelessly to pry MKs away from the coalition. He managed to pry away one from Bennet’s party, Amichai Chikli, reducing the seven seats to six in the ‘change government’ coalition. Last minute crises kept the audience on edge during the vote. Said al Harumi, one of the Israeli Arab members of the coalition from the Raam party, demanded the cancellation of a coalition agreement that would enforce a decision to destroy illegal buildings in the Bedouin towns in the Negev. The Arab Israeli said he represented that Bedouin population and couldn’t agree to vote for the government unless that item was dropped from the coalition agreement. Reportedly Netanyahu has offered al-Harumi perks should he leave Raam and vote with Likud. When it came time for the vote, al Harumi was absent.
MK Eli Avidar from the Yisrael Beytenu party said he’d vote with the party for the new government in the Knesset but will no longer be bound to the party after the coalition is installed. MK Eli Avidar was reportedly upset that he was not given a ministerial post.
For the first time in Israel’s history, an Israeli Arab party, Raam, led by the far-sighted leader Mansour Abbas, is part of the government with seats in important Knesset committees. The Israeli Arab population makes up about twenty-percent of the Israeli population. Now, according to pundits, they will finally have a voice and some influence to bring significant government financial support to their population.
A forest fire adjacent to highway one leading from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem near Mevaseret Zion halted traffic slowing the arrival of some members of knesset but who managed to find their way through the police blockades and arrive at the Knesset for the swearing in of the new government. One Knesset member who was hospitalized was brought to the vote on a stretcher and after the vote taken back to the hospital.
Prior to the vote Prime Minister designate Neftali Bennet gave a very reasoned and practical speech that began by paying tribute to Netanyahu his accomplishments as Prime Minister.
However, Bennet’s speech was constantly interrupted by hecklers shouting insults and epithets, calls of “liar” were a constant refrain so much so that Bennet could hardly get out two sentences before having to pause while the Speaker of the Knesset, a Likud appointee, called various Knesset members to order. Ultra-nationalist Itamar Ben Gvir was one of the half-dozen Knesset members ejected from the hall when he held up a poster depicting Bennet as a traitor to the right-wing cause.
However, when Bennet’s speech was followed by Netanyahu’s speech, the clearly orchestrated raucous behavior of his Likud faction and supporters was not copied by the Bennet/Lapid ‘new government’ coalition. Netanyahu was able to speak nearly unhindered as he lambasted Bennet for heading a dangerous “leftist” government. Netanyahu made it clear he would be leading an active opposition to the Bennet lead government. Netanyahu barely acknowledged Bennet, even after the vote, and paused on the way to his seat for a very brief handshake. It is not yet clear when Netanyahu will vacate the Prime Minister’s residence. Nor if Netanyahu will appear in his office to hand over the premiership to Bennet. Behavior aping that of former president Trump.
According to Kan TV’s political commentator Yoram Dekel, Netanyahu’s vitriolic speech did more to cement the coalition against him than to drive them apart. Netanyahu ended his speech with a page out of General Douglas MacArthur’s play book when fleeing the Philippines during WWII. “I’ll be back,” said Netanyahu, after reminding the hall, and his followers that he’d been in the opposition twice before and returned to win the premiership. “And soon,” he added before leaving the podium.
Dekel and other commentators thought that the behavior of the Likud MKs and their supporters in the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) and other parties was a disgrace.
The vote, when it came, was a nail-biter, squeaking through with a narrow one-seat margin. “This government will have trouble passing any legislation,” observed one of the political commentators, since 61 votes, a bare majority, is needed to pass any bills.
Observers believe that the new government will focus on domestic issues and avoid any hot potatoes.
One of the first and most important things the new government must do is pass a state budget. No budget has been passed over the last two years while the marathon of elections took place. This resulted in shortages in funding across the board including hospitals. Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem has reported that because of lack of funds even basics like protective gloves for their professional medical staff are in short supply.
The sweep of the new coalition starts on the far left with the Meretz party, lead by Nitzan Horowitz, and Labor’sTamar Zandberg, and reaches all the way to the right with the Yisrael Beitenu party headed by Avigdor Leiberman. This includes the Israeli Arab Raam party, the first Arab party ever to sit in an Israeli government. What is also historic is that the 13th Prime Minister of Israel is from a right-wing party that only garnered 7 seats in the last election. The glue that binds all these parties and their members together was the goal to oust Netanyahu from his job.
From left around the table, Leiberman, Lapid, Bennet, Abbas, Michaeli, Gantz, Horovitz
Observers say that many of those in the coalition had been insulted, shunted aside, ignored, or humiliated by Netanyahu when they were in any sort of political relationship with him. Only recently, in the third election in two years, did Netanyahu coax Blue and White party leader Beni Gantz to form an alliance, based on a rotation agreement that would put Netanyahu first as PM and Gantz second. No sooner had the ink dried had Netanyahu begun to undermine Gantz and renege on the agreement.
While this drama played out the subplot was Netanyahu’s trial on three felonies that was being conducted in a Jerusalem court. Like watching a TV show, said one observer, with three stories going on, interwoven to keep the viewers interest. Here was Netanyahu as PM, Netanyahu as a defendant, Netanyahu as the politician trying to keep a hold on his party.
On the PM front, said one observer, Netanyahu deserves credit for enticing Pfizer to supply Israel with enough vaccines to essentially immunize the population and defeat the C-19 virus pandemic. On the defendant front, Netanyahu’s lawyers managed to a number of postponements using various ploys, and recently to get the court to agree to delve into the phones and emails of a key witness to a bribery charge, in hopes of negating his scathing testimony.
On the political front Netanyahu sent his thugs and supporters to intimidate those who were trying to unseat him and form a coalition, protesting in front of their homes, and even sending anonymous death threats. But Netanyahu lost this important political struggle, the one that would have kept him out of court three times a week because he was a busy Prime Minister. The leader of the opposition has no such immunity.
But another part of the story is who unseated Netanyahu. Netanyahu’s critics are happy to see him go claiming he’d turned the PM’s position into an autocracy bordering on a dictatorship. No one sneezed in the government, or in his Likud party, without Netanyahu’s permission, they said. These critics point out that Netanyahu tried in four elections to win a majority and failed each time, even with the claims of bringing in the Pfizer vaccine to quell the C-19 virus, or making peace with four Arab countries.
The country, said Netanyahu’s critics, had grown fed up with Netanyahu’s antics, and those of his wife Sarah, according to some a bit of a psychopath, and her son Yair, who used social media to used to incite Netanyahu’s followers and lash Netanyahu’s rivals frequently with ‘fake news’
Observers say that the new coalition has a few heroes. Raam’s Mansour Abbas, for having the courage to join an Israeli government against the cries of fellow Israeli Arabs, and West Bank Palestinians, that he was a turn-coat. Abbas, say observers, saw that the benefits of being part of a government and thus getting a piece of the pie for his constituency far outweighed being an outsider trying to get crumbs.
Yesh Atids Yair Lapid, a former journalist turned politician, who had served as Finance Minister in a previous Netanyahu government, garnered nearly as many seats as Netanyahu’s Likud in the last election. To his credit, Lapid cobbled together this wild coalition to unseat Netanyahu.
Another hero is Gideon Saar of the New Hope party with 7 seats. He agreed to allow Bennet to be the first PM in a rotation, followed by Lapid. Commentators say that Saar’s main goal was to unseat Netanyahu and was willing to tuck his ego into his pocket and wait for another day to become Prime Minister. Saar, once a shining star in the Likud, was dissed and insulted by Netanyahu until Saar left the Likud in a huff and started his own party.
Another refugee from the Likud was Zeev Elkin who was also insulted and ignored by Netanyahu until he felt he had to flee the Likud and sign on with Saar’s new party. Most commentators said that the success of the ‘change government’ was caused more by Netanyahu and his treatment of his colleagues than the machinations of Lapid and his coalition partners.
But one of the original hold-outs who was critical to the formation of Lapid’s ‘change government’ coalition was the right-wing Yamina party’s Neftali Bennet, who won 7 seats in the last election Bennet, a former commando in the elite Sayeret HaMatkal commando unit, where Netanyahu also served, a hi-tech millionaire turned politician, who served as Netanyahu’s chief-of-staff and also as Defense Minister under Netanyahu, and who has sold two hi-tech companies totaling over $200 million. . (Ed Note: According to Globes, the Israeli financial newspaper/website, Bennet reaped approximately $15 million from the sale of those companies, but is now involved in a company worth nearly half-a-billion dollars.)
Bennet became the lynchpin of the ‘change government.’ Without his seven seats Lapid could not form a coalition and replace Netanyahu. Bennet, who once headed a reiteration of the old National Religious Party was born in Haifa in 1972 to American immigrants, activists in the free speech movement in Berkely California. Bennet said he’d join the coalition only if he were allowed to be Prime Minister in a rotation agreement with Lapid. And be the first in the rotation.
Lapid, to his credit, agreed. “He did what was right for the country not for himself,” said one pundit. However, some analysts give little hope of this new government lasting very long, especially with Netanyahu nipping at the ‘change governments’ heels.
Others say the government will last at least a year, if not longer, but only if they succeed in passing a state budget. Still other say the government won’t last long enough for Lapid to take over as PM in a rotation. Something that Lapid certainly realizes, said the pundits. Especially with Netanyahu in the Knesset, trying at every turn to dismantle the coalition and return to power.
There are difficulties in Netanyahu's path, though. Cracks have appeared in the Likud with names like former Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barakat, former Finance Minister Yisrael Katz and even former Mossad head Yossi Cohen, being tossed out as replacements for Netanyahu, who has not been able to win any of the four recent elections.
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Speaking as if the new government was an altruistic venture, according to Ynetnews, “Both he(Bennet) and Lapid have said they want to bridge political divides and unite Israelis under a government that will work hard for all its citizens.
Their cabinet faces considerable diplomatic, security and financial challenges: Iran, a fragile ceasefire with Palestinian militants in Gaza, a war crimes probe by the International Criminal Court, and economic recovery following the coronavirus pandemic. However, observers believe that the new government will focus on domestic issues and avoid any political hot potatoes.
But, according to Ynetnews.com, one hot potato, Eviatar, an illegal West Bank outpost named after a young settler killed by terrorists, could be first real test for new government. Eviatar has acquired 50 families as residents since its establishment last month and has been a source of friction with nearby Palestinian communities; Netanyahu critics accused outgoing PM of deliberately leaving the issue of Eviatar for his replacement.
When Eviatar was first constructed, riots broke out in nearby Palestinian villages. Clashes with the Israeli security forces resulted in the death of one Palestinian youth. Defense Minister Gantz had reportedly opposed the settlement and had ordered a halt to all construction at the outpost, an order which Netanyahu ignored.
"The very establishment of the (Eviatar) outpost is an illegal move of exceptional scope,” read a letter sent by the Defense Ministry to the Prime Minister's Office on Gantz's behalf. “It is the exceptional circumstances of the case that led to the decision to issue the order, after consultation with all the relevant security and legal factors," the letter said.
Bennet, whose support also comes from the settler community, will be hard put to remove the settlers. Previously, settlements went up with hastily assembled tents. Eviatar started putting up brick buildings. Yossi Daga, head of the Samaria Regional Council, essentially a settler’s organization, said that “What is happening here is an attempt by the government to uproot a settlement established on uncontested land at a strategic point. If there is one righteous Zionist act that the Israeli government should adopt, it is Eviatar.” Dagan added, “To anyone talking about legality, I would like to point out that there are 80 illegal houses built by Arabs around Eviatar as part of their efforts to control Area C.”
Area C is under Israeli civil and security control and the ownership of the land has not yet been determined. Evacuation proceedings have already been approved by the outgoing government but not carried out.
In any case,, it appears that the ‘change government’ is aimed at righting what they feel are wrongs done over Netanyahu’s 12-year reign. With an unlikely coalition of parties, it seems at last that those out for the country have ousted those out for themselves. Perhaps, at last, there are good men and women who are coming to the aid of their country. That’s if, said one pundit, if those who have been running the country for the last dozen years will take a breather and let new ideas and new leadership have a chance.
