In Israel, a cabinet without Netanyahu seems in sight

Cabinet without Benjamin Netanyahu: It has become almost unimaginable for the Israelis after more than twelve years as uninterrupted prime minister of “Bibi”. Still, that option is getting closer this week. Two weeks ago, an alternative coalition seemed out of the question: opponents of Netanyahu halted negotiations when the rockets fell and the Palestinian and Jewish Israelis stole each other’s hair. However, right-wing party leader Naftali Bennett has now announced he will attend. The parties have until Wednesday to find out. Four questions on the continuation.

1 What are the chances of a government without Netanyahu?

The likelihood of a cabinet being formed without the outgoing Prime Minister is greater than at any time in the past 12 years. Yair Lapid, leader of the Yesh Atid center party, has until Wednesday evening to inform President Rivlin that he has a coalition. The parliament, the 120-member Knesset, must vote on it. It doesn’t appear to be a problem; Netanyahu and his supporters have 53 seats in the Knesset, the other bloc 61. The six members of the Palestinian-Israeli Joint List will not be part of the coalition, but should not block it by voting with Netanyahu’s Likud party.

2 What will the coalition look like?

This “government of unity” will not exactly be a model of harmony; the parties are ideologically distant from each other. The main point they agree on is that they have had enough Benjamin Netanyahu. The envisaged coalition will be a mixture of colors and political figures. The post of prime minister is shared by Naftali Bennett, leader of the right-wing Yamina party, and Yair Lapid, leader of the center Yesh Atid party. Bennett would become Prime Minister for the first two years despite his meager seven seats. Lapid has already made deals with the Meretz left, the secular right Yisrael Beytenu of Avigdor Lieberman and the Labor Party led by Merav Michaeli.

New Hope, the right-wing party of renegade Likud member Gideon Saar, and Blauw-Wit, the party of Benny Gantz who is still in government with Netanyahu, will also join the coalition. The Palestinian-Israeli Ra’am party will likely offer tolerance to the coalition in exchange for commitments to the Arab community.

Big absent from the coalition, with the exception of Likud of course, are the ultra-Orthodox parties which have been staunch partners of Netanyahu for years.

3 What are the implications for Benjamin Netanyahu and his party?

Netanyahu’s Likud Party is still the largest party in the Knesset. If Netanyahu joins the opposition, he could make things quite difficult for the new government. Right-wing parties have more in common with Likud than with their new political partners. In particular, members of Yamina, but also Gideon Saar and members of his party, are under strong pressure from Netanyahu not to “deny the right”. Netanyahu supporters demonstrate daily outside the homes of right-wing MPs; Shaken, Yamina’s number two, even got his own safety because of the many threats.

If the cabinet bursts in a few months, Netanyahu could still push for new elections. It would be the fifth time after Israel has gone to the polls four times in the past two years. The question is whether the members of his party still support him; Already within Likud, it is rumored that Netanyahu’s presence has prevented the formation of a right-wing coalition.

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The less attractive but increasingly similar scenario for the outgoing Prime Minister is that he will have to spend his hours mainly in court. There are three pending corruption cases against Netanyahu, which could go on for years.

4 When will we know for sure?

If Lapid announces a coalition on Wednesday, then he will have seven days to effectively strike a coalition deal and present his cabinet to the Knesset. In the meantime, Netanyahu will do everything in his power to disengage skeptical right-wing members of the coalition that has formed. One or two switches are enough to make it all collapse. And while Lapid does manage to keep his people together, the battle isn’t quite over. Some provisions of the coalition agreement, such as the plan that Bennett would lead the government without having the largest party, will be challenged by the opposition in the Supreme Court. If Israeli politics have learned one thing from Netanyahu, it is that anything can change until the last minute.

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