JERUSALEM — An unprecedented coalition of Israeli parties — including an Arab party for the first time — told Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin June 2 that it could form a narrow goverment of 61 out of 120 seats in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. The coalition is not finalized until the Knesset approves it.
L-r: Yair Lapid, Naftali Bennett (Oren Ben Hakoon/AFP/Getty Images)
Also on June 2, Israel elected a new president, Isaac Herzog, to replace Rivlin, whose seven-year term ends in July.
The animating force behind the eight-party coalition is the desire to out Benjamin Netanyahu from power.
For the past 12 years, Netanyahu, as Israel’s longest-serving leader, has become nearly synonymous with Israel — shaping its foreign and domestic policy as well as its international image, and guiding its relationship with the US.
But over the past two years he has become so polarizing that a range of ideological allies turned against him.
He will be replaced initially by Naftali Bennett.
Background
Israel has been trying and failing to elect a stable government for more than two years.
Netanyahu seemed to have won Israel’s 2019 election, but his former partners deserted him and he couldn’t form a coalition. So Israel held another election. Then it held another. Then yet another. Each time, neither Netanyahu nor his opponents gained a majority.
There was an interlude where the rivals came together to form a coalition to address the pandemic, but that fell apart.
This time around, had Netanyahu’s opponents not been able to team up, Israel would have held a fifth election. Almost no one wanted that, so Netanyahu’s rivals put aside their vast differences to form a coalition with one goal: to get rid of him.
The incoming coalition is a testament to how much Israeli politics has become about Netanyahu himself. Three of the parties in the incoming government largely agree with Netanyahu on policy. But they dislike him so much that they’d rather team up with the Israeli left than give him another term.
For more than a decade, Netan-yahu’s personality and politics have dominated Israel. No longer.
This is the first coalition with an Arab-Israeli party
There have been many left-right coalitions in Israel before. But to reach a majority of Israel’s 120-seat parliament, the Knesset, the anti-Netanyahu alliance is doing something unprecedented in Israeli history: It is inviting an independent Arab-Israeli party to join the governing coalition.
Although Arabs make up 20% of Israel’s citizenry, Israel’s largest political parties, on both the left and right, didn’t see Arab parties as political partners in a Jewish state. Likewise, Arab parties did not want to grant legitimacy to Jewish governments. The policy differences between Jewish and Arab parties were usually vast.
But seven decades after Israel was founded, things have changed. Arab leaders have been more vocal about demanding a say in the way their country is governed, and more willing to see themselves as part of Israel.
Faced with the prospect of losing power last year, Netanyahu said he’d be willing to partner with Raam, an Islamist Arab party. That legitimized the idea of including Arabs in Israeli coalitions, and now, Raam is set to join Netanyahu’s rivals, giving them the slimmest of majorities.
Arabs have almost always been represented in Israel’s parliament. But now, for the first time ever, an Arab party will have an active say in Israel’s government.
Narrow — and unwieldy — coalition of right and left
The coalition is unified on the goal of ousting Netanyahu, but it’s divided on pretty much everything else. It will contain eight political parties, an unusually large number even in Israel’s tumultuous politics.
It will have the smallest possible majority in parliament, so to get anything done, every single member will have to agree.
To reconcile the different factions, the coalition will have two prime ministers: Naftali Bennett, who heads the right-wing Yamina party, will serve for two years-plus. Then Yair Lapid, the leader of the Yesh Atid party, will take over for about the same amount of time.
Both of them head historically small parties. Yesh Atid only has 17 seats (as opposed to the 30 held by Netanyahu’s Likud party). Yamina will have a paltry six seats.
It’s unclear how long the new government coalition will last.
Previous ones that were more ideologically coherent have fallen apart quickly.
Naftali Bennett, first religious Zionist to lead Israel
No matter how long he serves, Naftali Bennett will earn the distinction of being the politician who replaced Netanyahu. He’s a staunch right-winger, often further to the right than Netanyahu, who opposes Palestinian statehood, supports West Bank settlement expansion and has vowed to pursue a hawkish defense policy.
He will also be the first religious Israeli prime minister. Netanyahu has become a reliable ally of the haredi, or fervently Orthodox, parties, but personally he is secular.
Bennett identifies as Orthodox and wears a kippah. His ascent is a sign of the growth, and growing influence, of religious Zionists in a state founded by secular Jewish socialists.
Bennett will also be the first Israeli prime minister born of American parents. Like Netanyahu, he speaks fluent, basically natural English.
Recent war and the coalition
Before fighting broke out between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, the same coalition appeared to be coming together. But the conflict in Gaza, and interethnic clashes in Israel, threatened to derail it.
Party leaders did not negotiate as rockets were flying. Mansour Abbas, the leader of the Raam party, froze talks with Lapid.
Bennett said that he would no longer partner with the alliance of Netanyahu opponents.
Then, soon after the sides reached a ceasefire, everyone seemed to return to where they had been before the fighting started. Bennett wrote a long Facebook post bashing Netanyahu. Mansour Abbas renewed negotiations. Lapid began signing coalition agreements with other parties.
It may be that the fighting, after almost stopping this coalition in its tracks, ended up giving it even greater urgency.
No haredi parties. Mostly Ashkenazi and male.
Like every prime minister not named Golda Meir, the next leader of Israel will be an Ashkenazi Jewish man. In certain ways, the government will be less diverse than previous ones. Although it will include an unprecedented number of parties, all but one of those parties is led by a man.
None of the parties are led by Mizrahi Jews, or Jews of Middle Eastern descent.
None of the parties are haredi, after six years in which haredi parties were given control of Israel’s religious affairs.
This government could change Israel’s religious policies, perhaps by reducing funding to haredi institutions, or requiring haredi men to enter Israel’s mandatory military draft, or liberalizing Israel’s Jewish conversion and marriage systems, which are controlled by the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate.
On the other hand, the coalition is so narrow and fragmented that it may be hard to pass any major legislation.
No big moves on Israeli-Palestinian peace
Don’t expect this to be the government that makes peace with the Palestinians. Bennett opposes Palestinian statehood, as do other members of the coalition.
However, the left-wing and Arab parties will likely block any attempt to annex parts of the West Bank.
Other governments have come in with policy platforms or an ideological program. Because this one came together to oust Netanyahu and end a political crisis, it will have accomplished its goal the moment it gets sworn in. What happens next is anyone’s guess.
