Israel was at the peak of two crises in 2020. One of them came from outside the Jewish state, and this is COVID-19. The second one has been developing in the political system since April 9, 2019. Then the country held elections, as a result of which Acting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was unable to form a government and achieved the dissolution of the Knesset (parliament).
After the failed April vote, the Jewish state held its first repeat parliamentary elections. They took place on September 17, but again did not change the balance of power in the unicameral parliament. Netanyahu, followed by his main opponent, Beni Ganz, the leader of the Cahol Lavan Centrist Bloc, could not form a government coalition within 28 days, and the country went to the second repeat parliamentary elections on March 2.
Formally, both crises came from 2019, which is eloquently illustrated by both the figure in the name of the disease and the date of the first of the three electoral cycles that Israel has gone through in 12 months. However, their peaks coincided just in the middle of March. As of March 17, the number of detected cases of infection with new coronavirus in Israel exceeded 320, the condition of four patients is assessed as serious, 11 recovered, no lethal cases were registered.
At the same time, on the political track, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin did not appoint Netanyahu, but Ganz was the first to try to form a government. Against the background of the virus situation, the authorities restricted the maximum number of participants to ten people and actually closed down to 80% of the public sector and 2/3 of the private sector, sending workers on vacation or to work remotely from home.
Coalition narrow and wide
In the 23rd Knesset, Netanyahu’s Likud party won the most seats (36) in the March 2 election results, but the coalition formation went to Ganz, whose bloc received three less seats, but whose candidacy was recommended to the President during consultations last Sunday by 61 out of 120 members of the unicameral parliament.
Ganz now has 28 days to try to put together a government coalition from what he has. The fact is that his candidacy at the consultations was supported by the “United List” of Arab parties, which has 15 seats in unicameral parliament. But not all of the members of this bloc from Arab minority parties and associations agree to join the government headed by Ganz, the former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces. Accordingly, this option will give him a narrow coalition of 46 deputies with extra-coalition support of another 15 parliamentarians. And all this together – only 61 votes out of 120, that is, a highly unstable government in a period of undoubtedly very turbulence.
Moreover, it is unknown how the leader of “Our Home is Israel” party Avigdor Lieberman, who this time has seven seats in parliament, will behave in the future. Earlier he stated that he would not be part of a coalition supported by Arab deputies under any circumstances, but he supported Ganz’s candidacy in consultations with the president. Almost the entire Israeli press calls the option of creating a cabinet through a narrow coalition extremely unlikely.
The second option, which is actively advocated by President Rivlin, is the establishment of an emergency broad coalition whose main task will be to counter the Coronavirus pandemic. Netanyahu also proposed a similar option to Ganzu, pointing out that he was ready to discuss the formation of an emergency government under his own leadership for six months or rotation in two years at the head of the Unity Cabinet, but first in line for the premiership again – the head of Likud. In response, the Cahol Lavan bloc complained that the party did not receive the proposal directly, and Netanyahu made these statements only through the media.
At the same time, according to the newspaper “Jerusalem Post”, representatives of Ganz and Netanyahu held a closed meeting before Rivlin instructed the leader of the centrists to form a coalition on March 16. And it was the fact that the meeting was held in an atmosphere of secrecy and without press reports that gave rise to a certain optimism, as all previous rounds of negotiations between the two leading political forces of the country after the elections on April 9 and September 17 did not move the parties’ negotiating positions from the deadlock.
However, according to the newspaper, the three parties that belong to the right-wing bloc, together with Likud, have already rejected Cahol Lavan’s proposals for coalition negotiations, saying that they have a united front with Netanyahu’s party.
Cracked Israel
According to the Yediot Ahronot newspaper, Netanyahu and Ganz shook hands with each other for the last time after the elections on 17 September, when President Rivlin hosted them at his office and asked that everything be done to avoid a third consecutive election, hinting at the need for a national unity cabinet. Again, according to the newspaper, the situation is that “Ganz, despite the support of 61 deputies, is unlikely to be able to form a government, and Netanyahu, despite the loyalty of his bloc, is again unable to do so.
Once Ganz has been instructed by the President to form a government, the two main Israeli political forces – Likud and Cahol Lavan – should again try to reach an agreement. By the way, Lieberman has already stated that he will support only a coalition consisting of only representatives of these two forces. This complicates the task for Netanyahu, as in this case he will have to give up support for the right-wing religious bloc, which for the third consecutive elections almost without looking at the circumstances supports the acting Prime Minister.
Rivlin, when giving the mandate to form the Ganzu cabinet, noted that Israel was “split in two” and the proliferation of coronavirus makes unity necessary. It is unity that should be the way out of political crisis for Israel, which will help overcome the crisis with COVID-19, he said. Will Ganz and Netanyahu be the only ones who can achieve this unity by putting aside the contradiction? The only thing that is clear is that, as Yediot Ahronot notes, this time they will not shake hands with each other, as the coronavirus has freed them from this need.
According to the law, if Ganz can not cope with the formation of a coalition in the four weeks given to him, as early as April 13 the right to a similar attempt for 28 days will pass to Netanyahu. The Acting Prime Minister is an experienced politician who has come out of the water more than once and once was even able to create a cabinet, having received a second attempt to form it, as he did not win the election. But this time, it seems that the only available path to government is an alliance with Cahol Lavan.
At the same time, almost immediately after the Knesset swore in on March 16, the centralists submitted three bills against the Prime Minister to Parliament – on limiting the term of the Prime Minister, on banning the formation of the government by the politician who is charged, and on the need to dismiss the head of the Cabinet if he is charged. This may serve as a clear indication that the coalition negotiations will not be easy, Yediot Ahronot notes.
As you know, November 21, 2019 Israeli Prosecutor General Avihai Mandelblit said that he decided to charge Netanyahu with bribery, fraud and abuse of public trust in three cases. The Acting Prime Minister himself had previously repeatedly denied all charges. However, the indictments were referred to the Jerusalem District Court on January 28, and the first hearing was scheduled to take place on March 17. However, it was postponed until 24 May, following the order of the Minister of Justice, Amir Ohana, all Israeli courts went into “emergency mode” on 15 March, in accordance with a Ministry of Health ban on meetings involving more than 10 people.
The hot spring of Israeli politics
The peaks of the two crises coincided, and Israel urgently needs a full office. The country has been living with an interim government for almost a year now. The stakes are high, the responsibility for failure will be serious. It is because of this that no one is now talking about the prospect of a fourth election, in this situation it seems unthinkable. But the 17 September elections were an unprecedented first repeat. Nevertheless, on 2 March, the unthinkable happened: new repeat elections were held.
“Yediot Ahronot notes that in the current situation Netanyahu may even benefit from sharing responsibility for the Coronavirus crisis with Ganz. Ganz did not decide on draconian measures to limit the spread of coronavirus, but his experience in politics is almost equal to the duration of the current electoral repetition loop. The Cahol Lavan bloc was formed just a few months before the first elections in 2019 on April 9.
Netanyahu has been in politics for over 30 years, the first time he was prime minister from 1996 to 1999, and now he has held the post of head of the Israeli Cabinet since 1999. The spring is likely to be hot on the Israeli political scene.