There’s a lot about this month’s election in Israel that is yet to be decided, as the polls indicating the number of Knesset seats the parties will win have fluctuated from day to day. However, the big question as far as the rest of the world is concerned—the identity of the country’s next prime minister—is the one thing that isn’t in any doubt. Current PM Benjamin Netanyahu is certain to form the next government of Israel with his Likud party having the most seats of any in the Knesset. But, in a stroke of irony made possible by Israel’s proportional election system, that is also Netanyahu’s biggest problem. Since there is no scenario in which he will not be the next prime minister, many Israelis who might otherwise be inclined to cast their ballot for Likud will instead vote for one of the smaller parties that will probably form part of Netanyahu’s coalition.
That means that rather than his own list taking more than a third of the 120 seats in the Knesset, his total may be considerably less than the 42 that Likud and Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu (which recently merged with Likud) won in the last election. That won’t stop Netanyahu from staying in office, but it could make his life miserable not only when putting together his next Cabinet but also over the course of the next few years, when he will be forced to cope with the growing strength of parties that are to his right on issues such as settlements and the theoretical terms of peace with the Palestinians.
Netanyahu had the same problem four years ago when he won his second term as prime minister. Rather than vote for the Likud, many on the right then gave their votes to Lieberman. This time around those voters are flocking to the new Habayit Yehudi Party of Naftali Bennett as well as to the even more strident Otzma Leyisrael.
Bennett, the son of American immigrants who went on to be a member of the same elite army unit that produced Netanyahu and outgoing Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and then made millions on an Internet company, served as the prime minister’s chief of staff during his last time in opposition before they quarreled. He provides Israel’s right with its first truly charismatic figure since Netanyahu’s emergence a generation ago and his party’s astonishing rise in the polls shows that his appeal is broader than the settler constituency that was thought to be its only source of support.
However, rather than being forced to really choose between Netanyahu or Bennett, Israeli right-wingers can pick the latter without any fear that their defections will result in a left-wing government.
Though the results of the numerous Israeli polls vary to some degree, they all show the various center-right and religious parties that make up Netanyahu’s current government gaining in the vicinity of 70 out of the 120 seats in the Knesset. The only question is what percentage of those will be won directly by Netanyahu rather than Bennett.
The smaller the number gained by Netanyahu’s allies the more likely that he will be able to give them more insignificant Cabinet posts or replace them altogether with centrist lists like the new party led by journalist Yair Lapid or even the one led by Tzipi Livni, an otherwise bitter foe of the prime minister but one whose differences with him are more a matter of posturing and rival ambitions than ideology.
However if, as some surveys now indicate, Bennett’s party becomes the third or even the second biggest party eclipsing Labor’s Shelly Yacimovich, who is likely to lead the opposition in the next Knesset, then Netanyahu’s options will be limited.
The reasons for Bennett’s rise are the same that has led Netanyahu to his preeminent position in his country’s politics. The Palestinians’ rejection of every peace feeler and embrace of violence and Hamas has created a new political reality in which the once predominant left has been marginalized. Though some Americans may wrongly see Netanyahu as an extremist, his views are now firmly in the center of the Israeli spectrum. Those to his right, such as Bennett, are merely slightly right of center rather than being viewed as beyond the pale. Though most Israelis do not share Bennett’s vision of West Bank settlement annexation, they see no reason to think about giving them away to the Palestinians in order to create another terrorist enclave like the one Hamas has in Gaza.
Netanyahu might prefer to govern without Bennett’s interference, but the same set of circumstances that will keep him firmly in office have made it likely that his former aide will be a major factor in Israeli politics for years to come.
in interview w/Haaretz Bennett explains that Area C (not just E-1) annexation would not require coercive separation of Palestinians beyond its boundaries because they would happily and freely whiz by on Area C's byways and highways side by side with Israel's Jews and conduct a happy life in autonomy taxing themselves and raising their families. n nthose of a certain age will remember these as original arguments for annexation advanced by the Gush for Judea and Samaria.. n nbut if Palestinians are going to be such peacable happy campers they would then be likely partners for a partition agreement to begin with–but, alas, they are not–hence suggestion for Area C annexation in the first place–not only natural right and history but their intransigence–but would barriers work? How does a legal fiat magically provide the means for its enforcement?Area C, extending beyond the security barrier to the east is presumably intended for intensive development–how does this work? What changes in Pali attitudes from the evening before to the day after? But this is Bennett's line–a geopolitical free lunch.
" it could make his life miserable not only when putting together his next Cabinet but also over the course of the next few years, when he will be forced to cope with the growing strength of parties that are to his right on issues such as settlements and the theoretical terms of peace with the Palestinians." n nJeez, Jonathan, you say that like it's a bad thing . . . . n nSome day, you will outgrow the party line and see our enemies for who they really are, not as we wish them to be. n n
MIchael- as another michael, i absolutely agree with you. Jonathan writes as if bennett and the right suffer from leprosy and should be avoided in polite company. I hope Jonathan and the other "moderate" Jews in the United States start to realize that the israelis will never again play the UN and oslo game. If Jonathan wqould look at the Likud's own list, he may recognize that it is heavily skewed towards the right-even more than bennett-and that ny so-called peace plan from the Administration or the Europeans is still born. bennett's party rise is only the symptom of a wider reality:Israel does not believe that peace can be achieved in the next hudnred years.
Peace process? That's what Bennett imagines for us. Peace peace peace, It's a lion and lambs beat-their-swords-into-pruning-hooks utopia of happy Arabs giving thumbs up to new Jewish neighborhoods from hilltop to hilltop. It isn't excessively reality based and either depends on Palestinians currently living outside Area C going along with expanded and exclusive Jewish development throughout most of Yesha or …. brute-force he pretends not to need.
are we talking about the same subject? Bennett is not advocating any peace process, as far as i know.
Please, read the links. He just skips to peace presto without all the messy process and conjures a world, literally, of happy tooting Arabs driving along Israeli highways and blowing kisses in today's PA controlled zones while Israel exclusively develops most of Yesha. For gosh sakes, the PA is demanding Jerusalem. They'll go along with this? And he doesn't say, ah, but we'll force them…he says, the Arabs will be happy. n nNo process but peace on demand. n nPlease please please, follow the links The money shot is probably the Israeli security condominium will be .. um, non voluntary. But he dosen't say this. n nReality is what stays what it is even though you'd like it to be something else. n n
I guess I'll have to go somewhere else to better understand Bennett's focus on a renewal of Zionism to counter Shas. I was reading Habayit Yehudi Party's website last night (needs an editor for the English! and a map!), and can see the broader appeal. n nYeah, even the Commentary pundits are trapped in the imaginary utopia where there are peaceful palestinians underneath every olive tree. awaiting the leaedrship they deserve.
K2K; that's nothing like Bennett's utopia of Yesha annexation without fallout.Miluim will be spending their reserve duty every year in Bennett's utopia chasing down kids heaving molotov cocktails at them.
I, for one, welcome Naftali Bennett’s participation in the elections. I hope he gains as many seats as he is entitled to. Israel must not make any more stupid ridiculous one sided concessions in return for terrorism. Bennett can play a constructive role in helping Netanyahu set a new course. Netanyahu did an excellent job putting Oslo to rest for good. Slowly but surely fixing gliches caused by the worst PM in history, Ehud Olmert. Ehud you are a liar and we all know it, so please, just go crawl into your hole, move it.
As for Netanyahu’s potential coalition partners, I beg to differ with Jonathan’s following; “…or even the one led by Tzipi Livni, an otherwise bitter foe of the prime minister but one whose differences with him are more a matter of posturing and rival ambitions than ideology…”. Livni and Netanyahu are a world apart ideologically. Livni is a leftist, prepared to partition Jerusalem etc., posturing at times as a centrist while Netanyahu is firmly on the right while compromising with the center to expand his base in order to keep the likes of Livni out. Any offer Bibi made to Livni to join his coalition is based in context upon his inviting all zionist parties to join his coalition. There is no forgiving Livni. Livni, you are “just so finished”.
If Livni could have cobbled together a coalition ahead of Netanyahu in the last election, she would have cut a deal with Abbas and Obama. Netanyahu will not cut a deal which does not explicitly provide for an end to the conflict and iron clad guarantees on many important criteria,which render Bibi for all intents and purposes The Deal Breaker for Obama. That is why Obama wants Bibi out and Livni in. Not gonna happen.
Avigdor Lieberman, too, was once Netanyahu's chief of staff before they had a falling out. I guess, if nothing else, the PM does have an eye for political talent.
Actually, the falling out was principally with Bibi's shrewish wife Sara who loathed both Bennett and his fellow staffer Ayelet Shaked, believing them to be too ambitious to work for her super-ambitious husband. Sara, who seems to have leftist instincts, has been known on many occasions to interrupt cabinet meetings and attempt to make political decisions. Of course, none of the "Commentariat" would reveal such dirty laundry here since it would be seen as disloyal to Bibi, whom they feel they must protect as if he were an etrog.
as an etrog- cute touch! What makes wives of prime ministers so leftist? (Olmert's wife is famously an extreme leftist) . Bibi is smart enough to realize that if he wants to be remembered as a great prime minister, he will not sell out israel. he is very adept at good talk but, thankfully for now, acts differently. bennett and his own rightwingers will keep him honest, sara nothwithstanding.
That's why I buy the Yanover style esrogim, that grow without a pithom. They are a lot sturdier.
Until Israel can break free of American coercion, I don't see how any PM can take the steps we would like to see taken,. n nWhat is involved in breaking free? I think that is complicated, and has psychological as well as tangible components.
but without American agreement and assistance the steps become very iffy–the pity is that America could very likely be as protective as Israel without consequence as Russia is of true rogue Assad, even today, and China is of nutso North Korea when NK decides to blow up bits of South Korean coastline.