Predictably, Israel’s political deadlock continues. The country’s second election of the year, on September 17th, left no party, or bloc of parties, with a majority of the hundred and twenty seats in the Knesset. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party, which leads a bloc of fifty-five seats, was given the first shot at forming a government—a Presidential mandate of twenty-eight days in which to assemble a coalition. On October 21st, he acknowledged that he could not, and now the mandate has passed to Benny Gantz, the leader of the Blue and White Party, which has fifty-four seats—or fifty-seven, if three nationalist Arab members can be coaxed into supporting his bloc. Gantz has until November 20th to succeed where Netanyahu failed. But, unless circumstances change drastically, Gantz seems set to fall short, too.
The main circumstance that has not changed, and that has kept Netanyahu in power as a caretaker Prime Minister since the first election was called, last December, is Avigdor Lieberman, the head of the secular, hard-line nationalist party Yisrael Beiteinu (“Israel, Our Home”), which has eight seats and controls the balance of power. Lieberman—once Netanyahu’s close ally, but no longer—has refused to sit in a Netanyahu-led government that depends on a coalition of ultra-Orthodox parties. But he also refuses to sit in a government led by Gantz, which would inevitably depend on a vote of confidence from a coalition of Arab parties. Lieberman spent Netanyahu’s mandate denying power to the Orthodox; he is now denying the Arabs. Business before pleasure.
No one would have guessed from the speech that Gantz gave at the President’s residence, accepting the mandate, that his bid is likely doomed. “I will do everything to create a government of national healing that will unite the tribes: the Haredim”—the ultra-Orthodox—“with whom we must sit and talk as brothers, the Arab citizens, our Druze brothers, and everyone else,” he said. President Reuven Rivlin, who gave a famous speech, in 2015, lamenting the fractures in Israeli society, stood next to him, listening with obvious satisfaction, though he was disappointed that his own plan to resolve the crisis—a rotation agreement in which Netanyahu would lead first and then be replaced by Gantz as a fully empowered “acting Prime Minister” should Netanyahu be forced to stand trial on charges pending against him—was rejected. Gantz said that he will form a “government that Israel is desperate for,” which will “push for peace and will know to deal definitively with every enemy.”
After months of Netanyahu’s posturing and incitement against Arabs, leftists, and the media, the unself-conscious modesty and gravitas with which Gantz spoke seemed deceptively refreshing, if only for the moment. He knows the unpleasant concessions that await him, and the unlikely allies he will have to seduce, frustrate, or betray in making them. Channel 12, Israel’s leading commercial television station, reported that, before Gantz was offered the mandate, he sent out feelers to the national-Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox parties, exploring whether they might entertain joining a government led by Blue and White. He was rebuffed.
Only one twist of the plot seems uncertain enough, and dramatic enough, to work in Gantz’s favor. The hearings for Netanyahu’s various bribery and breach-of-trust cases were completed in October. Any day now, the Attorney General, Avichai Mandelblit, is expected to issue formal indictments—perhaps before Gantz’s mandate runs out. In the past two weeks, Raviv Drucker, a reporter for Channel 13, another commercial station, has aired leaked transcripts of recorded conversations pertaining to one case, in which, in 2014, Netanyahu allegedly traded government favors with Arnon Moses, the publisher of the largest paid-circulation daily, Yedioth Ahronoth. “If you take me down, I’ll come after you with everything I’ve got,” Netanyahu is quoted as saying in the transcript. “You can avoid that outcome.” With such evidence, indictments seem inevitable.
If Netanyahu is indicted, he may feel impelled to resign. (A recent Israel Democracy Institute poll shows that more than half of Israelis believe that he should go now.) But, so far, he has insisted that he should go only if he is convicted. So he will likely try to tough it out and risk facing a ruling by the Supreme Court that he must resign. Mandelblit has said that it would be up to the Court to decide. According to court precedent, a minister who is indicted must resign; the court did not stipulate that the ruling applied to a Prime Minister, though two former Prime Ministers have stepped down, simply taking the principle for granted. But the Supreme Court is unpopular among the right, and Netanyahu knows that such a ruling would roil his base. One could imagine demonstrations, possibly violent ones, supporting him, especially in greater Jerusalem, where Gantz or a Netanyahu rival from Likud would have to take occupancy of the Prime Minister’s offices and residence.
Gantz’s party—itself a coalition of hard-liners and secular moderates—is united in its refusal to sit in a government led by a Prime Minister shadowed by corruption charges. On Sunday, Ofer Shelah, a senior Blue and White Knesset member, confirmed to the news Web site Ynet that the Party would advance a bill to force a Prime Minister to resign if indicted. Lieberman has said that he opposes any law passed by a Knesset under a transitional government, which describes the current government, but his most certain path to ridding the next government of Netanyahu is just such a law. Current polls show that, should another election be forced on Israeli voters, the results would likely be much the same as they were last month. The only hope to replace Netanyahu then would be if the Likud Central Committee—a group of nearly four thousand Party members who are currently strongly supportive of him—voted to hold a new leadership primary. This scenario underestimates the cult of personality that Netanyahu has fostered among Likud’s hundred and thirty thousand card-carrying members. Thus far, only Gideon Sa’ar, a former minister, has indicated that he would challenge Netanyahu in a primary. And polls show Likud losing votes to other right-wing parties if Sa’ar were to become its leader.
Given the direness of the situation, there are two other possibilities. Gantz could present a minority government with, in effect, nothing but Blue and White ministers, and dare the other opposition parties to inform Rivlin that they’d vote against it, knowing that the result would be either Netanyahu staying in power, in a transitional government, or a new election. (Shelah told Ynet that this scenario is “on the table.”) The second possibility would be unprecedented. Gantz could return the mandate. A twenty-one day period would then ensue, during which any sixty-one members of the Knesset could organize a majority for a dark-horse candidate: Likud’s Knesset speaker, Yuli Edelstein, say, or, more unlikely, Blue and White’s No. 4, the charismatic Gabi Ashkenazi, or, most unlikely, Lieberman himself. If that period expired without any such candidate emerging, Rivlin would be required to call a new election, to be held within ninety days. And Israelis would be back, more vexed, where they started.
What makes the situation dire is not simply that Israel’s electoral gears have seized up. The economy and the region have not been waiting for Israeli voters to sort things out. The government’s budget is more than eleven billion dollars in deficit, while hospitals, transportation infrastructure, and schools are underfunded. The Trump Administration’s withdrawal of troops from Syria has benefitted Iran’s influence in the region. Violence in Gaza has increased, while Israeli relations with Jordan have deteriorated. The need for a government that will “push for peace” and know how to deal “with every enemy” is more than just rhetorical flourish. A Prime Minister with a mandate to change course, or simply to act with obvious legitimacy, matters. It’s not clear when Israel will have one again.
