The Only Way Israelis Can Form a Government: Betrayal
As expected, the outcome of Israel’s second national
election was as murky as the first round in April. During the next few
weeks, Israeli leaders will be engaged in negotiations in an effort to
form a government. The double-dealings and the betrayals that will need
to occur for them to form a governing coalition will make “House of
Cards” look like a tea party.
The reasons for this are simple. The results of the
election were close and inconclusive with no grouping, neither the one
led by Prime Minister Netanyahu nor that of the main opposition led by
former general Benny Gantz, in a position to easily cobble together the
61 Knesset seats needed to form a majority. In addition, there’s the
fact that all of the major players have made, and continue to affirm,
principled pledges which, if honoured, will make creating a governing
coalition impossible. Hence, either there are betrayals of pledges or
partners, or there will be no new government.
What follows is the state of play and the pledges made by all of the principled actors.
Gantz’s Blue and White coalition won 33 seats. The two
“left” parties with which he can align won 11 seats (seven for
Labor-Gesher and six for the Democratic Union). This only gives Gantz a
total of 44 seats.
While most analysts also incorrectly add to Gantz’s total
the 13 seats held by Joint Union (made up of four parties representing
the Palestinian citizens of Israel), this will not occur for two
reasons. Gantz made a pledge not to form a government “dependent on the
Arabs”. And, for their part, the Arab parties have said that while they
would not vote against a Gantz-led government, if it meant ending
Netanyahu’s rule, they would only consider joining a governing coalition
on the condition that it was committed to full equality for the Arab
citizens of Israel and ending the occupation. These are conditions to
which Gantz is ideologically opposed.
Gantz might also seek to include the 17 seats held by the
two ultra-religious parties, since this would give him the 61 he needs
to form a majority. But Blue and White ran on a decidedly secular
platform and he would find it difficult to add the religious parties who
would demand that the government continue to provide funding for their
institutions and uphold a number of restrictive religious prohibitions.
This would put Gantz at loggerheads with the secular nationalist voters
who formed his support base.
Since many of the Blue and White leadership were
originally connected to Likud, it might appear logical for Gantz to turn
to Likud, which won 31 seats in this election, in order to form a
national unity government of the right. But here too, there are
problems.
In the lead up to negotiations, Likud’s leader, Benjamin
Netanyahu secured a pledge from his partners (the two ultra-religious
parties and the right-wing nationalist party, Yamina, which holds seven
seats) that they would remain united and negotiate as an unbreakable
union, under Netanyahu’s leadership. If this unity is upheld, it
effectively rules out any partnership with Gantz who has insisted that
he would not form a government on Netanyahu’s terms and certainly not
with Netanyahu as the Prime Minister. In addition, if the Likud-led
grouping maintains its unity, this would require Gantz to accept the
religious parties and their demands.
Now while Gantz can claim the right to lead efforts to
form the next government, since his Blue and White coalition won the
most seats (33), Netanyahu, despite only winning 31 seats, is claiming
that because he is entering the negotiations with a stronger hand, since
his base of support is larger (a total of 55 Knesset seats — his 31,
the religious parties’ 17, and Yamina’s seven), he should be the one to
set the terms. This is, of course, out of the question for Gantz, since
he has ruled out joining a government under Netanyahu and he will not
form a government with the religious parties and their requirements.
If this seems murky, it’s because it is. And so Israelis
are left with either a third election or watching their leaders
betraying their partners and their pledges.
Seventeen members of the Likud might choose to betray
Netanyahu, by dumping him as their leader and joining a Gantz-led
government. This might occur if negotiations continue past the October
date when the Attorney General has said he will begin proceedings that,
in all likelihood, will lead to Netanyahu being indicted for crimes of
corruption, bribery, and betrayal of the public trust.
There is also the possibility that Netanyahu could
convince Avigdor Lieberman to rejoin his Likud government. The eight
seats held by Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu party would give Netanyahu 63
seats. But this would require Lieberman breaking his pledge not to join
any government that is subservient to the demands of the religious
parties. He’s done it before, and if Netanyahu’s offer/bribe is good
enough, he might betray his pledge and do it again.
There is another scenario that cannot be discounted. Since
Netanyahu remains Prime Minister during the negotiations, he could
provoke a national emergency, like a war in Gaza or on the northern
front. He might feel that in the midst of a crisis, he would be in in an
stronger position to force concessions from Gantz and/or Lieberman.
Then there’s the less likely possibility that the
long-awaited “Deal of the Century” is announced with terms unacceptable
to right-wing Israelis in Lieberman’s and Gantz’s camps — thereby also
playing into Netanyahu’s hands, allowing him to plead for national unity
to avert the crisis posed by the US demands. As I said, this is quite
unlikely, for two reasons.Trump has already demonstrated his own
capacity for betrayal by distancing himself from his “good friend Bibi”.
And, it is hard to imagine that the “deal” would include any terms that
would provoke a crisis in Israel.
Finally, there’s the very strong possibility that
Netanyahu is indicted, forced to make a plea deal, and leave public life
— or even go to prison. While this would clearly reshuffle the deck, it
wouldn’t necessarily put Gantz in the driver’s seat, since that would
depend on whether the remaining Likud membership continued to maintain
their pledge of unity with their religious party partners, or betrayed
them by joining a Gantz-led secular government.
Should that happen, yet another betrayal may occur. With a
coalition government of Blue and White and Likud — minus Netanyahu
—the third-largest Knesset grouping, the Joint List would rightly claim
the right to lead the Knesset Opposition. This would give them an
unprecedented role in Israeli society. In an effort to block this, some
have suggested that the two religious parties, having been betrayed and
dumped by Likud, may combine their 17 seats and demand the right to lead
the Knesset Opposition, thereby denying Arabs their hard-fought
victory.
It is of critical importance to note that in all of this
haggling and betrayal, there is no mention of or concern for the rights
of the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. Israeli society has
moved so far to the right that Palestinians were not considered in this
election. With the exception of the small left Democratic Union, all of
the other parties were fine with settlement expansion and extending
Israeli sovereignty to major parts of the West Bank, the annexation of
Jerusalem and the continued strangulation of Gaza.
The fact that there is so little focus in the West on the
continued denial of Palestinian rights is the ultimate betrayal. Press
coverage of the elections and the follow-up negotiations make no mention
of Palestinians or the occupation. And the unwarranted liberal embrace
of Gantz, as the “not Netanyahu”, is its own form of betrayal — of the
values of justice, human rights, and equality to which liberals claim to
adhere.
James Zogby is president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute
The original source of this article is Jordan Times
Copyright © James Zogby, Jordan Times, 2019
Comment on Global Research Articles on our Facebook page
Become a Member of Global Research
No comments:
Post a Comment