As we look forward, we shall see yet another Israeli government dedicated to destroying Palestine and its people led once again by Benjamin Netanyahu.
April 14, 2021
There are two things that are certain after Israel’s fourth election in two years: the first is that Benjamin Netanyahu will continue to be Israel’s Prime Minister. The second, that no Arab party will have any part in Netanyahu’s continued reign as PM. These elections had given an undeniable victory to Benjamin Netanyahu. In a strategy that can be seen as divide and rule, Netanyahu has been very successful at dividing his opposition and now he may rule over them as they come begging him for a piece of the pie.
One of the strangest misconceptions that has risen immediately after the results of the elections were announced is that Mansour Abbas, who leads the Islamic United Arab Party will somehow become “kingmaker.” They claim that his vote in the Knesset will tip the scales and that the next Israeli prime minister will be in his debt. This claim stems from a lack of appreciation for the racist Zionist ideology and how, like a thread, it runs through all of Israel’s Zionist political parties, left, right and center.
But who needs a king maker when the king, Benjamin Netanyahu sits on his throne comfortably and unchallenged? In the previous elections, one may recall Netanyahu did face a serious challenge and his decade long tenure seemed as though it was going to end. The President of the State of Israel, Reuven Rivlin, had given the official mandate to form a government to Netanyahu’s challenger, former IDF Chief Benny Gantz. Everyone was sure that Ganz would finally unseat Netanyahu, as he had promised to do in his campaign. He even had the numbers to do it.
However, Netanyahu managed to get Gantz to go back on his word to the voters. He agreed to sit in Netanyahu’s government even though this meant destroying the political coalition he had created, which included two other former IDF Chiefs, and the first real challenge to Netanyahu in a decade fizzled away. Gantz ended up working for Netanyahu as Defense Minister and his reputation and following practically disappeared.
He was promised that Netanyahu would vacate his seat when half of his term was over and that Ganz would be Prime Minister for the second half of their term, but really, no one believed that Netanyahu would follow through. In agreeing to sit in Netanyahu’s government Gantz sealed his fate to be a footnote in Israeli politics, and in this last election his party received only eight seats in the Knesset. This is after being a step away from the Premiership.
Netanyahu, having successfully destroyed any chance of another coalition being put together to unseat him now sits comfortably with thirty seats in the Knesset, followed by Yair Lapid’s party with 17 seats.
In the past, Gantz ran as leader of not only his own party but of a coalition of parties that agreed to follow him under the slogan of “No to Netanyahu.” It was that coalition that almost brought Netanyahu down. But it was disbanded when Gantz broke his promise. Netanyahu, having successfully destroyed any chance of another coalition being put together to unseat him now sits comfortably with thirty seats in the Knesset, followed by Yair Lapid’s party with 17 seats.
Read: Gantz, Netanyahu, Bennett and Israeli Politics in a Stalemate
Now the horse training begins. Who will join the government and what portfolio he or she will receive in return? As was said before, there is no better, more politically savvy, and more experienced political horse trader in Israeli politics than Benjamin Netanyahu.
As Netanyahu has already shown, even the most ardent “No to Netanyahu” supporters forget themselves when they are presented with the possibility of getting a seat at his table. In his current government coalition, the one that now sits as a lame-duck government, he even managed to get members of the Labor Party to join him, even though Labor is historically Netanyahu’s biggest opposition.
Breaking the logjam and building a coalition is always a long and tedious process. The Israeli political system allows small parties to wield more political power than the voters had given them because the larger parties need them to seal the deal, and they know it. Historically, the religious parties were the ones who broke the logjam as they were willing to sit with whoever agreed to provide them with their demands.
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