Since the swearing-in of the government on June 13, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has presented its very formation as the message. That Israel could form a government that includes parties from the hard Left and the hard Right, from the Jewish and Arab sectors, from pro-settlement parties and anti-settlement parties, from parties advocating gay rights and those ideologically opposed, shows that it is possible to work together.
Call it Bennett’s Benetton coalition.
This is a message he communicated when he met in Washington in August with US President Joe Biden, and when he stood in Jerusalem two weeks ago with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. It is also a message he took with him to the UN in September.
“About 100 days ago my partners and I formed a new government in Israel – the most diverse government in our history,” he said. “We speak to each other with respect, we act with decency, and we carry a message: Things can be different. Even though we harbor very different political opinions, we sit together for the sake of our nation.”
At Sunday’s cabinet meeting, however, Bennett sang a bit of a different song.
“I call here on my colleagues around the cabinet table, and especially on the Knesset members in the coalition, we must now focus on passing the budget,” he said.
“Let us focus, especially in the coming weeks, on what we have in common and not on disagreements. There is no point in starting to rock the boat from end to end. Even when someone is really burning to respond, certain that they are right – let us keep the bigger goal in mind.
“The people have had it with petty disputes and quarrels,” he continued. “They expect from us, the members of the government and the members of the coalition, something different.”
THAT BENNETT felt the need to make that comment, that he felt compelled to call the cabinet ministers to order – rather than to praise them as he has done repeatedly in the past for being able to work together for the greater good – is an indication that the “Bibi glue” is starting to weaken, and that uniting against a political rival may not be enough to keep such a diverse ideological coalition together over the long haul.
It was perhaps inevitable that as the days passed, as the memory of what brought the coalition together in the first place receded – an intense dislike of Netanyahu, four inconclusive elections and a burning desire to avoid a fifth one – cracks in the coalition would emerge.
It was also inevitable that as the Knesset went back into session, the opposition would put forth proposals and legislation to expose and magnify those cracks. What is unclear, however, is the degree to which these cracks will threaten the integrity of the entire coalition structure.
Bennett pleaded with his ministers to put off the disagreements, at least until after November 14, the day by which the government must pass a budget and its comprehensive economic arrangements bill or be automatically dissolved, with new elections to be held in 90 days.
This week various members of the coalition – foremost Mansour Abbas’s Ra’am party – signaled that they may not vote for the budget if certain conditions were not met. In Ra’am’s case it was anger at the lack of movement on a bill that would hook up illegally built homes in the Arab and Bedouin sector to the national electrical grid.
This week those squabbles became apparent for all to see.
The latest example was Wednesday, when the opposition embarrassed the coalition by passing a motion on the floor calling for the establishment of a parliamentary committee to investigate the country’s policy of placement of Arab teachers in the education system. The motion was sponsored by the Joint List Party’s leaders Ayman Odeh and Ahmad Tibi. It passed by a vote of 47-46.
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