Willem IV- OPINION: The drawn-out drama of the results of the last Israeli election is now apparently over and a new coalition government has been announced. Sadly, it seems, the real winners of this hobgoblin coalition led by formerly right coalition hero Naftali Bennet and “centrist” Yair Lapid, are the Islamists who desire to destroy the Jewish state.
This weak and freakish coalition, united only around hatred for Bibi Netanyahu, will likely begin a rapid retreat for Israel from the world stage. Indeed a retreat from Israeli territory cannot be ruled out either. Look to see access to the Temple Mount more limited, settlements abused or abandoned, and general retreat across the board in favor of the Islamists. Hamas may have lost much in people and resources, but they now have distant and indirect ideological cousins inside Israel’s cabinet.
The bad news from Israel is that “centrist” Yair Lapid and rightist Naftali Bennet have formed a monstrosity of a coalition with right and left parties as well as an Islamist Party. The new Israeli President, Herzog, is a former Labor leader and unlikely to be a friend to the cause of a strong Israel. For those who desire a strong Israel pushing her foes back, this unwieldy coalition can be seen as a dark cloud of uncertainty and trouble.
Israel may have won the mini-war with Hamas, but with this coalition, it has lost the peace.
The root of the problem, in the estimation of some, was Netanyahu’s refusal to step aside and let another right coalition leader take the helm. Naftali Bennet has joined arms with a slick former TV newsman and “centrist”, Yair Lapid, leftist parties, and a pro-Islamist Party. These are mostly unpopular parties, drug in to get to the magic 61 MK’s at ANY price, whose anti-Zionist agenda will have far more weight than is merited by the vote. Their desire to win has led them to gain power at the expense of their own avowed principles and perhaps to detriment of Israeli security.
Israelis who supported Bennet and his Yamina Party, Yamina meaning “rightwards”, were unlikely to have desired such a Frankenstein government of leftists and Islamists. Meanwhile Yair Lapid’s “Yesh Atid”, meaning “new future” Party, may be dragging Israel into a past more reminiscent of Olmert, who unilaterally decamped from the Gaza strip out of a misbegotten notion of “land for peace”, than any kind of future Israel can be proud of.
The possibility of this coalition urging the US to move its embassy back to Jerusalem, to assuage the Islamists, and their insertion of the Palestinian question into peace talks with other Arab powers cannot be dismissed. This isn’t a prediction and is unlikely, but it is as unlikely as this coalition.
Netanyahu’s fall from power may be permanent this time, his many foes from every side having made a game of the often Byzantine tangle of Israeli politics, losing sight of everything but the desire to be the big man on top. On the other hand, Bibi has come back before and could again. But his opponents want to eliminate him permanently through the use of politically-motivated prosecution, they want him in jail and there doesn’t seem to be groundswell of popular support for him.
Of the two coalition leaders, the greatest betrayer of his own principles is Naftali Bennet, whereas Yair Lapid, who began his career as a news “reporter” and whose political party, Yesh Atid, pretends to be centrist, is a typical anti-Zionist party committed to a “two-state solution” and avowedly against the role of religion in Israeli society.
Most Jews in America will applaud this change, but it remains to be seen if, after recent events, Israeli society will have the stomach for such a coalition, even if Netanyahu isn’t popular.
One may count the life of this hash of a government, and its popular support by Israelis, in terms of weeks or months. It won’t last. The people didn’t give a mandate to such a government.
