Published: 31 May 2019
Last updated: 4 March 2024
For Netanyahu, the day started off badly as his wife, Sara, took a plea deal with prosecutors over allegations she misused state funds, thus avoiding an extended corruption trial but admitting to commission of a crime and agreeing to pay a fine. And at the end of the day, at 10 minutes after midnight, and only a month after they took office, members of the 21st Knesset voted to dissolve the parliament. On September 17, Israelis will go back to the polls for another round.
On April 9, as the national election results came in, Netanyahu, greeted by his supporters as King Bibi, jubilantly strutted into the Likud Party’s headquarters. Smug and arrogant, he laughed aggressively and promised his loyal supporters that he would quickly put together a coalition. It would have been his fourth consecutive term as Prime Minister and his fifth in total. He seemed unstoppable.
But as Wednesday night turned into early Thursday morning, ashen-faced and defeated, Netanyahu had to admit King Bibi, now 69, had been dethroned.
What happened?
[caption id="attachment_28679" align="alignnone" width="300"]
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waves to supporters at a victory celebration after polls for general elections closed in Tel Aviv, April 9, 2019. Credit: AP Photo/Ariel Schalit[/caption]Following an election, the President of Israel consults with all the parties and hands the mandate to form a government to the person who has the best chance of creating a coalition with at least 61 of the 120 seats in the Knesset. Following the April 9 elections, President Reuven Rivlin gave that mandate to Netanyahu, and, by law, Netanyahu had 28 days (with an extension of two weeks) to put the coalition together.
It should not have been difficult. The Likud alone received 35 seats, up from its previous 30; together with the ultra-Orthodox and the right-wing parties, including the extremist, Kahane-inspired Otzma Yehudit party, he clearly had more than the majority he needed.
Netanyahu managed to collect 60 seats – but then Lieberman, head of the Yisrael Beteinu Party, refused to join the coalition unless the coalition agreement included a bill to draft ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students. The ultra-Orthodox refused. Without both of them, Netanyahu did not have the votes he needed to form the coalition.
Netanyahu, known for his cynical cunning, threatened if Lieberman and/or the ultra-Orthodox couldn’t pull it together, he would dissolve the Knesset. It seemed like a bluff – and Lieberman called that bluff.
Israelis are used to cynical political machinations, and it’s doubtful anyone really believes the draft bill, which has been unresolved for over a decade, was the real reason behind the coalition farce.
Lieberman’s motivations are not clear, but Netanyahu’s certainly are. Lieberman, whose party took a big hit on April 9, may believe new elections are to his benefit. Or the whole thing may have been about power and posturing, or just plain vengeance against Netanyahu, his former mentor who has done everything he could to destroy him.
But the stakes were much higher for Netanyahu. Facing indictments for bribery, fraud and breach of trust, the process has been, and continues to be, about how to avoid a trial and stay out of jail.
Netanyahu has consistently claimed the investigations are little more than a witch hunt. “They [the legal procedures] will end in nothing, because there is nothing [against me]” he repeats incessantly. But apparently, even he isn’t willing to count on that. Back in December 2018, Netanyahu dissolved his government, also ostensibly because of a crisis over the draft law, because he knew early elections would serve as the best offensive against the legal proceedings against him. He believed he would leverage his political persona as an embattled leader, persecuted and victimised by the Left, elites, human rights organisations, and the media. The legal establishment, he could claim, was trying to undo the results of the will of the people, who elected him.
And the people did elect him. But Netanyahu realised the law would not back down. By acceding to all of the other parties’ demands, Netanyahu believed he was free to embark on a campaign to squash the courts and trample the rule of law. Undermining the last vestiges of separation between the branches of government, he would have the power to create a formalistic democracy devoid of any checks and balances or democratic norms. And he would not go to jail.
Lieberman, whatever his reasons, foiled his plan.
Under Israeli law, Netanyahu’s inability to form a coalition did not have to lead to new elections. He could have handed the mandate back to the president, who would then have appointed someone else – most probably Benny Gantz, head of the Blue and White Party, which also received 35 seats. But it would appear Netanyahu cannot imagine anyone other than himself could, or should, lead the country.
Netanyahu could have turned to Gantz and suggested they form the coalition; together, they would have a clear majority that would have eliminated the need to kowtow to smaller parties and especially to the extremist ones. But Gantz has made it clear that he would never agree to Netanyahu’s legal machinations.
The Likud itself could have put forward another candidate. They could have held their seats by voting against Netanyahu’s ploy to dissolve the Knesset. They could have maintained at least a semblance of political dignity by simply choosing another Likud member to lead them. But Netanyahu has purged his party of almost all opposition and so, Zombie like, they followed their leader over the abyss.
At the very end, late in the evening, Netanyahu even tried to tempt opposition MKs into his coalition by offering them positions as ministers. But caught in the web of his own failures, Netanyahu played a game of chicken and lost.
[caption id="attachment_28677" align="alignnone" width="300"]
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the media at the Knesset, in Jerusalem on May 29, 2019. Credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90[/caption]Netanyahu’s arrogance and l’etat c’est moi delusions have led Israel into elections no one wants and will, according to media reports, cost 475 million shekels ($US130m ). The Finance Ministry has already announced that no such sum can be found or allocated – but that didn’t keep Finance Minister Moshe Kachlon, whose party merged with the Likud late on Thursday, from voting in favour.
Worst of all for Netanyahu: since the Knesset has dissolved itself, the existing coalition, which was established following the elections in 2015, will continue as an interim government. By law, an interim government cannot pass any significant legislation – and certainly not the kinds of legislation that Netanyahu was planning.
A pre-indictment hearing has been set for October, and the Attorney-General’s decision whether to indict is expected in late December. Facing this schedule, even if his party wins the new elections, it is unlikely potential coalition partners will recommend to the President that he hand the mandate back to Netanyahu.
A joke making the rounds declared, “Drama in Jerusalem! A man has barricaded himself in the Prime Minister's residence and is holding nine million people hostage. Initial reports say the man, aged about 70, is known to police.”
MK Ayman Odeh, head of the Arab Hadash-Ta’al party, provided some last hour comic relief. Mocking Netanyahu’s last-minute bids to save himself and his love for “dramatic announcements”, he told the Knesset that Netanyahu had promised him Israel would withdraw from all the territories it captured in the 1967 Six Days War and would recognise the civil and national rights of the country’s Arabs. All this – as long as Odeh would agree to support Netanyahu’s attempts to protect himself from prosecution.
Feigning an apology to the other MKs from his party, he concluded, “I don’t know how to respond,” as the Knesset floor – even including members of the Likud – laughed and applauded.
But the situation isn’t funny. Not for Netanyahu. And not for Israel.
Cartoon: Avi Katz
