No Bibi, but will anything else be different about this government?

EETTA PRINCE-GIBSON: The ill-fitting coalition will pass a budget and probably cut back on settlement expansion, but hold tight on religious and human rights, the occupation and Iran

ALTHOUGH THEY STILL HAVE to jump over several high political hurdles, a new government may be in place within the next ten days, or even sooner. And if they make it, this will be the first government in 12 years without Benjamin Netanyahu at its head.

It will also be strangest collection of political parties and personalities ever to make up an Israeli government. 

The eight parties span the ideological spectrums from left to extreme right; from fervently progressive to devoutly conservative, from neo-liberal to social democratic; from feminist and pro-LGBTQ rights to religious anti-feminist and anti-gay.

One common thread holds this assorted crew together: All of them detest Benjamin Netanyahu. And quite a few of them also can't stand his wife, Sarah Netanyahu, who is reported to be the arbiter of her husband's political alliances and has been responsible for some of Netanyahu's most egregious political betrayals and deceptions.

It remains to be seen if loathing can serve as enough of a glue to keep this government from imploding. Yet even before it has been officially ensconced, this coalition already has several achievements to its credit.

First, it has broken Netanyahu's mystique.  Netanyahu has invested most of his personal and political energies in fostering the myth that he, and only he, can run the country. At least in the near future, Netanyahu will continue to kick, scream, and incite as he always does, but it is likely to be from the opposition-side of the Knesset.

Second, for the first time, an Arab party, Ra’am, will be part of the coalition. True, its leader Mansour Abbas will not be a minister, and his party will not be holding any of the more powerful and influential Knesset committees. And Abbas, who represents the conservative, Islamic party, is not the progressive left-wing and pro-Palestinian representative of the Arab population that many leftists, in Israel and abroad, had hoped to see.