The Israeli elections took place two weeks ago and President Herzog yesterday awarded the mandate to form a government to Gadi Eisenkot, the leader of the Yeshar party.
Eisenkot will do everything in his power to establish a new government and replace Netanyahu and his cronies but it will not be an easy task. His party is not the biggest in the new parliament and Herzog gave him the mandate because the group of “Change” as they are called includes three additional parties that that were suggested to form a new government, hereby exceeding the recommendations given to Netanyahu. However, there is a serious problem. In order to be able to form a stable majority government Eisenkot will need additional partners, and this will be either the Arab parties, who achieved an unprecedented nineteen parliament seats, in part because of an exceptional large voter turnout among the Arab community, or the the Haredi parties, which even if they lost a numbers of seats in the elections, still have a major influence on the final outcome.
While the Arab parties have stated that they are willing to enter a coalition with Eisenkot, the Haredim claim they will support Eisenkot but only on one condition: the bill to allow yeshiva students to continue their studies and not enlist in the Army. This issue was a serious problem already several months ago with arrests of draft dodgers, large, violent demonstrations and very few Haredim enlisting, whether they are students in a Yeshiva or not.
The demands of the Haredim are very explicit and include no arrests of draft evaders, no economic sanctions for those refusing to enlist and this includes no limitations on housing allowances or kindergarten subsidies.
With the outspoken refusal of several of Eisenkot’s party members to include the Arab parties to take part in a new government, this leaves us with the same problem we have had for years.
While it is clear to a majority of the voters that they will not accept any laws that will legitimize Haredi youngsters not to enlist, it seems that the opposition to inclusion of Arabs is stronger and politically much easier to defend (after all, they are Arabs!!!). And this leaves Eisenkot with an almost unsolvable problem. Lieberman, the leader of one of the “change” parties has already stated that even though he has given Eisenkot his full support, he will never agree to allow Arabs to join a government that will include him and it is rumored that he has already started negotiations with the Haredi parties to add them to the government in order to secure a majority.
The standpoint of the other “Change” parties is not yet clear but while there is no doubt regarding the demands of the Haredim, a majority government cannot be assured without agreeing to most of them.
And this is where Netanyahu comes in. After the election results were published, he has been active on two fronts. One is the suspicions regarding election fraud, where Arab parties “bought” votes by a variety of activities including the use of money from Qatar. This scam is being presented by the current head of the Mossad, a Netanyahu appointment who has in the short time he has been on the job already made a name for himself of being an Netanyahu ally, for better or for worse.
The second activity Netanyahu has been busy with is the attempts to convince a majority to help him form a “Unity” government with, of course, him as Prime Minister. However, the chances of that happening are minimal, which leaves us with the Haredim.
But how did we get in this impossible situation. After four years of Dictatorship, unbelievable payments to the Haredim, the destruction of the Legal system, and three years of war without tangible results we didn’t learn anything? The people still believe Netanyahu should be their leader and their savior? What will it take to make people realize the disaster that hit the State of Israel and its population?
These elections were the ideal opportunity to correct the failures and the colossal mistakes that Netanyahu and his government have heaped upon us. So what happened? We are now left with the option of forming a government with the Haredim, leaving us with the same existential problems we have had to deal with over the past four years, or a repeat election, of which the outcome is very uncertain, in addition to the very large amounts of money involved .
Have we really make this happen? Did we really expect this would make a difference?
The only positive thing that will come out of this is that Netanyahu will end his career, one way or the other. He will either conceit his defeat and resign or remain as a non-entity in the background of the parliament.
All the other issues will need to wait I believe, even if they are existential problems, just like Netanyahu was.
I hope you found this article interesting and I welcome any comments you may have.
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