Yesterday, a mere 35 minutes before the deadline, Yair Lapid—the leader of Israel’s Yesh Atid party—announced that he had succeeded in forming a governing coalition, cobbled together from parties across the political spectrum. Most notably, the eight-party coalition includes Ra’am, which will be the first Arab party ever to join an Israeli government. Yet nothing is certain, as a single defector could collapse the entire arrangement, and it could take up to twelve days before the Knesset formally approves it.
The Western press is already celebrating the new coalition as a major loss for the Israeli right, since it spells the end of Benjamin Netanyahu’s long tenure as prime minister. But in fact, the new government will include three decidedly right-wing parties. Lahav Harkov explains how this situation came to be:
The past decade is littered with political obituaries announcing Benjamin Netanyahu’s imminent departure from office—and each has ended up looking more absurd than the last. Here in Israel, predictions of his downfall have become a fixture of daily political life.
But even a political genius can make mistakes, and it looks like Netanyahu is about to get his comeuppance on one of his most enduring flaws: his cultivation of protégés whom he then discards, fearing that they might one day challenge him. For years, it seemed like this was just politics; Netanyahu didn’t want to promote someone only for that person to take him down, so he pre-emptively saw off any potential competitors.
Little did he know that there could one day be consequences. Israeli politicians are currently involved in coalition negotiations after another inconclusive parliamentary election. There are, of course, a number of reasons for Netanyahu’s inability to form a government in three of the past four elections. But the most important has been the right’s majority in the Knesset after each one, and [his former allies’] refusal to be part of a coalition led by Netanyahu.
And the leaders of the three main right-wing parties who have declined to be in Netanyahu’s coalition all have one thing in common: they all used to work closely with him—until they were no longer useful.
These three leaders include Naftali Bennett, who, if the new coalition is approved, will serve as prime minister for two years, followed by Lapid.
Read more on UnHerd: https://unherd.com/2021/06/how-bibis-proteges-brought-him-down/