Netanyahyu coalition teeters but does not fall

By Ira Sharkansky

Ira Sharkansky

JERUSALEM — An hour or two before sending out my last column, Education Minister Bennett and Justice Minister Shaked announced that they were leaving the government. The withdrawal of their party, Jewish Home, would leave Bibi with less than a majority of the Knesset.

A few minutes after sending the column, Bennett and Shaked changed their announcement. They would stay. Bibi had convinced them that major security conditions were not the time to call an election.

News is that the Prime Minister got to Jewish Home via his talks with key rabbis.

In any case, there remains a majority of one.

Bibi is speaking confidently of continuing in power until the end of the term, a year from now. His claims that a difficult security setting is not a time for an election. However, his partner, the Minister of Finance, Moshe Kahlon, is saying that is unlikely. The failure of the 61 seat majority may come sooner or later. Justice Minister Shaked has said that Netanyahu should give up the Defense Ministry; which he took when Lieberman left the government. According to her, it’s too demanding to be held by someone who is also the Prime Minister.

Meanwhile, the police have announced their recommendation to the Prosecutor to indict Interior Minister Ariyeh Deri on tax and other matters. The police net also extends to Deri’s brother and wife. If this goes through to trial and conviction, it’ll be Deri’s second time in the slammer. And his party, SHAS, is polling right above the minimum necessary to remain in the Knesset.

And another gust in the wind is Donald Trump. His daily comments are provoking news that it’s time to begin impeachment, but the Republicans remain in control of the Senate.

Among the President’s problems is the continuing output of news from Turkey about Khashoggi, and the indications that the Saudi ruler called for his death. Trump is making his effort to ignore that issue, partly in order to remain on the good side of Saudi oil exports and purchases from the US, and partly to help Israel in its relations with Saudi Arabia.

So we’re in a mess of several parts, wondering how long it’ll be until Israeli elections, keeping three ministers out of jail (Deri, Bibi, and Haim Katz (Welfare and Social Services), each of them on the edge of an indictment. As well we’re wondering if Donald Trump is using Israel to bolster his own position.

And week after Bibi’s claim, Israelis are wondering what’s so special about our security setting.

Iran remains in Syria, Hamas in Gaza, and Fatah in control of the West Bank.

Security forces announce continued efforts, with numbers about the plots uncovered and neutralized. And the IDF has indicated that Israel does not face the threat of a war presently.

There’s an occasional threat not uncovered, resulting in injuries or deaths, and typically the neutralization and capture of the perpetrator.

Still at large is the killer at a West Bank industrial site, a month ago.

Should Israel applaud its support from Donald Trump? Or wonder about a President who quarrels with a conservative Chief Justice, can’t get himself to criticize the Saudi leadership for a flubbed effort to deal with a dissident journalist, and has sent the army to deal with a wave of migrants from the south?

It’s curious that Israeli media have refrained from harping on the charges of corruption against the Prime Minister. Slow police and prosecutor are there for the picking, but there is little attention to the matter.

There’s been coverage to the newest of the news, i.e., the recommendation of the police to indict Ariyeh Deri, along with his wife and brother.

Now we’ll wait for months until the prosecutor decides on that.

The Prime Minister continues to say that there is nothing to find about himself. Meanwhile, there is some effort to arrange a deal with his wife over one of the charges against her. And the older son, without visible means of support, continues to publish an occasional Facebook post, and has charged a driver with leaking private information about him and friends.

And now a visit by the President of Chad. Not yet diplomatic relations, but working toward that.

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Sharkansky is professor emeritus of political science at Hebrew University.  He may be contacted via ira.sharkansky@sdjewishworld.com