JERUSALEM — Benny Gantz is a week into his month-long effort to form a government. Dynamics suggest that we’ll have no clear information for a while.
Bibi continues to operate as if he has a life-time hold on his block and the office of the Prime Minister. He and his supporters are proposing a joint arrangement whereby Gantz joins him. His party colleague, the Speaker of the Knesset, has been holding off meetings destined to remove the Speaker from office.
Gantz is muttering about Bibi’s offer. Speculation is that he supports it, but that it would split his party. Lapid and Ayalon are firmly against joining with a Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Where’s the honor?
Bibi and his supporters are operating like thieves in the night.
An honorable end could be found in his voluntary stepping down. Or his search for an agreement to abandon or lighten the judicial process in exchange for his resignation.
But we’re hearing nothing of the sort.
Likudniks are not speaking against him, perhaps to avoid the internal party bloodshed that will occur in the process of selecting another leader. Bibi has avoided naming someone second in line for the big office.
There remain two members of Blue and White and one of the Meretz-Labor linkage who object to joining a government supported by the United Arab List. There’ll be pressure against them, and perhaps on members of Likud or its block to find support for a Blue and White led government.
Currently there is cooperation between the Palestinian National Authority and the Israeli government with respect to the coronavirus.
That may help. But there are substantial reasons for those opposing cooperation with the Arabs.
On the one hand, the record shows substantial cooperation between Jews and Arabs.
But on the other hand are instances of violence, and opposition from the United Arab List to forceful Israeli responses.
Trust?
It may never exist in politics, Jewish or Arab. But In the case of Jews trusting Arabs the history is long and complicated.
The ideal would be to form a government without Bibi, that lasted for who knows how long.
Once Bibi is out of office, he cannot return, given his indictments and pending trial.
Then the chaos within Likud would begin. But that’ll come sooner or later no matter what.
Ehud Olmert has been through this, and chose the honorable way out. He resigned as Prime Minister, was tried, and served time in jail. Now he’s an elder statesman, the Israeli equivalent of Richard Nixon.
Olmert has published a scathing attack against Bibi, his wife and elder son. He notes that Bibi’s nightly appearances about coronavirus provide no useful information–that is not provided by the Director General of the Health Ministry–and present Bibi as a national spokesman who also pleads for a unity government. No doubt with him as its head. He’s commanded members of his political block, including the Speaker of the Knesset, to operate for him.
The recent focus has been on the Knesset. The Speaker has been holding on with his finger nails, trying to stop a vote on unseating him. Likudniks and Blue and Whites are quarreling about who is misreading history and confusing present realities. There’s a majority that wants to replace Edelstein as the Speaker, but does not want to support a Blue and White government that has Arab support.
Likudniks have urged Edelstein not to cooperate with the Supreme Court’s demand that he respond to the charge of preventing a vote on replacing him. Edelstein has refused to honor the request of the Supreme Court to hold an internal election, and each side has accused the other of violating the norms, traditions, and rules of Israeli democracy.
The Supreme Court has ordered Edelstein to hold the Knesset vote by tomorrow.
While politicians are pondering and maneuvering, the rest of us are in a lock down. The Health Ministry seems to have taken charge, and is instructing one and all–except for certain vital workers–to remain at home. Especially those over 60, i.e., the country’s grandparents, who are the most vulnerable to the disease, and are urged to remain away from other family members and friends.
Public transportation has been stopped.
Our good news is rain. It’s been a wet winter, with most places above the annual average, and more predicted. Our balcony is blooming, and the fields we see are bright green.
Projections of this continuing go on for months. Passover will be a crisis. We’ve heard of arrests of people who arranged wedding parties, and can imagine the response of people to the issue of Passover Seders.
The Chinese and South Koreans seem to be getting out of their crisis, due to harsh controls over movement, and much testing for the virus.
Our limitations are currently timed until after Passover. Will that be enough? What will be the state of the economy, and the size of the government debt?
More or less like those of every other country dealing with the same crisis.
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Ira Sharkansky, Ph.D., is professor emeritus at Hebrew University. He may be contacted via ira.sharkansky@sdjewishworld.com