The "tie" between the Right and the Left after this week's election is nothing but wool over people's eyes, because even Blue and White leader Benny Gantz knows that Israel's next government cannot be based on the Arab parties
By Amnon Lord
Israel Hayom
September 20, 2019
This was one of the most disappointing election nights ever. The arrival at Hall 2 at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds and then the strange wait for the exit polls fit in well with the nonevent that was to follow. For some reason, there was a sense in the Likud that Benjamin Netanyahu could do it. The high voter turnout signaled an advantage for the Right. Then it turned out that it was an advantage for the Arab parties, whereas the Right is confused, exhausted, and eating its heart out this weekend.
A well-known figure in the Likud approached TV reporter Zion Nanous and told him, "If you're here, we must be winning." Then other big media names showed up, which was seen as good news. Netanyahu fought tooth and nail until the very last minute, including an amazing last-minute push.
Cafés on the outskirts of Tel Aviv were awash in venom. Tough, evil people, as rusty as old nails, left their homes in Zahala and Ramat Hasharon, packed up their portable oxygen tanks, and set out to vote. What did it mean for them to vote? To order that Netanyahu be thrown to the lions. Netanyahu, meanwhile, headed to the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem and from there to the Jerusalem Central Bus Station. His goal: to shove more and more voters to the polling stations. He was everywhere and doubtlessly caused his security staff quite a headache. He didn't forget to remind people that the Palestinian Authority was pushing to bring him down.
At one polling station at a school in central Jerusalem, possibly even the same polling station where the prime minister voted, the committee was headed by an Arab Israeli, who was flanked by two haredim and a secular Meretz voters. A Muslim woman in a hijab was driving the No. 13 bus. In the end, an election is one thing, but real life is something else.
Later, we could see that 10 p.m. was approaching and there was no tension ahead of the exit polls. At the last minute, it turned out that the Central Elections Committee had banned the exit polls from being broadcast in the election headquarters of any party. Why? Who knows? People still managed to get their hands on the early results, which this time were fairly close – not exact, but they gave the basic picture of what was happening.
Veteran pollster Camil Fuchs was wrong, very wrong. The numbers he gave Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, especially the electoral disaster he predicted – 15 seats to the Joint Arab List – did not come to pass. But even 13 seats for Ahmad Tibi and Ayman Odeh (at the time this went to print) don't make it easy for the Israeli people to assemble a government. The sense is that a unity government based on Likud-Gantz is what people want.
"Based on the results we are starting to see, Netanyahu won't succeed in his mission," Gantz said in a speech at 2 a.m. Wednesday. That might be the only statement that came close to characterizing the electoral tie as a loss for the Right.
At the end of the day, Netanyahu was right: Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid come close to the numbers of the right-wing bloc only when they stand on the shoulders of MKs from the anti-Zionist, Islamist Joint Arab List, which supports the Palestinian war against Israel and partly supports terrorism. Gantz apparently made a mistake by calling Odeh on Tuesday night and setting up a meeting. It could prevent any chance of Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Lieberman recommending him to form the next government. Lieberman knows that if he recommends Gantz, he won't be setting Gantz up to be prime minister. It will be Odeh who picks Gantz as prime minister.
Lieberman and Rivlin
Lieberman's campaign can't be summed up as anti-haredi. Now he must broker a unity government and work together with President Reuven Rivlin.
Let's put aside Lieberman's record as defense minister. We can focus on his political decisions over the past several years. He is the one who upped the minimum electoral threshold ahead of the 2015 election, thereby forcing Arab parties that represented fewer than 10 seats to join forces.
Arab unity in the form of the Joint Arab List, under Ayman Odeh, was a game-changer. The Jewish Zionist parties found themselves with less room to maneuver. Since 2015, it has been much harder to assemble a coalition, because instead of 120 MKs, there are in effect only 107 or 108. Raising the minimum electoral threshold wiped out the small right-wing parties. It didn't strengthen governability as Lieberman supposedly hoped it would. This election greatly increased the chances that in the not-too-distant future, a government that verges on anti-Zionist will come to power in Israel.
Despite Lieberman's stately and moderate performance on election night, his decision in May not to allow Netanyahu to assemble a coalition has not proven itself in terms of the country. But as a political leader, Lieberman has achieved his goals, one after the other. He nearly doubled his own power, and the media is casting him as the person who will tip the scales.
That doesn't mean any of it is real. In the end, the tie is an illusion. The left-wing bloc under Gantz comprises only 43 seats. And if Lieberman is the tie-breaker, that means that Gantz, Lapid, and the rest of the generals in Blue and White are standing on the shoulders of Odeh and Tibi.
Today, Lieberman has a different kind of power: he can lead us to a unity government, but force Gantz to accept Netanyahu as prime minister. The right-wing camp is clearly bigger. It is standing on its own feet, and not on anti-Zionist scaffolding erected by supporters of terrorism. That is what Netanyahu's rival Gideon Sa'ar meant when he said, "Look for cracks elsewhere, not in the Likud." The Center-Left's Joint Arab List base is also keeping the confused leaders of the religious Zionist Right, Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked, from joining Gantz.
Can Lieberman act as a mediator between Netanyahu and Gantz? Thus far, his skills in that direction have not been tested. There was once a political leader who was capable of things like that – the late Ariel Sharon. He knew how to find common ground between Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres, between Yitzhak Rabin and the haredim.
Lieberman would not have gotten to where he is if it hadn't been for his anti-haredi campaign. The question is whether or not he knows how to climb down. In any case, it won't be via Ayman Odeh. The person who can get Gantz to forgo his taboo against Benjamin Netanyahu while moving Netanyahu toward Gantz is President Reuven Rivlin.
That unity government
When talking about the next government, Netanyahu and Gantz must look at what was successful in the 2009 government.
Shortly after Gantz made his "We fulfilled our mission and stuck to our path" speech, Netanyahu arrived at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds. Likud spokesman Yonatan Orich introduced him: "The next prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu."
As usual, the Likudniks didn't let him speak for several minutes. They welcomed him with shouts of "We don't want unity! We don't want unity!" He was a little hoarse after visiting the city squares, the conference, and the markets, and said, "It's better to lose your voice than lose the country."
Over the course of the night of disappointments, Netanyahu was the first to tell the bitter truth. The story about a "center-left bloc" is a media lie. There is the Joint Arab List, with its large Islamist sector. What's absurd is that it's no longer "politically correct" to say what Bibi did: "Israel needs a strong government – a Zionist government that is committed to Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. It cannot have a government that rests on Arab parties that cause deaths among our soldiers. That is unacceptable."
He said that he was working "to prevent the establishment of a dangerous anti-Zionist government." Apparently, there are plenty who now prefer the Joint Arab List over the Likud; they can more easily identify with Tibi, Odeh, and the Islamists than with Benjamin Netanyahu.
It was not a joyous evening of victory. If there is one good thing in the Israeli political system, it's that sometimes there are moments of ecstasy when one side wins. The Likud experienced victorious nights in 2015, and this past April. The disappointing result of this election stems from the failure to assemble a government and all the confusing and infighting on the Right. Netanyahu should have won big based on his achievements as a national leader and a diplomat. But various mechanisms were at work against him, especially the "biased media," as Netanyahu repeatedly says.
Netanyahu is an unusually great leader. He based the economy and made it grow while waging an immense diplomatic battle over the Palestinian issue, and especially about Iran. Moreover, he managed to wage a defensive war against Iran and Hezbollah in two senses: he prevented Iranian entrenchment in Syria and prevented Hezbollah from obtaining precision-guided missiles while also avoiding a war. He avoided complications in Syria, and as a friend with a strong revisionist background put it, he stood up like an iron wall between the Right and the Left, which aspired to bog us down in a terrible war that would begin in the Gaza Strip and who knows how it would end. Netanyahu thinks for himself and doesn't depend on a panel of advisers.
The last unity government in Israel was in power from 2009 to 2013. The Labor party, which still hadn't buckled to the Haaretz editorials, joined it and the resulting cumbersome government was one of the best in the history of the country. To understand the deep-seated problem on the Right, one needs to understand what Yamina leader Ayelet Shaked thinks about the 2009-2013 government – she told me it was a bad one. Well, that government saved the Israeli economy, stood up to the hostile American administration, and led a successful strategy against Iran obtaining nuclear weapons.
The Right isn't trustworthy
Shaked's lack of leadership and the exchange of blows with Netanyahu caused the right-wing public to pull its leaders down.
To understand the issue of the religious Right: the Arabs' level of citizenship is much higher than the citizenship of religious Zionist voters. How can that be? Why? Voters for the National Religious Party/ Habayit Hayehudi/ the New Right/Yamina/National Union – they will have to answer to themselves. The problem is a national one. They have become elements that weigh down the Likud and bring down the entire Right.
The infighting in the religious Zionist Right, the lack of leadership by Shaked and Bennett, who pushed out Rafi Peretz, Bezalel Smotrich's outrageous demands in coalition negotiation and Peretz's embarrassing gaffes all caused fatigue among religious right-wing voters, which had ramifications for the Likud and for Prime Minister Netanyahu.
The religious Zionist Right, and especially the responses of its spokespeople to every important event during the campaign, increased the sense that it was hard to have faith in the Right. That the Right wasn't trustworthy. When the prime minister made an important, historic declaration about his decision to apply Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea – who tried to paint it as a betrayal? Bennett. The same thing happened in Ashdod when the prime minister found himself under rocket fire from Gaza. The prime minister conducted himself excellently. But Bennett called it "a national humiliation."
Shaked and Bennett didn't take votes from Gantz or Lieberman – they were supposed to be the liberal, national Right. Instead, they battled tirelessly against Netanyahu, who fought back. That's exactly what caused voters to head for the beach or stay home on Election Day. When all is said and done, another seat for the Right from the soldiers' vote will bolster the bloc, and give the Likud more bargaining power.
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