Is a desperate Netanyahu plotting an early election?
Most people look forward to their summer break, and this year no one more so than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His options for traveling abroad are somewhat limited, either because of the International Criminal Court arrest warrant that hangs over his head, or, more generally, his unsurprising lack of popularity in the face of the horrific images beamed around the world of starvation in Gaza.
Still, the summer brings two blessings to the Israeli leader. First, the Knesset has broken up for its recess, giving him nearly three months of breathing space from managing his crooked coalition, which ranges from misfits to warmongers, to plot his next chapter of political survival, and with it the possibility of an early general election. Second, it is also a seasonal break for the courts, and hence for his corruption trial on charges of fraud, bribery, and breach of trust — with a looming prosecution cross-examination likely to leave him shifting uncomfortably in his seat.
Israel, meanwhile, is desperate for a general election, one that polls suggest would bring about a new and very different government. By law, the latest date for holding that election is October of next year, but with the never-ending catalog of horrific damage the Netanyahu government and its bunch of extreme nationalists and populists are inflicting on it, the country just does not have the luxury of waiting for more than a year before these merchants of destruction are sent packing.
While Israel is still at war in Gaza and on other unresolved fronts, Netanyahu has entangled himself in the web of lies and deceit he is offering to the entire nation, to his political partners, and to international friends and foes, which has made it crystal clear that the interest of the country comes second to that of his political survival. It is especially disturbing, while pressure is mounting from abroad to stop the war in Gaza, or at least alleviate the humanitarian disaster there, that he and his government are mainly responsible for this conflict.
Even at the best of times, the composition of the current Israeli government was always bound to polarize the nation and aggravate relations with the wider world. Its intemperate agenda of undermining the very foundations of Israeli democracy has torn Israeli society apart while sending a message of weakness to its enemies — first and foremost Hamas — that was a significant contributory factor in the launch of the Oct. 7 attack.
What has happened since then has exposed a weak prime minister who formed a coalition with the sole aim of serving his legal and political interests, which have become inseparably intertwined with horrendous consequences. Since no party in Israel's history has ever won an absolute majority in a general election, the leading party and the prime minister have always relied on good working relations with its coalition partners. However, this edition comes to the world born in sin, as the participants were the only ones prepared to form a coalition led by a defendant in a corruption trial, unashamedly knowing that this might be the only chance they ever get to wield excessive political power at the heart of government, with a prime minister who is susceptible to blackmail because of his desperation to stay in power and out of jail.
Israel has angered some of its closest allies.
Yossi Mekelberg
However, between their extremism and incompetence, it was just a matter of time before interests and egos would clash and unsettle the coalition. One of the issues that is an open wound in Israeli society is the draft, more accurately the avoidance of the draft by ultra-Orthodox youth, ostensibly to allow them to study in rabbinical seminaries, or yeshivot. What began back at the early days of the nascent Jewish state as an exemption for no more than 400 religious scholars has turned into a law that now allows tens of thousands of young ultra-Orthodox to dodge the draft, whether or not they actually immerse themselves in holy scripture. Nothing angers the rest of Jewish society more than carrying the burden and the duty of serving for many years, first as conscripts and then for decades in the reserve force, while their fellow ultra-Orthodox are exempt, and in addition are living on generous state handouts from the taxes paid by the rest of the society, those who actually bother to get up in the morning and do meaningful work which benefits a modern economy.
Since the High Court of Justice ordered the government to address by law this controversial inequality, which the government failed to do, it meant that not drafting ultra-Orthodox to the military became illegal. The brazen and frantic attempts in recent weeks to pass a bill in the middle of a war merely to prevent the ultra-Orthodox leaving the coalition failed. But Netanyahu was prepared to sacrifice a political ally in a key position: Yuli Edelstein, the chair of the Knesset's all-powerful foreign policy and security committee. Edelstein, who opposed the bill, was replaced by one of Netanyahu's psychopaths, simply to appease the ultra-Orthodox United Torah and Shas parties, despite both leaving the coalition. This at a time when the chiefs of the military are telling the prime minister that in light of the exhaustion of both the regular and reserve army, let alone the loss of soldiers, there is an urgent need for an extra 10,000 troops.
But it does not stop there. Continuing this war, which is having a dwindling military return, is about satisfying the extreme right-wing partners in the coalition, who are still pursuing the illusion of total victory, the occupation of Gaza, and the building of new settlements there. The price is being paid by more than 2 million Palestinians who live in the enclave, many of whom are suffering dreadfully from the ills of the war, including starvation, and by the hostages languishing in Hamas tunnels. By inflicting an inhumane famine on Gaza, Israel has also angered some of its closest allies, who rightly demand that humanitarian aid be allowed to reach the Strip. It has also led countries such as France, the UK, and Canada, among others, to launch moves to recognize Palestinian statehood, something that Netanyahu has spent his entire political career attempting to thwart.
In the twilight of his political life, entangled in legal turbulence, leading a failed government that is presiding over the worst period in the country's history, and losing his ability to manipulate his coalition partners, Netanyahu now appears to be plotting yet another election campaign. But this time he will have to defend a record that even this master spinner of Israeli politics will find hard to justify.
• Yossi Mekelberg is a professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. X: @YMekelberg
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