After four election campaigns in which Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a government, and after 12 years of evacuating the residence on Balfour Street - the Knesset session opened this week and he was there again, this time as chairman of the opposition. so quickly rose in almost every conversation with the Likud last week one question: "Why is he staying?".
In any case, the man was summits of the world's countries will take the next few months Bfilibstrim murky and exhausting the Knesset and in the wilderness opposition dreary, instead of flying first class to meet with leaders The business world and enjoy a fat income in lectures across the globe.
"The truth is that I have no idea why he stayed," says one Likud Knesset member, who asked to remain anonymous like anyone who raised the possibility in this article that Netanyahu would leave. "I do not understand him. After the loss in 1999 he retired and eventually returned. No one will stop him from coming back, in three or four years there will be elections, he will run in the primaries, he will probably win and he can come back. In the meantime, instead of sitting in opposition and doing nothing , He will be able to make his home a few good years.
"More than that, the element of retirement and return is sometimes stronger than staying. Look at Kahlon who retired and returned at the head of a party. Look at Saar who retired and returned. Netanyahu himself also left in 1999 and then returned to 12 years in power. The logical explanation is that Netanyahu knows that if he leaves The Likud will enter the coalition. There will be a new chairman of the party, the government will want to expand so as not to be a 61st government, the Likud will want to return to power and Netanyahu will not only become irrelevant, but also the one because the Likud could not return to power. It may be perceived as a millstone on the party. He can not allow such a thing to happen. "
Another Likud MK makes the opposite claim to his retirement and return strategy at a later stage: Does not make the same mistake he made in '99 when he left and Ariel Sharon replaced him. That risk again. "
Waiting from the side for the fall
Another common claim among Likud members speaks of Netanyahu's sense of mission. But beyond the value issue, it is a thought that, according to Likud members, causes Netanyahu not to trust anyone in his party who can take the reins and run the State of Israel.
"It's not just a compliment or 'lick' that is said of a party leader who is 'full of a sense of mission', with Netanyahu it is deeper," says a party MK. In their view, Israel is a complicated country and the threats to it exist, even if it has the ability to take care of what is happening in Iran vis-à-vis the countries of the world as well as security and economic issues. Netanyahu thinks that this task is great for the Likud members, he does not trust any of the current party members who can run the country responsibly and wisely.
"There is only one man that Netanyahu thinks he can do it - the former head of the Mossad, Yossi Cohen. I would not be surprised if Netanyahu thinks of staying until Cohen finishes the cooling off and replaces him. He is headed by the prime minister. "
Within the Likud, there are those who also define Netanyahu's thoughts as "messianic" and claim that "his wife and he really believe that he is saving the people of Israel, that he is on a mission, he is not interested in money, he is not interested in how much he can get abroad, and he can get huge sums. "Outside (according to a lecturer in the field of lecture marketing, the amount can range from 100,000 to 150,000 dollars per hour). He can arrange his grandchildren and great-grandchildren for generations."
Minister, then Prime Minister? Cohen / Photo: Yehoshua Yosef,
There is life in the opposition
And there is another possibility that the Likud raises for Netanyahu's choice to remain in the political arena - the scenario of the dissolution of the government. Netanyahu himself often talks about this possibility as part of a strategy against the government, and also, and perhaps most importantly, to covet his party members for the exhausting war from the opposition benches. The Bennett-Lapid government is showing signs of stability, has gone through the first hundred days of grace, and will probably face the almost only threat that hovers over it - the transfer of the budget. Despite this, Netanyahu is convinced that the government will disband in the coming months.
This week at a meeting of his faction, Netanyahu said that this government was temporary. He said that when he met with Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister, she told him that in political life one should constantly "expect the unexpected". Netanyahu told MKs "to expect surprising things in the upcoming Knesset session," and did not elaborate.
"He looks at this government from the side and grins," says one of the Likud members.
He talks about their inability, about their failures, about the failed treatment of the corona and the Iranian nuclear program, about the strange connections of this government that are pulling in different directions.
He saw the polls this week that give power to the Likud, and was happy.
He said at the faction meeting that the Likud returned to power even when it was at a low of 12 seats, today with 35 seats in the polls it will be easier to return. "
The political interpretation of Netanyahu and his people says that there are two potential factors in overthrowing the government - the Arabs who will not be able to withstand public pressure if a significant military struggle breaks out, and Bnei Gantz.
"The Arabs can not be in the government one hundred percent. When they thought they did not receive money, they started threatening out loud that they would go to the polls. Now think what will happen if there is a big riot against Israeli Arabs, or there is a security deterioration. You can not really rely on them."
And there is also the issue of the defense minister: "Gantz is not satisfied with this government. He could have entered the prime minister's office next month, and instead a man with a lower number of seats came in. In addition, Gantz's situation with Yair Lapid is not simple. There is no love between them. Great in the slightest. In the plenum they hardly look at each other, content with peace-peace. Why would Gantz give Lapid to be prime minister? .
Gantz has every reason in the world to do that, after the budget passes there will be no threats to his tenure as prime minister and he will do what he always wanted to do - be prime minister. It seems like an imaginary political scenario, but we have already seen delusional political scenarios in Israeli politics "In the end. Anything can happen. The thing is that the maximum that Netanyahu can achieve from this is the dissolution of a government. Netanyahu cannot be prime minister in such a scenario. But the dissolution of the government is also an important task. There are quite a few people here who are sure that by April the government will fall."
Even if the government persists, the opposition, according to Likud members, is not a total wasteland for its leader.
"When you retire from political life, you are at most a wanted interviewee," says one of the Likud MKs. "The role of opposition leader is still significant. "We saw this week, when he is in front of Bennett he also overshadows him, his public statements get on stage and he is still walking around with security, bureau and assistants. It does not disappear completely and it has meaning."
There are even those in the Likud who speculate that Netanyahu's stay is related to the trial and immunity that MKs have from searches or arrests, but according to people close to Netanyahu, this is an assumption that is not even "in the right direction." The Netanyahu case is not moved by the trial, we see what is happening there, how it is slowly collapsing. "
The Iranian motive
And after all the speculation - Netanyahu's loyalists say that his departure from political life is out of the question. "I asked him what he needs all the slander and demonstrations against him," says MK Dudi Amsalem, "he understands he is at a historic event. I think it's like the Blessed One put him at this crossroads to deal with the Iranian story. He can not walk, especially in the current situation. The gaps between Netanyahu and everyone in the public arena are huge, both in the Likud and abroad. "
One of the people closest to Netanyahu is MK Yariv Levin, who also repelled the background noises around him: "My opinion on the matter is based not only on appreciation but on true knowledge. Netanyahu is a man with enormous education and historical knowledge, a man with a strong belief in everything related to the preservation of the Jewish people and the existence of the State of Israel. There is a sense of threat in this period, he believes wholeheartedly that if we do not know how to be powerful, strong and determined - we may become extinct. He thinks that at this time the really great danger that hovers over us is Iran as a nuclear power.
"Netanyahu thinks the Iranian issue is a historical burden placed on his shoulders. He has a personal responsibility to fight for it. The others, there is no one in the Likud who knows how to do something like that - nor in other parties.
In Netanyahu's view, if he moves aside, it is the abandonment of the people to its fate.
Had he succeeded in ending the Iranian issue and stopping the bomb altogether or delaying the bomb for a long time, he would have felt that the super-task assigned to his development had been accomplished.
That's his motive. "
