Prime Minister Naftali Bennett will try to hold on as long as possible before he is forced to truly confess.
Succeed in the winter session, and if possible, arrive safely at the rotation where Yair Lapid will receive the reins.
He no longer has bass voters to please, but changing the tune is hard.
More than he himself is difficult for his friends, especially Ayelet Shaked.
Neither he nor she is now ready to appear before the public and announce that Israel has agreed to resume political negotiations to strive for a two-state plan.
This is already visible to all. Senior government officials do not hide this, as do officials in the US State Department and starting this week also the palace of the King of Jordan, but it still means that Bennett does not say so himself and openly. This space of denial is still important to him. The process is still in its infancy. Standing behind him at such an early stage will give fuel to the attacks of the opposition, and all this when the fragile coalition, especially members of the right, are not ripe for such an attack. It could dismantle them from within, and perhaps the entire government.
So he waits. takes his time. To the leaders of the world lets understand that he is completely in the direction, it allows them to lower the level of pressure, however outwardly throws no hint. vice versa. This week, when he was required to respond to a proposal for an order on behalf of the Religious Zionist Party if Israel "conducts political negotiations to establish a terrorist state in the heart of the country" - Bennett gave up the opportunity to attack the opposition, especially Netanyahu, from the Knesset podium. "Does not conduct political negotiations for the establishment of a terrorist state in the heart of the country." Said and descended from the pulpit.
The next day it became clear that at the exact same time Mansour Abbas was meeting with the King of Jordan and discussing with him, with Bennett's approval, the resumption of political negotiations. Abbas understands well the sensitivity of Bennett and his right-wingers, and despite the criticism he receives in the sector, at this stage prefers to join the game. Said. Yes, of course).
Abbas refrained at this stage from meeting with Abu Mazen so as not to create a commotion.
After betting all the money on his decision to join the Israeli government for the first time, he has no interest in it falling.
At such an early stage, if the government falls, RAAM falls with it.
All members of the government from the right-wing parties filled their mouths after the contents of the Abbas and King Abdullah meeting became clear. The opposition attacked. "In the heart of our country," Ophir Akunis said, "I told you that the Americans would promote it, but I did not imagine that Bennett's execution contractor would be Mansour Abbas."
The new partners
On Wednesday, the government lost a vote on a private member's bill to establish a new medical center in Sakhnin. This is after on Monday the coalition was forced to remove from the Knesset agenda all government bills for fear of loss. Contrary to what Bennett, Lapid and Lieberman said at the gala press conference they held together on Saturday night following the budget approval, that the government is getting Israel out of the mud in which it was stuck - the government only seems to be sinking deeper into it.
Governments that do not control the Knesset have no right to exist. In contrast to the overthrow of a government due to budget disapproval, which has happened only once in history - in the previous government - countless governments have fallen due to loss of control. Wednesdays are the most dangerous. Today of Private Bills. The coalition is unable to withdraw the laws in the absence of a majority and it is forced to suffer discriminations, sometimes with a huge financial cost and without a real ability to fund the same bills that were approved.
This is the pressure point on which the Likud decided to place all the weight of the opposition. Contrary to their initial tendency in the first months to form a government, to propose bills embarrassing right-wing parties in the coalition, right and new hope, by settlements bills and for the right-wing public, and attack them week after week after voting against them - the decision made this week was to change direction. Not to embarrass the right in the government, but to cooperate with the joint list and embarrass the RAAM. Knesset members from right-wing and new hope parties are too elastic, sluggish and weak in character. Even the Young Settlement Regulation was opposed this week. On the other hand, the members of RAAM have proven that in matters that are important to them, they will violate their obligations to the coalition without blinking an eye. The criticism from the joint list concerns them much more than the pleas of Idit Silman or Yair Lapid.
This week was just the beginning.
Mazen Ghanaim from Ra'am voted in favor of establishing a medical center in Sakhnin and the law passed.
Meanwhile, there are those in the Likud who lament that the cooperation with the joint is done unilaterally, meaning that at this point Ayman Odeh, Ahmad Tibi and their friends are not helping the Likud pass their laws at the same time, but there is a chance that such cooperation will come later.
Commonly do not want to overthrow the government, but are certainly interested in weeping over the PM.
Do not make (conflict) matters
It is hard not to pay attention to the silence of law enforcement officials and various legal figures, who were enveloped in silence and deafness from the moment the government was sworn in. The Attorney General, who during the previous government would not have gone through a week in which he would not have issued a letter and complained about anything it had approved or intended to approve, suddenly disappeared and faded into the night. So are the organizations of democracy and the rule of law, which seemed five months ago and no one knows their resting place. (This week, they stopped for a moment to fret and get angry about the plea agreement with Haim Katz, from the Likud in the opposition, and immediately returned to their coma).
Who remembers the days when every action and every little thing would become a world riot. The conflict of interest arrangement, for example, of Netanyahu, or of the then Minister of Justice Amir Ohana, whose entire short tenure was accompanied by allegations of a conflict of interest due to his proximity to Netanyahu, who appointed him and is on trial by the heads of the ministry entrusted to him.
Now everything is going quietly. Not only the appointments of Yair Lapid in the JNF and the working arrangements of a new hope for the Knesset, but also in matters concerning moral purity. Conflicts of interest, for example.
It turns out that to this day, another five months since the formation of the government, more than half of the government ministers have not yet signed a conflict of interest agreement as required by law. Worse, those same ministers participated and voted in all discussions and sections of the state budget and the Arrangements Law, without anyone overseeing that their proposals and voting did not go well with a person with whom they had a conflict of interest. Moreover, more often than not due to a conflict of interest, legal entities teach that minister that due to his closeness to a particular person he is prevented from engaging in and sometimes even pointing to a law or regulation that may benefit their associates directly or indirectly.
When the Netanyahu government passed the gas outline, it almost failed in its mission due to the conflict of interest in which two coalition members were: Moshe Kahlon and Haim Katz, who declared a close relationship with Yossi Maiman.
Here, however, government ministers participated and voted on hundreds of unreported, unsupervised and unhindered items. Who knows what names will emerge later, after the completion of conflict of interest agreements at some point in the future, of those who directly benefited from the budget transfer or one of the clauses of the arrangements, which were approved thanks to a finger that was not supposed to be there. Of a minister who was supposed to disqualify himself but did not do so because no one knew and no one heard. And maybe in a government that relies on a majority of one MK, the budget would not have been passed at all due to such a disqualification. Maybe. We will never know.
Gideon Saar for example. Even after five months, the Minister of Justice did not sign a conflict of interest agreement. In the time that has elapsed since he was appointed, Saar has signed dozens of resolutions in a position considered one of the most sensitive in the public service, without signing the arrangement and without the ombudsman and the public, who are supposed to be exposed to the arrangement, aware of any ties the minister may have.
The fact that Saar also serves as chairman of a party, and another chairman of a new party that when it was formed needed the financial assistance of many capitalists, further underscores the need to sign this agreement.
The importance of the signature can be learned from the Attorney General's guidance document entitled: "Making Arrangements for the Prevention of Conflicts of Interest in the Public Service", which states, among other things, that "That the legal counsel of the relevant body examined the question of the conflict of interest and after the candidate signed an appropriate arrangement to prevent a conflict of interest, to the extent that he was required to do so." As stated, Saar, as well as 13 other ministers, not only did not sign the arrangement before taking office as stated, but also today have not yet signed this arrangement.
When Saar founded Tikva Hadasha, he raised donations in the amount of more than half a million shekels and other guarantees, through which he could withdraw money from banks in the amount of more than 17 million shekels.
Among the Arabs - businessmen and millionaires who may be in sharp conflict of interest with Saar, and all this unhindered, since there is no signed conflict of interest agreement that prevents him from engaging in their affairs.
The Ministry of Justice stated in response that "Minister Saar's conflict of interest agreement is in the final stages of work, and its treatment is expected to be completed in the near future."
storm.
Photo: Oren Ben Hakon,
The game of chairs
Following the High Court ruling that it will not interfere in determining the composition of committees in the Knesset, and after most opposition parties have already taken their seats on the committees assigned to them, Likud members will probably join on Monday and fill their seats on the committees. The biggest in the Knesset, and a serious headache for Netanyahu's chairman.
Ten candidates for the prestigious Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee: Israel Katz, Yuli Edelstein, Yoav Galant, Avi Dichter, Yuval Steinitz, Miri Regev, Nir Barkat, Tzachi Hanegbi, Amir Ohana, and probably Netanyahu himself.
In the Interior Committee - a committee with enormous media potential due to the fact that it is chaired by Walid Taha Maram, which will turn any discussion in it into a boxing arena - the Likud has three seats, but there are at least four candidates: Ofir Akunis, Yoav Kish, Dudi Amsalem, Gila Gamliel and maybe more In the
opposition, expectations are lower than in the government, but there has never been such a large opposition party with so few seats to share, which means that this round of appointments may end with a long trail of resentments. The last thing Netanyahu needs now.