Since the speaker of the Knesset was replaced and the incoming coalition began the process of enacting the laws required according to the coalition agreements before the government was sworn in, it was estimated that the new opposition would use the tailwind to attack its brigands against the yet-to-be-formed government. Some believed that it would try to carry out some of its threats, at least In the Knesset arena - the place where you can express strong opposition to laws and government reforms.
Despite the built-in coalition majority, the opposition has enough tools to practically express opposition, through real fights in the committees, endless filibusters in the plenary and more.
Amazingly, all the harsh statements - especially from the people of Yesh Atid - and the calls for civil uprisings and mass demonstrations, were replaced this week by the opposition in negotiations with the coalition, and even reached a long series of agreements with it in the order of discussion and votes.
Alongside the sigh of relief of the Knesset members from the right that they will not be forced to stay in the plenary day and night and vote on tens of thousands of reservations due to the same agreements, a suspicion began to creep in among some of them that these agreements do not come in a vacuum.
It can't even be that on Wednesday at midnight Netanyahu's mandate ends, and by then four laws must be passed in a final reading and all the coalition agreements must be completed, the plenum closes at six in the evening and everyone disperses home as if nothing is on fire (apart from the desire to make it to the opening whistle in the World Cup semi-finals).
Their suspicion grew even more when it became clear that the main issue and giver on behalf of the opposition is not any of the people of Yesh Atid, but Zev Elkin, from Benny Gantz's party.
The big question that has been asked since the elections - has the Gantz option really been completely removed from the table - came up again this week, against the background of the fierce criticism leveled in the new coalition on the coalition agreements, the details of which are being revealed these days.
Netanyahu's response this week to the criticism shows his line of thinking.
He does not stand behind the demands or justify them, but clarifies that even though they were raised - he is the one who will determine it.
In other words, the message he conveys is that his opinion is also not comfortable with them.
He also believes that the partner parties jump a little too high above their own navel when they claim files, powers, laws and budgets far beyond their size and real status.
And if only he, Netanyahu, had the opportunity to wave an alternative like Benny Gantz, he would do so willingly to return Ben Gabir, Smotrich, Deri, Gafni and Goldknopf to their rightful proportions.
Because, to put it mildly, lately the guys have been a bit over the top.
Gantz's question even sharpens in light of the chairman of the state camp's disavowal of Yair Lapid's actions regarding the conduct of the opposition and the demonstrations. Even though he is in the opposition camp led by Lapid, Gantz continues to conduct himself independently, and often does not even hesitate to attack the Prime Minister who goes openly on his words and disavow them .
"Leaders should lead protests, I don't think that standing on a bridge in some particular corner is the main model, but everyone will choose their own path," he scolded Lapid at the faction meeting.
It was also important for him to emphasize that, contrary to Lapid's words, "our camp does not think that the elected government is crazy, crazy or deranged."
But despite the concerns on the right, the chance of Gantz joining the government at the last minute seems to many in the political system to be non-existent to zero.
The assumption is that the negotiations for agreements with the coalition are intended to postpone the planned timetable for the approval of the laws without exhausting the members of the opposition from long hours in the Knesset in a hopeless struggle, and not to enter the Netanyahu government at the last minute.
After all, it is clear to everyone that this time, if it were to happen, Gantz would at most receive the defense portfolio, without an alternate prime minister, without pretense and without veto rights on any issue.
A fifth wheel in a stable and functioning coalition that has a majority without him.
For Netanyahu, on the other hand, the presence of Gantz, Sa'ar and Eisenkot made it difficult to deal with the legal system or to accept all the ultra-Orthodox demands.
Don't burn bridges
However, what is true now will not necessarily be true in a few months or a year.
There is not even one factor in the state camp or in Likud who is now ready to commit that Gantz's refusal to now enter the coalition led by Netanyahu will last throughout the government's lifetime, which may expire and serve for four years.
Many see the possibility of the state camp joining the ranks of the coalition as realistic, one in which both Gantz and Netanyahu would be interested.
They even notice differences in tones and sounds between Gantz's words and those of Lapid.
The two oppose Deri's law to qualify his appointment as a minister without the need for the approval of the chairman of the election committee, but while Lapid personally attacks the chairman of the Shas, calling him a criminal and stating that he is not fit to be finance minister, Gantz prefers to attack the fact that this is a personal law, tailored to her needs of a political personality.
Lapid presented Netanyahu as a blackmailer, but even according to the lowest calculation, the Lapid-Bennett government gave 2 billion shekels to the Prime Minister. How much will the yeshiva budget be after the increase? 2 billion shekels
Lapid sounds like someone who realized that Deri will never sit down with him, while Gantz is cautious as someone who believes that there is still a chance for future cooperation.
The same goes for the demands of Torah Judaism in the coalition agreement.
Lapid, in an onslaught movement, calls these agreements "the state of Halacha", while his friends compare them to Iran's sharia laws, while Gantz and his party members oppose with moderation, perhaps even with a wink.
The state camp does not rule out the possibility of entering the government at some point, but according to senior party officials, there is currently no such plan on the agenda.
According to them, the differences in attitudes between Gantz and Lapid do not stem only from a desire to cooperate with Deri and the ultra-Orthodox in the future, but also from the understanding that they can absorb mandates from Likud voters and the right-wing parties who will be disappointed with the government's performance, and therefore the strategy that will lead them in the opposition will be to criticize and point to the failures, but not to go down the rails personal
According to them, Lapid's audience is completely different, so he can also afford to ride the waves of hatred felt towards the government by a large public, which he now leads.
Improper migration
Among the changes demanded by the political partners within the framework of the coalition agreements, a change in the wording of the Law of Return stands out.
Religious Zionism, Otzma Yehudit, Shas and Torah Judaism demand the cancellation of the grandson clause. Agudat Israel and Tsama Yehudit demand to change the definition of Jew in the law, which states that a Jew is someone whose mother is Jewish or who has converted, and to add the word "correctly".
Since last year, the state is obliged to also recognize reformist and conservative conversions according to the High Court's decision. The change in the law will close the loophole.
Netanyahu disapproves.
His fear is that the change in the law will create an outcry in the non-Orthodox Jewish world, which is considered particularly strong in the US. The grandson clause is used to attribute a symbolic meaning, associated with the Nazi race theory. If Hitler determined that the grandfather, also on the father's side, defines his grandson as a Jew destined for extermination, then He will be defined as entitled to the Law of Return by the state as intended for rescue. However, there is really no such determination in the legislation. The only reason the state was required to introduce the grandson clause was as a result of a High Court decision in 1970 (the Shalit High Court), according to which a Jew would not be required to separate from his family member.
From a study conducted by Akiva Lam and Dr. Yona Sharki of the Center Institute for Israeli Immigration Policy, and which was presented to the members of the Knesset from the forming coalition, it appears that following the grandson clause, the number of non-Jewish immigrants grew by tens of percent, while the Jewish majority in the country gradually decreased from about 85% in 1970 to about -74% in 2021.
It also shows that in the last decade only 57% of the immigrants to Israel are Jews (including those who were converted by non-Orthodox conversions), while among the immigrants from the countries of the former Soviet Union, the proportion of Jews is only 34%. 66% of the immigrants from Russia are not Jews, and do not define themselves as Jews. Of the Western countries, on the other hand, only 5% are not Jewish.
In other words, the study shows that the cancellation of the grandchild clause will not affect at all the immigrants from the USA and Western Europe, since only 5% of them immigrate to Israel under his or her protection. The cancellation of the grandchild clause will have a dramatic effect on immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe, who in the last decade are increasingly finding in Israel a place of economic refuge , sometimes even without their parents living in Israel, so there is not even family reunification here.
The problem is only getting worse over the years.
In 2013, the Population Manager was required to correct the eligibility for aliya not only for grandchildren but also for great-grandchildren, and this in the name of the value of family reunification.
While the proportion of Jews in the population is small, over the years the dam is only breaking through.
But the grandson clause (who has already become a great-grandson) will probably be the small problem.
The next story is the converts of Africa.
Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of Africans, who consider themselves sons of lost ancient Jewish tribes, have gone through a conversion process in recent years;
A private and independent process that no rabbinic factor, including reformist, recognizes.
These days, a demand is pending in the High Court to recognize these conversions, and without changing the law and adding the word "properly" to the definition of conversion, a wave of African immigration is expected in unprecedented amounts. Israel has so far not been able to deal with the illegal infiltrators from Africa, and one can only appreciate the helplessness and exhaustion The hand that you will discover with the arrival of tens of thousands of new Africans with blue identity cards and full absorption baskets.
Hypocrisy, the old generation
The opposition's attacks on the new government are mainly based on a short memory, media sympathy, and probably the burning hatred of their voters against Netanyahu, the ultra-orthodox and the right.
Otherwise it is difficult to explain such an impressive show of hypocrisy.
And this is not the first time, by the way.
After Lapid harshly attacked the Pritish government, which included a rotation between Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, he was quick to do exactly the same with Naftali Bennett.
The same is true when he called the Norwegian law the "Job Law" and worked to expand it a moment later, as well as when he demanded to limit the number of ministers and even passed a law when he was Minister of Finance that the next government would not have more than 18, but he formed a government of no less than 30 .
It's enough to promise dramatically and then collide with reality and break promises, that's one thing.
But to do and then attack someone who does the same - is already a new record of boldness.
This week Lapid presented Netanyahu as a blackmailer in light of the ultra-Orthodox demands to add a budget for yeshiva.
However, even according to the lowest calculation, his government (and Bennett's) granted 2 billion shekels to the RA. How much will the yeshiva budget be after the increase? 2 billion.
Lapid lamented the councils of Torah elders who would determine the fate of the country, and probably very much wanted to forget those tense nights in which he waited vigilantly for the opinion of the members of the Shura Council of the Islamic movement in Kfar Qasim, whether to support the citizenship law or whether to overthrow the government if it passed the U.S. regulations. That.
Benny Gantz also did not leave his hand in the plate this week when he attacked the intention to pass a law that would allow the appointment of Smotrich as a minister in the Ministry of Defense, and stated that another minister would harm the ministry.
But his own, Gantz, was a minister in the Ministry of Defense - his name was Michael Bitton.
Short memory, did we say?
were we wrong
We will fix it!
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