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in an atmosphere of hugs, brothers, and loud "do not fear" applause; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu celebrated last night with senior Religious Zionists his return to the traditional Jerusalem Day celebrations at the rabbi's center, and alongside Jerusalem, he raised the crises in the coalition to the top of his joy. "It's time to produce islands, boycott and climb trees," Netanyahu said, at the end of a week full of ultimatums, strikes and demands, and just before the most fateful ten days his sixth government has known so far since its establishment, until the deadline for approving the state budget at the end of the month. "We do not and will not have a better national government. Everyone needs to work together," Netanyahu added, hoping Otzma Yehudit Chairman Itamar Ben-Gvir and Agudat Yisrael leaders would internalize Jerusalem's unifying message.
The message Netanyahu refreshed yesterday to his partners reflects the prevailing premise in his circle that after celebrating the threats, the budget will pass. Neither Ben-Gvir nor Goldknopf has and will not have a better government, with such senior positions and access to budgets and resources. This week, the government approved more than NIS 14 billion of coalition funds, all intended to fulfill the needs and whims of the partnership. Still, despite the inflated and unprecedented sum that represents the cost of forming a full-fledged right-wing government, this is not enough for coalition partners. On Sunday, Otzma Yehudit and Agudat Yisrael voted against the coalition funds in the government, and demanding more money to pocket, disrupted the coalition's work all week.
"Celebrated his return." Netanyahu at the rabbi's center in Jerusalem, yesterday (Photo: documentation on social networks according to section 27A of the Copyright Law, according to section 27A of the Copyright Law)
Like a replay of the coalition negotiations, Netanyahu's partners are insatiable, constantly looking to their sides to see what the other has gotten, and demanding more and more. Otzma Yehudit saw Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich distributing more than a billion shekels of coalition funds to National Infrastructure Minister Orit Strock, and were called upon to demand more budgets for the Negev and Galilee Ministry as well; Agudat Israel joined them, demanding that every clause in the coalition agreement be implemented on time, just as Gafni received. The same dynamic that dragged the process of forming a government for two months six months ago reappears this time as well: everyone knows that neither Ben-Gvir nor Goldknopf has another government, and their threat not to support the budget – and to topple the government – is not really serious.
And yet - they demand and threaten. Simply because they can. Netanyahu also has no other government; He is even more dependent on partnership with the ultra-Orthodox and the settlers, because he is not only a politician but also a criminal defendant. In the current state of the coalition in the polls, no one wants elections, but Netanyahu needs the prime minister's seat not only to govern the coalition and the country, but also to control his legal affairs. And everyone understands that.
And as in the coalition negotiations. From the outset, the Likud set an optimistic target for approval of the budget in its second and third readings next week, with a safety margin of two days from the deadline, in case something goes wrong. The coalition has already been forced to postpone the start of votes on the Arrangements Law this week because of the crisis with Otzma Yehudit, and it is not inconceivable that this will not be the last delay in the timetable, and that, as is his holy custom, Netanyahu will pass the budget hurdle only at the 90th minute, after his partners give him a captive workshop of ultimatums and demands. This is their last chance to get everything he promised them and more. After the budget passes, he will receive a certificate of stability, and it will be much harder for them to get him to keep his word.
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Distributes more than NIS 1 billion of coalition funds to Strzok. Smotrich (Photo: official website, GPO)
Ostensibly, after the budget, as after the holidays, Netanyahu will ostensibly be able to free himself from the shackles of his extortionate and threatening partners, pull the reins, and continue the rehabilitation campaign he has been waging for the past two months since he froze the legal revolution to restore leadership in his government. Even when the government was formed, after the coalition negotiations, Netanyahu boasted and promised interlocutors, especially the international ones, that he was the first in the government, and that he controlled and steered his extremist partners and made decisions responsibly and judiciously. Within a short time, this assumption was refuted: Ben-Gvir ascended to the Temple Mount, Smotrich called for Huwara to be erased, Justice Minister Yariv Levin galloped with the legal revolution, and the government descended into an internal, political, economic and security crisis that plunged Netanyahu to a low point in the polls.
Now, he's determined to prove he's back in business. "It's not going to happen," he told someone this week when asked about Levin's plans to unilaterally renew reform legislation at the upcoming summer conference if talks at the president's residence fail. Netanyahu has other plans; He wants a political-security summer, and not to go back to wallowing in the legal quagmire. He also wants to put an end to Ben-Gvir's childish behavior. The passage of the budget is ostensibly supposed to give Netanyahu the quiet he needs to recover from the severe opening blow suffered by his government, but it is doubtful whether his partners will let him rule as he wishes: the pressure to renew the legal revolution and the crisis of the draft law are already waiting on his doorstep, and his allies smell his weakness well.
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- Benjamin Netanyahu
- Bezalel Smotrich
- budget
- Orit Strock
- The Legal Revolution