Soon we will get to right and left, pros and cons, yes Bibi not Bibi. First of all, we can start with the bottom line: a government that represents half the people is doomed to failure.
This was the case in the previous government with the flip-flop made by Naftali Bennett, who joined a government that excluded Likud voters from the periphery, the settlers, the religious and the ultra-Orthodox; The same is true of the current government, which excluded Yesh Atid voters, liberals, kibbutzim and more. A government of half a people cannot work. It is not legitimate. Point.
Minister of Justice Yariv Levin (archive), photo: Oren Ben Hakon
Still, if we have to dive deeper into the past year, two things can be said clearly: on the one hand, the government made serious mistakes, and on the other hand, this government was not given a real chance. The mistakes started early, even very early. Even before the government was sworn in, it began to deal with laws that smelled very strong: the Deri Law 1 followed by the Deri Law 2, the expansion of Norwegian law, a law that would prevent faction splitting. And as if that wasn't enough, came the bloated, stinking number of ministers from arranging jobs.
Reckless reform
All this even before Yariv Levin's legal reform. Even if it is true, and even if it is right, Yariv Levin admits today that the way it was launched – without preparation, without coordination, without explanations, in an ambitious and grandiose way, on such a complex and detailed subject – turned from an opportunity and a desire for correction to a threat and sowing panic.
Her rapid promotion in the constitutional committee was also interpreted as a brutal and predatory act. Every junior employee hired, every potential date, knows that first impressions are critical. And the first impression made by the government was very bad.
The Knesset plenum convenes in the shadow of the war (archive), photo: Oren Ben Hakon
On the other hand, as befits these days, let's break a concept: no matter what this government does, we will not give it a real chance. Its opponents did not wait to see what it would do, did not examine it objectively. From the moment the election results were announced, from the moment the number of 64 conservative seats was announced, attempts began to topple it.
Imagined storms
One time it was called the Deri storm, another time the Avi Maoz storm, and then also the Ben-Gvir storm, the Smotrich storm and more and more imagined storms. A year later, Avi Maoz did not outlaw LGBT people, and Yoav Kish did not force Israeli children to put on tefillin. It was all a scrambled campaign of intimidation.
Attorney Gilad Sher boasted in a newspaper interview how already in mid-December, two weeks before the swearing-in of the government and Yariv Levin's announcement of the legal reform, he convened a group of leftists with the aim of toppling the government that has not yet been established, including Dan Halutz, Dina Zilber, Shikma Bressler and others.
Shikma Bressler in Kaplan, tonight, photo: Gideon Markowitz
The protests broke through all borders, blocking private offices with gas bags, throwing bills at the ultra-Orthodox, calling for refusal, and turning Ayalon into a promenade and a private dining space at the expense of children, men, women and children stuck in their cars.
A year has passed, and you don't really have to decide who's right. The facts speak. A government that begins with promises to deal with the nuclear issue, expand peace agreements and deal with the cost of living, and ends with a difficult war, with 1,500 dead, dozens of abductees and a burnt and broken region, cannot conclude a good year.
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