Since the establishment of the unity government, MK Osher Shekels of the Likud has been trying to bring Avigdor Lieberman into it. In recent weeks, he has held dozens of meetings with every relevant party. At first, he tended to think that Benny Gantz was vetoing it, who was not interested in anyone other than the "conception camp" entering the war cabinet. At the last Likud faction meeting on Monday, Shekels sadly reported to his friends that he had reached the conclusion that the one who was not interested was Lieberman himself.
It turns out that Shekels only discovered the tip of the iceberg. In recent weeks, much bigger moves have been made in the political system. Lieberman was the star of the event, but not only him. Also the former partner who was thrown out and now returns - Aryeh Deri. The plan was to replace Netanyahu already in the current Knesset. At a certain point, elements associated with Bezalel Smotrich, Yair Lapid and several Likud MKs were also brought into the event, which ended in nothing, but it is clear to everyone that this is only the first act. Also to Netanyahu, who was supposed to be the victim of the incident. And maybe there will be more to come.
A week ago, Shari Roth reported on the Haredim 10 website that Deri and Lieberman had resumed talking when the war broke out and even cooperating against Netanyahu. According to the report, had the move taken place, Lieberman would have been appointed prime minister in a constructive vote of no confidence supported by the opposition parties and Shas. In the days following the publication, the attempts were perfected, after it became clear that not all opposition parties see the political reality eye to eye. In fact, neither are all coalition parties.
Not Dean Benny Gantz who is duly innouncing Yair Lapid who is crashing. And it's not like the case of Ben-Gvir rising to Bezalel Smotrich, which is recording a decline. Thus, a dialogue developed between elements in the "paratrooper coalition" – those who in no way want elections soon, when the polls bode ill for them. In an instant, members of Religious Zionism found themselves on the same side of the barricade. On the other hand, Gantz was not counted, but Gideon Saar and his faction did. Between a no-confidence motion that does not bear his name as the incoming prime minister and general elections, Gantz prefers elections. In the polls, he is already the prime minister by a margin.
But the move cannot be carried out without a minimum of five Likud rebels. Here, too, the move encountered difficulties. Abandoning the Likud to form another government is the end of the political road. Nir Barkat, for example. For years, he has been preparing for an election campaign against Netanyahu for the leadership of the Likud. Spending money, building a huge bureau, conducting polls and holding conferences, all in order to be Netanyahu's successor, not the head of a backbench party with five seats. What's more, no one promised him to head the group. Why not Edelstein? Or Gallant? Or Eli Dellal?
Thus the idea died out, but not died. From the discourse of active attack, there was talk of offensive defense, as one of its partners called it. In other words, it is not possible to initiate Netanyahu's replacement, but to prevent him from bringing forward the elections – absolutely. Netanyahu's surest way to get ahead of the elections is by approving the Knesset Dissolution Law. So there are no surprises. It is possible to control the process and make sure that the Knesset is indeed dispersed, without hijackers and other scenarios. If, after the war, Netanyahu sees that he is falling anyway and the choice will be between impeachment and elections, he will prefer elections. The others - impeachment. In other words, appointing a replacement in the current Knesset and continuing in office, without Netanyahu.
Cabinet by two votes
Netanyahu is sharp. He noticed what was happening around him. It is not for nothing that he began to crouch after Deri, flatter him, invite him to every possible forum, as did Likud members, to convene the faction, to let everyone speak. Likud MKs said this week that they don't remember Netanyahu as anemic and boring as at the faction meeting, where most of the time he kept silent and let others have their say. Even a public statement at its opening did not give the whole stage to the rest.
Not to mention the rapprochement with Smotrich, including support for Orit Strzok, who was criticized for daring to ask General Toledano something at a cabinet meeting. Netanyahu even reprimanded Toledano for commenting on Strzok about the nature of her question. If the trend continues, Netanyahu will prefer to cleanse Gaza of its population and rebuild Gush Katif, if it brings Smotrich and his friends back to his side.
Unlike Yoav Galant, who occasionally makes statements that are not well received on the right wing of the map, and often draw criticism, Netanyahu is careful not to say anything that does not sound good to right-wing members. He sees Galant coming to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and being criticized for statements such as we will not occupy the Philadelphi Route, and then comes to the committee himself and makes it clear that the IDF will take over the southern closure on the border between Gaza and Egypt. Where Galant talks about troop withdrawal, Netanyahu talks about consolidating forces.
It is not certain that this is only about semantics, and it is possible that these are indeed gaps in perception. Galant goes with the army and with the plans of the chief of staff and decision-makers at the military level. Netanyahu often challenges their perception and examines other ways, those closer to the ideology of his partners on the right.
In the past, Netanyahu made sure to cut matters. Start a round of fighting and hurry to close it. The ultimate goal was quiet production, not to say industrial quiet, and then to start a "we won" campaign. This time, he sees, there's nowhere else to move. Anything perceived as calm, weakening the fighting, or taking the enemy into consideration is immediately presented as surrender and loss. Netanyahu promised victory, and this cannot be achieved with a ceasefire agreement.
At the same time, the voices of the state camp about secession, or the threatening political scenarios, excite him less. Even if the fighting in Gaza decreases, Gantz will retire, and the reservists will be released en masse. Because the big story is yet to come: Lebanon. With the end of the fighting in Gaza, and the new deployment there, Israel is expected to wage another, perhaps even larger, battle. If there were those who thought that 2024 would be an election year, in recent days the political system has updated their assessment. The new goal: 2025. And that, too, with limited guarantee.
Everything is temporary
Netanyahu has often been ridiculed for his excessive paranoia, but in the test of results, paranoia works. The mockery is changing, while Netanyahu remains.
The law of incapacitation marked the height of the prime minister's paranoia in the eyes of many. After the original law was clear enough, and after the attorney general made it clear openly that she had no intention of incapacitating Netanyahu, Netanyahu continued to insist on enacting the law until its completion, after which he announced that he was "entering the event" of legal reform.
The amendment to the law effectively stated the obvious: an incumbent prime minister, elected by the people in elections, cannot be incapacitated and in fact "fired" by a decision of a public official such as the attorney general. And although the law was so clear and unambiguous, various elements insisted on interpreting it differently. The attorney general went further when she stood against the prime minister in the High Court of Justice on the grounds that although she has no intention of firing him, she insists on her right to discuss the matter and make decisions on her own, without the shackles of the new law being laid by her. At least until the next election.
As far as he is concerned, the revolution is not dead yet. Rotman, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
A gun placed on the table in the first act is not inconceivable to fire in the last. There will be no discussion on the legal reform at Har-Miara, the reform is dead anyway, but what prevents it from holding a discussion now about the prime minister's competence in light of the events of October 7? Perhaps Netanyahu will now have to fight to prevent the establishment of any kind of commission of inquiry after the war, so that it will not imply criticism that the attorney general can translate into incapacitation? This is an exaggerated and unrestrained power entrusted to it, but it has expired: only until the elections. In the next Knesset, the law that was passed will come into force and its powers will be taken away.
The proofs are on the table
The name most cited in the 743-page plausibility ruling is, of course, the great oracle Aharon Barak. The second most quoted name is Prof. Yaniv Roznai, a young professor at Reichman University Law School, the father of the "constitutional review" theory, which states that the court has the authority to intervene in Basic Laws.
Time and again, the justices cite his works, headed by "Constitutional Review: Development, Models, and a Proposal to Anchor Judicial Review in Israel" (2021, Democracy Institute Press) as justification for abolishing the Basic Law. However, they conveniently ignore several basic rules that Roznai sets as a condition for disqualifying a Basic Law, which were brought before the justices by Attorney Ilan Bombach, who represented the government in the case, and most importantly, that the decision be clear and not by a narrow majority, certainly not by a single vote.
Rothman is optimistic. In his opinion, this week's rulings not only did not lead to the second constitutional revolution, but also destroyed the first. According to him, in rulings this week, the court proved that everything they said about Basic Laws - Kalam Fadi
"In order to ensure that any decision to cancel a law will reflect a situation in which the judges – as a body and not as individuals – are firm and decisive in their position," Roznai writes, "it is desirable that things be so clear that an absolute and overwhelming majority of the justices will conclude that the legislators did indeed make a mistake. A majority of four justices against three, or five against four, does not indicate such a glaring deviation, otherwise how is it that the minority justices among the justices, who reach almost the majority, were not persuaded by the position of their colleagues?" The Supreme Court justices forgot to read this paragraph.
In 2019, attorney Simcha Rotman launched his book "The High Court Party – How Jurists Conquered Power in Israel." This week, with the last two rulings signed by Esther Hayut, ending her term as Supreme Court President, a period that will be remembered as the biggest activist mutation since Aharon Barak's constitutional revolution in the early 90s, the Supreme Court justices, clad in their robes, signed a personal dedication to each of them on the book.
At the beginning of his speech before the High Court of Justice on the petition against the Reasonableness Law, Rotman spoke about Prof. Haim Hanani, who assigned his students at the Technion the task of designing a pipeline for transferring blood from Haifa to Eilat. The students hurried to plan the pipeline, asked for information on blood viscosity and more, and when they presented the exercise to the lecturer, he disqualified them all and slammed them because he expected at least one of them to ask why blood had to be transferred from Haifa to Eilat, where it was spilled from and for what purpose. Rothman's parable of blood was resurrected once again this week with unimaginable levels of detachment among some of Israel's judges, who chose to publish their verdicts when Israel was in an existential war against its enemies.
But Rothman is optimistic. In his opinion, the rulings not only did not lead to the second constitutional revolution, but also destroyed the first. For decades, the justices have argued that Basic Laws have a special status. This is what gave them the power to invalidate laws and government decisions. According to him, in this week's rulings, the court proved that everything they said was Kalam Fadi. In an instant, they proved that it was not the status of the Basic Laws that interested them, but a political position. Kaplan Party. A state institution that serves one side of the political system. There is no longer justice or a semblance of justice, only positions.
Rothman is convinced that the next time they try to change, the people who try to change will have the upper hand. The only gamechanger that stood in the way of the previous reform, he says, was the issue of refusal. These threats destroyed the ability to pass laws in the Knesset. After October 7 and the current war in Gaza, there will not be a single party that dares to threaten rejectionism again. Whoever tries, he says, will be dealt a counter-blow by Israeli society as a whole. √
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