Week Ending April 2 in Israel

Coalition talks, Arab Israelis role, Covid's decline and business

POLITICS

It has been a week since the results of Israel’s latest Knesset election were finalized. The results became official when they were presented to President Rivlin this week. Upon receiving the results (for the fifth time in his nearly seven-year term), Rivlin offered remarks that seemed to create an uproar in the Likud. The President suggested the politicians find ways of honoring the will of the people and work to form an “unconventional” coalition. 

The Likud stated Rivlin was interfering in the election process. Some went as far as calling on Rivlin to recuse himself. Of course, these accusations are baseless. No one questions the animosity between Rivlin and Netanyahu. However, Rivlin has put any acrimony aside in each of the last elections Netanyahu has brought on the country. Given the election outcome, whatever coalition, if any is formed, will have to be unconventional.

At the moment, it's not at all clear what coalition there could be. Two people are key — Naftali Bennett and Mansour Abbas. Bennett, who has made it clear he wants to replace Netanyahu as Prime Minister, and who has not ruled out joining Netanyahu’s coalition, is required by Netanyahu to have any chance of reaching 61 supporters. 

However, if Bennett was to go with the bloc for change, it would almost guarantee they could replace Netanyahu. Unfortunately, it has become clear that the only chance of Bennett agreeing to join the parties for change is if he becomes Prime Minister. The absurdity of someone with seven seats in the parliament becoming Prime Minister is clear. However, almost all those among the change parties will go along and support Bennett, if that is what it takes to remove Netanyahu from “Balfour” (The Prime Minister’s residence). 

Now, suppose Bennett agrees to go with Netanyahu, that still does not give Netanyahu the 61 seats he needs. To get the 61, he also needs Mansour Abbas, the head of the Islamist Ra'am party. Abbas has made it clear he is theoretically willing to support Netanyahu. On Thursday night, Abbas gave a speech to lay out the most general principles supporting a shared future. He spoke in Hebrew, and because of his political importance, his address was carried live by all of the Israeli networks in the middle of the prime time news shows. 

Whatever else happens, the speech and how it was covered have changed the dynamics of Israeli politics around Arab Israelis. Of course, it's worth remembering that if not for Tzvi Hauser and Yoaz Hendell, there would have been a government (with the support of the Arab Israeli parties) and without Netanyahu after election round 3. Immediately following Abbas's speech, Itamar Ben Gvir made it clear he would not sit in a government that depended on Abbas. 

This morning, MK Bezalel Smotritch, head of the right-wing Religious Zionist party also stated he would not support a government dependent upon Abbas. It would seem Netanyahu has cornered himself, by ensuring the parties led by Smotritch and Ben Gvir merged to guarantee no right-wing votes were lost — because by doing so, Netanyahu lost his room to maneuver. 

This afternoon Bennet and Netanyahu met for three hours.  According to the spokesperson for Yamina “Yamina's chair Naftali Bennet meeting with PM Netanyahu has ended. The two discussed the need to form a stable and functioning government asap as well as possibilities to bring about it in the current political situation” Tomorrow night Bennet meets with Lapid.

So, at the moment, the situation stands at the same place it did a week ago — i.e. for Netanyahu to form a government, he needs to have both Ben Gvir and Abbas join him, something that looks rather unlikely. Abbas would prefer to join Netanyahu, for a simple reason; if Netanyahu is forced to rely on Abbas, it will change Israeli politics forever. If Netanyahu is the one to bring an Arab-Israeli party into the government for the first time, then the right-wing will no longer be able to delegitimize the Arab Israeli vote. 

The events of the last few days have resulted in a slew of right-wing commentators suddenly preaching about how bringing Abbas into the government would be ok. But, between Smotritch and on the far-right, and Abbas’s own constituency one the far-left, such a marriage seems less likely. 

The irony is that MK Ayman Odeh of the Joint Arab List, has been saying the same things Abbas stated during this election cycle, since Odeh entered the Knesset, in 2015.  I interviewed Odeh five years ago and came away impressed. But the Israeli right-wing appears to prefer a religious Islamist to a secular Arab-Israeli as a partner. (For those who do not know, we supported Hamas over Fatah once upon a time.) I guess lessons of history are irrelevant.

On Monday, the evidentiary phase of Netanyahu’s trial begins. For the next few months, the Israeli people will hear details of Netanyahu’s various alleged misdeeds, three days each a week. Meanwhile, Israel is now without a Minister of Justice, because Netanyahu will not allow a permanent Justice Minister to be appointed. Unfortunately, the Minister of Justice has many statutory roles that cannot be filled by anyone else.

I had two TV appearances on Thursday. Both were related to what I consider a major non-issue — the resumption of US aid to NGOs working in the West Bank. It’s a very small step that represents no real policy change. Rather, it is just an attempt by the Biden Administration to rebuild the bridges burnt by the Trump Administration. I was asked why this about-face was done so quietly (although not in secret). The answer is clear — the Israeli/Palestinian issue is not a priority issue for the Biden Administration, at this moment.

COVID–19

Covid numbers in Israel continue to be encouragingly low — although, the numbers seem to have plateaued in the mid-400/day, with a slight uptick this week. It remains unclear whether or not this uptick is troubling. Still, the number of those seriously ill has been on a constant downward slope.

To put it into proportion, we can look at some dramatic numbers:

According to preliminary reports, it seems likely the mandate on mask-wearing outdoors will be lifted next week.

BUSINESS

Israeli high-tech continues to be on a tear, on almost every level. This week, the big news was that Microsoft had been secretly designing chips in Israel. According to the report, Microsoft opened its chip design center 18 months ago, and is now ramping up efforts further. 

It was also made public that Nividia, which purchased Israeli specialty chipmaker Mellanox for $7 Billion a year ago, announced it seeks to hire an additional 600 engineers and software developers to accelerate its Israeli design operations.