The coming shape of the Israeli coalition government means never-ending war
National consensus in Israel experienced several crises over 11 months of war on Gaza. The situation took a sharp turn on June 9, 2024 when the war cabinet, formed five days after the October 7th terrorist attack, lost two of its main members, the former Generals Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, both leaders of the National Unity Party (ha-Mahane ha-mamlakhti), over disagreements on the post-war outcome.
Gantz’s withdrawal
The cabinet, consisting of Prime Minister Netanyahu, Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer and Shas leader Aryeh Deri, an observer in the cabinet as a senior coalition member, was later dissolved on June 17th, with Netanyahu favoring the adoption of a small and flexible decision-making body to steer the war thereafter. In the latter decision, there might be additional issues at play: There were rumors about Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir’s claim to be included in the war cabinet upon Gantz’s departure, which was met with Netanyahu’s hostility as such a move could overstretch the government’s aims in the war.
The withdrawal of Gantz’s National Unity Party from the cabinet was highly predictable, as it had already been announced on May 18th citing the lack of a “clear and comprehensive plan” addressing the situation in the Gaza Strip and entailing the return of hostages as the main reasons for a political break up. Gantz had spelled out six strategic goals for the cabinet: the return of the hostages; the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip and the reinstatement of full security in Israel; the establishment of an international civilian governance mechanism for Gaza, supported by an international coalition of good-willing countries, Arab and Western alike, offering an alternative both to Hamas and the Palestinian National Authority; the return of the 80,000 Israeli residents to the northern communities from which they had been forcibly evicted by Hezbollah’s pounding fire; the advance of normalization with Saudi Arabia as a further development of the Abraham Accords and to counter Iran and its allies in the region; and, finally, the adoption of the new draft law, which would force all Israelis, including ultra-Orthodox, to serve in the IDF and share the military burden, particularly at times of war.
All Gantz’s requests have fallen on deaf ears with Netanyahu, who cannot do without his religious partners (Shas and United Torah Judaism) in the coalition, which have been his most trusted allies since 1996 and still constitute the backbone of the current 64/120-seat majority at the Knesset. Indeed, Gantz and Eisenkot’s resignation is not enough to bring down the government, which now returns to its narrow right wing and ultra-Orthodox make-up.
Netanyahu’s resilience
The second crisis, instead, is unfolding right now: Netanyahu was expected to fire his Minister of defence on September 16 to carry out a government reshuffle replacing Yoav Gallant with Gideon Sa’ar, leader of the New Hope party currently in the opposition, but he decided to postpone his decision over the latest flare-up with Hizbullah in the north, following the simultaneous blasts of multiple devices and pagers of the “party of God” fighters throughout Lebanon initiated by Israel. The move was motivated by Netanyahu’s intention to broaden his government’s base without resorting to set up a national unity government, thus not taking onboard Benny Gantz’s and Yair Lapid’s centrist parties, but rather widening his support by including smaller parties of the centre-right or right-wing.
Yet, it should be clear that Sa’ar’s appointment means a sharper turning of the back to the hostage deal, as even if the coalition grows from 64 MKs to 67 or 68, a deal won’t be reached, because, in addition to National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and his party leaving the cabinet, also Sa’ar’s faction would vote against it.
However, the real stumbling block remains that, in the moment a new war front in the north could open up any time, there is still no future plan for Gaza, as it is not convenient at this stage for Netanyahu to envisage any end to the conflict, which is projected to drag along until the next US November elections.
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In Netanyahu’s plan, the current state of war is indeed favoring his staying in power by postponing two main political threats looming after the war: the resumption of his criminal proceedings and the setting up of a state commission of inquiry on the intelligence and military failure on October 7th, postponed by the High Court, which by mid-June ordered the State Comptroller to suspend the October 7th probe into the IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel’s domestic intelligence agency), citing the possibility of harming the IDF’s operational capabilities in the ongoing war effort.
As for his personal judicial troubles, the plan for the judicial overhaul is also still pending, though it has been paused for the time being and is likely to resume immediately after the war. If it moves ahead, Netanyahu could appoint the very judges who would hear his own appeal and eventually evade conviction or have his trial cancelled outright. Therefore, the Prime Minister rightly thinks that time plays in his favor and that gaining additional precious months of war could set the conditions for a new scenario in November 2024, when the Knesset will reconvene exactly with the US presidential elections about to start.
The Knesset front
This is a canny gamble that highlights the inability and the weakness of his political adversaries, who did not find the right timing to quit the coalition and pose a real challenge to oust him. In other words, Gantz’s move came too late, as his party was aiming at new elections in October but did not have the numbers in the Knesset to force the disbanding of the current government.
On the contrary, the latest polls show that the gap between the government and the opposition block are narrowing, with Likud regaining seats compared to Gantz’s party, 21 against 24 in June surveys conducted by both the left-leaning newspaper Ma’ariv and the right-wing Israel Hayom and only Naftali Bennet, former leader of the New Right, benefitting from a bump in approval ratings (40% say he is best suited to lead country, compared to 29% for Netanyahu, according to Channel 12 latest survey, September 13). If elections were held today, the ruling coalition would still secure the majority in the 120-seat Knesset, even if most Israeli Jews would prefer Bennet over Netanyahu as a Prime minister
Yet, snap elections and even calls for a “constructive no-confidence” will not work if opposition parties fail in digging a ditch within the 64-seat government majority, which is between either Likud and its national religious settler allies or Likud and the ultra-Orthodox parties. The ongoing debate around the draft law revision, exempting ultra-Orthodox Jews from army service because of the 1948 status quo agreement, could offer an opportunity for a serious rift between Likud and its coalition partners, though the current conscription law under discussion is the one promoted by the Lapid-Bennet government in 2022, which prescribes only the optional conscription of haredi men (or haredim, members of the ultra-orthodox community) at age 21 (instead of the current 26) in alternatives to military service, such as joining the workforce or a hybrid program combining national emergency and rescue service with vocational training. Therefore, it is particularly odd to launch a major political offensive on the government on a bill proposed by the same opposition parties, even though they rightly claim that political circumstances are quite different after October 7th.
The race is open for Netanyahu’s opposition within the centre-right camp. According to Hebrew University Professor Gideon Rahat, “Gantz is still very popular and gets a lot of support in public opinion (…) but his primary motive is to maintain a good relationship with the United States”. As his former March trip to the US shows, with his unauthorized summit meetings with Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Gantz is betting on being seen as the “responsible guy in the room” by the US administration, and a loyal and reasonable partner of Washington. Bennet, instead, could pitch for being chosen as the most popular and unifying leader, able to overcome social cleavages between Left and Right and supporters and opponents of the judicial reform.
The parties’ moves
Yet, neither the National Unity Party nor its natural partner, the centrist and secular Yesh Atid party of Yair Lapid, nor again the future party of Bennet yet-to-come have a clear and alternative vision of the future to offer to Israeli voters, as they both lack any agenda on the Palestinians. While Lapid is increasingly calling for the resumption of cooperation with the Palestinian National Authority, Gantz’s party does not favor his reinstatement in the Gaza Strip and Bennet addresses only internal leadership failures, leaving the future of Gaza unspecified. Furthermore, as long as the conflict rages on, war logics of national unity prevail in the larger public, cutting short all chances of replacing the current government despite its multiple failures.
Indeed, Gantz’s party had just approved the mobilization of 50,000 more military reservists by August, bringing the total reserve soldiers on active duty to 350,000, to face the flare-up with Hezbollah in the north and in view of further escalations. Even leaving Hezbollah and the northern front aside, substantial challenges remain open in the Gaza war, as fighting continues both in Rafah and in the central part of the Strip, with occasional rocket fire still pounding in the southern enclaves. Moreover, Hamas essentially remains in power, posing a persistent threat for the next future, which is the potential of new terrorist attacks, with its political leadership being partially reinstated by hostages’ negotiations in Qatar. Finally, the Iranian nuclear enrichment drags on with little or no monitoring of its nuclear sites from the IAEA, while Israel is more and more isolated in international diplomatic circles and harshly criticized by the “Global South” and the BRICs.
No way out of war
No opposition parties so far has come up with a better option than enhanced humanitarian aid for the future of Gaza. In fact, as Ruth Margalit rightly points out on The New Yorker, “Gantz and his party members supported Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza and have shown no qualms about the war’s death toll, which has reached roughly 41.252. They were in favor of the military’s expansion into Rafah last month and even called for a decisive strike against Iran after it had launched hundreds of missiles aimed at Israel in April. They do not support a Palestinian state—but no Jewish Israeli party leader publicly does these days.” Nor would Bennet or Sa’ar do so, given their steady support to the ongoing settlements in West Bank’s Judea and Samaria.
This is the main reason all polls are predicting a further shift towards the right in the political spectrum, where new actors could join forces to build a new government block around the national religious parties, eventually led by former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in coalition with Israel’s Beitenu Russian party of Avigdor Liberman and New Hope’s Gideon Saar, two other right-wing parties opposing Netanyahu, but not the goal of resettling the Gaza Strip for security reasons. Indeed, they all share the objective of restoring Gush Katif, the blocks of Jewish settlements forcibly evacuated by Sharon in 2005.
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For voters disappointed with Netanyahu but who balk at the idea of a leftist candidate, a coalition of parties made of Liberman, Saar and Bennett ahead of the next elections, with the aim of targeting Likud and the religious parties in power for decades over their catastrophic October 7th failure, could offer a viable option. By entering into a coalition with those parties to oppose Netanyahu, though, Gantz’s and Lapid’s Gaza options would be further constrained.
Yet, there is not a single scenario in which a major Israeli Jewish political party supports the resumption of negotiations with Palestinians, drawing a difference between Hamas and the Palestinian National Authority and endorsing the latter as the product of the Oslo Accords, helping it restoring its authority over its constituency and its legitimacy in the Arab world. Nor is there political room for an Israeli polity reflecting on October 7th as the irreparable outcome of the political stalemate with the Palestinians, the silent war of attrition constantly dragging on in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the unceasing creation of new settlements stirring up continuous tensions, often leading to violent outbreaks.
Israeli Jews keep repeating that they have not yet recovered from the October 7th collective shock, yet they do not understand that by ignoring the Palestinian question altogether they are paving the way for a new wave of terrorist attacks, and perhaps even a new Intifada.
