opinion
The Fall of the Israeli Government
and the Upcoming Election
BY RUTHIE BLUM
he moment that some Israelis have been
dreading and others happily anticipating finally
arrived on June 20. Though the announcement
by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign
Minister Yair Lapid of a call for the disbanding of
the Knesset was virtually a foregone conclusion, it
came as a bit of a surprise.

Earlier in the day, it was reported that Bennett
had bought his teetering coalition an additional
week. This was attributed to the fact that Likud
Party and opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu
was postponing a no-confidence motion for sev-
eral days.

Still, the public response has been similar to that
surrounding the death of someone who suffered
a long and drawn-out illness; despite the inevi-
tability of the demise, the end is slightly jolting.

Nevertheless, nobody skipped a beat — certainly
not the politicians or reporters scrambling to
address the new reality — at the sound of the gov-
ernment’s last breath.

Judging by the polls, those who had hoped it
would survive aren’t numerous, but they have
begun to reiterate the rhetoric of the anti-Ne-
tanyahu camp. Sadly, some voters who expe-
rienced buyers’ remorse at having opted for
Bennett in the first place — as he represented
for them the uncompromising Zionist who would
annex Judea and Samaria — are singing the same
tune about Netanyahu.

If they allow their ideological purism to govern
their ballots on Oct. 15, the ostensible date for the
fifth Knesset election in 3½ years, they are likely
to find themselves back where they started. And it
won’t serve their interests to have Likud unable to
form a majority coalition.

The same goes for Likud supporters who con-
sidered it a waste of their time to vote at all, given
the repeated impasse that led to four inconclusive
rounds. Ditto for disgruntled Likudniks who don’t
favor Netanyahu but say that there’s no candidate
they consider a substitute.

One thing that Israelis across the spectrum
seem to share, however, is embarrassment at the
content of Bennett’s statement about why the
coalition is no longer viable — as though it ever
were destined to succeed with such an internally
disparate makeup.

“We stand before you today at a difficult moment,
but with the understanding that we made the right
decision for Israel,” he began. “A year ago, we
formed a government that many thought was
12 JUNE 23, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
impossible, in order to stop the terrible spiral in
which Israel was caught.”
He got the first part right. What followed, on the
other hand, was laughable.

“In Israel, a year ago, there was massive unem-
ployment, a huge deficit, rioting in the streets and
missiles on Jerusalem,” he went on, failing to men-
tion the pandemic in this context. Oh, and a surge
in terrorism spurred, among other things, by an
internecine Palestinian Authority battle between
Fatah and Hamas over which group is better
equipped to demolish the Jewish state.

He then proceeded to point to the main impe-
tus behind his “Zionist” move to forge a coalition
with a mere seven seats: a government that was
in “total paralysis.” Here he omitted the bit about
the signing of the Abraham Accords, for example,
in September 2020.

“Together, we got the country out of the pit,” he
said. “We returned the values of fairness and reli-
ability to center stage. Israel resumed being led.”
Here is where he highlighted how well it worked
out. This raised a few eyebrows, considering the
circumstances under which he was speaking: the
flop of the kumbaya experiment.

A more substantial guffaw was elicited when
he invoked the famous biblical story of King
Solomon’s judgment.

“We chose to be the mother who safeguards
her child’s life at great personal expense,” he said,
before listing what he claimed to be his coalition’s
outstanding accomplishments. These, according
to the outgoing premier, included repairing the
economy, making the south of the country safer,
successfully fighting terrorism and conducting
wonderful relations with the administration in
Washington. In the alternate universe that Bennett described,
Lapid — the “alternate prime minister” replacing
him until the establishment of the next govern-
ment — is a perfect fit. Not so much for the Israeli
populace living in the real world.

It’s a population whose justified fear is that the
results of the upcoming election will not resolve
the political deadlock that characterized the pre-
vious ones. The only way around it, other than an
overhaul of the electoral system (which isn’t in the
cards in the near future) is for all eligible citizens to
cast a ballot. This means curbing the purism and
joining, not hovering above, the fray.

There was a 67.4% voter turnout in March 2021.

It is possible and necessary to raise that percent-
age considerably. We Israelis owe it to ourselves
to aim for majority rule. JE
Ruthie Blum is an Israel-based journalist and
author of “To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama,
and the ‘Arab Spring.’ ”
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