H eadlines
8 Months Into Pandemic, Israel Readies
Refrigerated Morgues. How Did It Get Here?
I SR AEL
BY MARCY OSTER AND
GABE FRIEDMAN | JTA.ORG
ISRAEL HAS BEEN known as
a country that can rise to face a
crisis — usually of the military
kind — quickly and efficiently.

The country’s response to
the coronavirus pandemic
in its early months garnered
international praise, and Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
at one point boasted that “the
world is learning from us.”
But now Israel has become
the world’s foremost cautionary
tale, stuck in one of the worst
second waves of cases on the
planet, one that is showing no
evidence of slowing down.

On Oct. 1, the country’s
health ministry reported a
record high of nearly 9,000
COVID-19 cases in the previous
24 hours — the equivalent of
well over 300,000 in the United
States. Hospitals are filled to
capacity and threatening to
close, and the government
has significantly tightened a
second lockdown that began
on the Rosh Hashanah holiday.

Israelis are now limited to
traveling just over a half mile
from their homes.

It gets more gruesome: Last
week, Israeli media reported that
Haifa’s chevra kadisha, or ritual
burial society, was preparing
refrigerated shipping containers
in which to store the bodies of
the dead, until they could be
buried, and that other cities were
preparing to do the same.

How did Israel get here?
There are many factors.

Government disarray
In March, Benny Gantz,
the man who came close to
unseating Netanyahu in three
consecutive elections in less than
a year, laid down his proverbial
arms and struck a deal with
Netanyahu to finally form a
government coalition. Gantz,
who some called patriotic and
others called politically naive,
deemed it an “emergency” unity
government and said it would
“fight the coronavirus and look
out for all Israeli citizens.”
In the end, it has done
neither effectively.

The two main sides of the
government — Netanyahu’s
Health care workers take test samples of Israelis in a drive-through complex in Lod on Oct. 2.

Yossi Aloni/Flash90, via JTA.org
Likud Party and Gantz’s Blue
and White coalition, which has
splintered and shrunk after his
deal with Netanyahu — have
worked at cross-purposes from
the start. They have argued
over almost every aspect of
government and haven’t been
able to pass a national budget
for 2020 — which is, of course,
three-quarters over.

If a budget isn’t approved
by Dec. 23, another round of
elections will be triggered.

And Netanyahu isn’t exactly
against this, for a couple of
reasons. In the deal that he
signed with Gantz, he agreed
to step down to allow Gantz to
become prime minister after
18 months. Netanyahu would
love for the deal to not last that
long, and to keep his grip on
the role.

Gantz’s coalition,
as mentioned, is also in pieces,
leaving less in Netanyahu’s way
when it comes to significantly
consolidating his power in the
next election.

Meanwhile, the ineffec-
tive government has not
filled several top civil servant
positions, including the state
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