This is a sad day in Israel. The current government has been competent, with ministers working diligently at their portfolios, exhibiting a collegiality not seen in Israeli politics for decades. Mutual cooperation for the common good was nurtured and realized in this government, even though this coalition was the broadest in Israel’s history, spanning from the right-wing Yemina Party to the Arab Islamist Ra’am Party. Prime Minister Bennett was an excellent, albeit uncharismatic leader.
So why did the government fall? Both the extreme Right and the extreme Left are toxic to governing. True believers make compromise difficult, and actively undermine any attempt at a centrist government that reflects the needs and wants of the majority of citizens. The government fell because two Arab-Israeli legislators refused to go along with their party, while knowing compromise was necessary. There were also two religious right-wingers who decided they could not stomach being in a government that included Arab parties.
They don’t reflect the mainstream. Many Arab Israeli politicians, led by Mahmoud Abbas of the Raam Party, have rightly concluded that to fully influence Israeli politics and improve the lives of their constituents, their party needs to put the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the back burner and concentrate on addressing the challenges faced by Arabs living in Israel. In the future, it will be necessary to ensure all members of the party who have seats in the Knesset fully internalize that message.
As to right-wing Israelis, they need to come to grips with the fact that 20 percent of Israel’s population is made up of Arab citizens. If we are to have a true democracy, they need to be represented in government.
But as long as there are toxic individuals in leadership positions, any government will be fragile. In this case, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in the midst of a trial for bribery, public corruption, and breach of trust that has repeatedly put his political needs ahead of the country’s needs. The last government fell because Netanyahu would not pass a budget, thus double-crossing Defense Minister Gantz, who was set to replace him, in their pre-arranged power-sharing agreement.
Since the new government was sworn in, Netanyahu has refused to cooperate. In his role as Opposition Leader, he has even refused to receive his legally required defense briefings, insisting on not cooperating with the new government in absolutely any way. Netanyahu also made unfounded claims that Mansour Abbas supported terrorism, something Abbas clearly does not do. Nevertheless, the claim stuck.
Netanyahu focused exclusively on undermining the government, so much so that he instructed his party to vote against legislation that they needed and had previously supported, just to find ways to undermine the government.
Well, the scorched earth campaign worked.
The Israeli political system is broken. Israel has the least stable electoral system among western democracies, averaging 2.4 years between elections since 1996. Somehow, Israel has muddled through. But our experiment of the last year, which came to an abrupt end, shows that the system simply does not work.
Israel is now entering an election cycle with all the same lineups of the last four elections. The campaigns will be mostly devoid of substance, and ultimately, voters will cast their ballots on whether or not they want Netanyahu to return to the office.
It’s time to find a better way!
Marc Schulman is a multimedia historian.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.
