Guess Who?

We’ve all heard it time and again. It’s gotten to the point where many we wish we wore hearing aids, just so we could shut them down or take them off . . . if for no other reason than to blot out the noxious noise of political lunacy and outright lies. How often do we have to listen to such blather as “Fake news,” "The greatest election fraud in the history of the country . . . in the history of any democracy," and “The deep state is deep within this government” before we go absolutely מְשׁוּגָע (m’shugah - “bonkers)?

If you think you know who’s been making all these אמירות הזויות (amirote h’zvee’yot - “delusional statements”) look no further than the language we are employing . . . it’s Hebrew . . . the language of about-to-become former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. And yes, the over-the-top charges with which Bibi has long been attacking his political enemies does sound an awful lot like the bilious puke the previous POTUS has been spewing at his political foes. In matter of fact, they frequently sound and act like they are following the same playbook . . . one written from right-to-left, the other from left-to-right.

But as Ed Valenti (the father of the modern infomercial and creator of Ginzu Knives) would say, “BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!” Both Trump and Netanyahu are largely despised by a majority of their respective constituencies for being cruel, overly abrasive, fabulistic (to put it kindly) and consumed with the fear that they will end their days bankrupted and perhaps behind bars. Unlike Trump, Netanyahu is already on trial for his sins; unlike Netanyahu, Trump maintains just enough political power among his base to continue being a cause for political concern.

As you are reading this post, there is every likelihood that Bibi Netanyahu’s twelve year run as Israeli P.M. will have come to a crashing conclusion. And while he is still a member of the Knesset and leader of the once vaunted Likud bloc, he leaves his post under a deep, storm-tossed cloud. Israel hasn’t had a functioning budget in more than two years. His personal relationship with President Joe Biden, although publicly strong is, behind closed doors, problematic at best. Bibi’s longtime coalition, an amalgam of hard-core conservatives, ultra-nationalists and far-right religious parties is about to be replaced by a coalition consisting of 3 conservative parties, 2 liberal, 2 centrist and, for the first time, an Arab party. About the only thing they have in common is their utter dislike for Bibi.

Under a rotation deal, Naftali Bennett, leader of Yamina (“Rightward”) will serve as P.M. for the first two years, with Yair Lapid, leader of the centrist Yesh Ateed (“There is a future”) party taking over as P.M. for the next two. Speaking about the new unity coalition, Israeli political scientist Shlomo Avineri said “The parties are disparate, but they share a commitment to reconstitute Israel as a functioning liberal democracy . . . . In recent years we saw Netanyahu begin to govern in a semi-authoritarian way.” Another prominent political observer, Tamar Hermann, who teaches at Israel’s “Open University” noted “They (the parties in the coalition) will not deal with the highly contentious issues between left and right,” In practice, this means a likely concentration on domestic rather than foreign affairs.

Here in the United States, President Biden, who has long prided himself on “working across the political aisle” in order to get things done, has found that compromise with Republicans is next to impossible. In Israel, the fact that so many disparate parties have agreed to come together in common cause - despite their innate philosophical and political differences - is a telling sign. In Israel, hard core political folks on the right have a tendency to move closer to the center. Here in the United States, it is nigh-on impossible to find even a handful of Republicans who will back any bill or initiative emanating from the Democrats. Their fear of Trumpian revenge surpasses their love of country.

Naftali Bennett, an America-bred modern Orthodox self-made tech millionaire who is considered to be to the right even of Mr. Netanyahu on many issues, is determined to deliver higher standards of living and prosperity to a population weary of such paralysis. His main coalition partner, former newscaster Yair Lapid, is a former news anchor known for his chiseled good looks Lapid Lapid is the Tel Aviv-born son of the fiercely secular former justice minister Yosef "Tommy" Lapid, another journalist who left the media to enter politics. His mother, Shulamit, is a novelist, playwright and poet. Lapid was a newspaper columnist and has also published a dozen books. His role as a presenter on Channel 2 TV boosted his stardom.

The new 8-party coalition will make establishing good relations with the Biden administration, a priority, and improving relations with America’s majority liberal Jewish community - another significant goal - will also require centrist restraint. The parties in this coalition, which range from Mr. Bennett’s Yamina party on the far-right to Labor and Meretz on the left, and Ra’am (the acronym for הרשימה הערבית המאוחדת (ha-r’shemah ha-ahraveem ha’m’ohkhedet - “United Arab List”) disagree on virtually everything from L.G.B.T.Q. rights to public transport on Shabbat. The one thing they do agree on is that Netanyahu must go. Autocracy must be replaced by democracy.

The decision by Ra’am, to join the government so soon after last month’s violent clashes between Jewish and Arab mobs in Israel last month, reflects a growing realization that the marginalization of Arab parties brings only paralysis and repetitive elections. It also suggests a desire among some Palestinian citizens of Israel to exert more political influence. Fakhira Halloun, an expert in conflict resolution at George Mason University, recently wrote: “Usually the dominant discourse is one of perceiving Palestinians inside Israel as an internal enemy. We need to change this perception by not being always in the opposition.”

Certainly, Ra’am, with four seats in Parliament, will be critical to the survival of the coalition, even if it will not hold any cabinet posts. The coalition will have to consider the interests of the Palestinian minority in a different way. Among many questions to be answered, none is more important than whether Mr. Bennett turns out to be an ideologue or a pragmatist. Already, the new Knesset has chosen a member of Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, Mickey Levy, to become the new Speaker. He beat out Yaakov Margi, an ultra-Orthodox politician who is part of Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition. Mr. Levy, 69, is a former police officer who commanded police units in Jerusalem during the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, in the early 2000s. He later served as a police attaché at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, according to his biography on the Parliament website, and then ran a bus company. As speaker, Mr. Levy will exert considerable influence over parliamentary procedure, giving his government greater influence over the passage of legislation. This is a sign that Bennett and Lapid are serious about making this government work.

Unquestionably, there is much work to be done together by political parties and factions that have long been at one another’s throats. If they can help put Israel back on a strong democratic footing it will teach democracies the world over that those who manage to place country above party and the commonweal above the individual have it within their collective power to work miracles.