Whether elections are called is in Netanyahu's hands

POLITICAL AFFAIRS: Netanyahu will decide if elections take place on November 17 or in the first half of 2021. Either way, it looks like that’s where Israel is headed.

By GIL HOFFMAN
PRIME MINISTER Benjamin Netanyahu is seen preparing to give a statement at Ben-Gurion airport. (photo credit: EMIL SALMAN/REUTERS)
PRIME MINISTER Benjamin Netanyahu is seen preparing to give a statement at Ben-Gurion airport.
(photo credit: EMIL SALMAN/REUTERS)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu managed to surprise even the MKs in his own Likud faction on Wednesday morning, when he took a major step toward initiating a November 17 election.
Until 9:40 a.m. that morning, the six Likud MKs on the Knesset Finance Committee thought they would be voting in favor of the budget deadline extension bill that would prevent the Knesset from being automatically dispersed at midnight next Monday night, 100 days after the government’s formation.
The six MKs, most of whom are backbenchers who would not return to the Knesset if a Likud primary is held ahead of another general election, found out, like the rest of the world, on Monday – from the announcement of Netanyahu’s arm in the Knesset, coalition chairman Miki Zohar – that they may lose their jobs.
Zohar had told the MKs and the media the night before that they would be voting in favor of the bill. But when he arrived, he asked the interim committee chairman, United Torah Judaism MK Yitzhak Pindrus, for a point of order.
That was when Zohar delivered his bombshell about the Likud’s new conditions for passing the bill. First of all, instead of delaying the deadline to pass the budget by 100 days, now Netanyahu needs 250. Secondly, the government will need at least 5% “flexibility” to do what it wants with the budget without the Knesset’s consent. Lastly, the same bill that delays the budget would have to already allocate hundreds of millions of shekels to both haredi (ultra-Orthodox) and religious-Zionist causes.
Each of the conditions was an obvious nonstarter, aimed at the heads of Blue and White, who did not give in to the Likud’s demands in unofficial coalition talks that had taken place the night before and that morning.
This eye-opener for the Likud MKs was similar to the surprise that Blue and White leaders Benny Gantz and Gabi Ashkenazi received when they were told that Netanyahu had reached a peace agreement with the United Arab Emirates behind their backs.
They took the slap in the face well, knowing that it was intended to deliver a message. The message was that even though Gantz and Ashkenazi currently hold the fancy titles of alternate prime minister, defense minister and foreign minister, they have absolutely no leverage over Netanyahu in the negotiations.
Gantz and Ashkenazi might drive fancy Audis and have security guards accompany them, but they are ultimately no more powerful than Likud MKs on the Finance Committee Keti Shitrit and Keren Barak.
The public saw through Netanyahu leaving his defense minister and foreign minister in the dark, according to a Panels Research poll taken Wednesday for Maariv.
Asked whether it was proper that Netanyahu did not tell them, 72% of respondents said no and only 20% said yes. Even among Likud voters, half the respondents said their own party leader had behaved improperly.
When asked about the reports Netanyahu had denied about Israel allowing the US to sell F-35s, the top fighter jet in the world, to the UAE as part of the deal, only 9% of respondents said they believed the prime minister. Two-thirds of the respondents said they believed the F-35s were in fact part of the deal, and the rest admitted that they had no idea.
When only 9% of the public believes a firm denial of the prime minister that led the nightly news the night before, it shows the message has been received not only by Likud backbenchers and Blue and White leaders but by the public as well: Netanyahu is firmly in charge, and he gets to do what he wants.
If he wants elections in November, they will be in November. If he wants to use the threat of elections to squeeze concessions from Blue and White about political appointments, and initiate an election in the first half of 2021 to prevent the November 2021 rotation in the Prime Minister’s Office, so be it.
Netanyahu is expected to make a final decision over the weekend with his family. If there is any sign that he will order a last-minute deal to be reached to prevent elections, it is that the internal polls disappointed them.
The polls do not show the bump from the UAE deal that they had expected. But the combination of the Likud, Yamina, Shas and UTJ passes 61 MKs, which it did not in the last three elections.
Then again, Netanyahu does not trust Yamina leader Naftali Bennett to help him pass the French Law, which would make him immune from prosecution while in office. That makes going to another election even more of a gamble, especially when unemployment and infection forecasts for November are harder than polls.
WHEN GANTZ convened his faction on Zoom at 10 p.m. late Wednesday night, he made a point of using the word “poker” to describe the game Netanyahu was playing. Poker is a high-risk game, as opposed to relying on the cards in hand in Blue and White.
Asked how Gantz looked on the call, a week after back surgery, Blue and White MKs said he was very serious about the task at hand, preventing elections.
“The Zoom call was about our responsibility,” said Blue and White MK Michal Cotler-Wunsh. “The how was upholding the coalition agreement. No compromise was discussed. He looked like a man taking serious responsibility after an operation. He looked like a man who hasn’t given up on doing what he can to serve the public.”
Regarding Netanyahu, Cotler-Wunsh said that “if someone else doesn’t want to take responsibility, we can’t do it for him,” and “that one man in charge has to be held accountable if we go to elections.”
The view from Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin, who briefed reporters on the impasse on Wednesday, was very different.
“I pushed very hard to form this government,” he said. “I had no doubt that it would be very hard, but I could not fathom that it would be like this. This is intolerable, and we cannot work this way. We need a functioning government. In the end it is a decision of the prime minister, but I think if we don’t stabilize the government and solve all the problems, we cannot continue this way.”
He accused Blue and White of torpedoing all of the proposals of the prime minister and health minister about the coronavirus, voting regularly against the views of the government and boycotting key Netanyahu speeches.
“There has never been a government like this in the history of the state,” Levin said. “We raised many ideas in order to resolve the budget issue. Until now, Blue and White has not agreed to any of them. We made dramatic compromises for this government. We need to reach an agreement that will enable an immediate solution to the problems in the economy and resolve all the problems with stability, in order to work together and not find ourselves, week after week, not functioning and not doing anything.”
The signs that Netanyahu wants elections are clear, from the visit to Jerusalem’s Mahaneh Yehuda market on Wednesday, to the Likud’s new Facebook campaign portraying Netanyahu as the ultimate peacemaker, to sending Zohar to the Knesset Finance Committee to offer conditions instead of compromises.
But is Netanyahu bluffing in the poker game Gantz said he is playing?
Gantz, the Likud MKs and the public will have to wait patiently to find out on Monday.