Will Netanyahu dominate Israeli politics outside the gov't? - analysis

Netanyahu could follow Trump model of maintaining influence over his party

By GIL HOFFMAN
DID BENJAMIN NETANYAHU lose his cool this week during the fight over the appointment of a justice minister, or was it all part of a larger strategy? (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
DID BENJAMIN NETANYAHU lose his cool this week during the fight over the appointment of a justice minister, or was it all part of a larger strategy?
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's mandate to form a government expired on Tuesday night, but his political career still has no expiration date.
Netanyahu entered politics in 1988, when he announced on Channel 1’s show Moked (Focus in Hebrew) that he would run for one of the top slots on the Likud list, challenging the Likud princes who intended to succeed prime minister and party leader Yitzhak Shamir.
Fresh from his glory days as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Netanyahu wowed Likud central committee members with his rhetorical abilities and global persona.
Thirty-three years later, Netanyahu maintains control of the party, which focuses entirely on his image and advancement with no regard to its previous policies and ideology.
That will not change if Naftali Bennett and then Yair Lapid form a government. Netanyahu will serve as opposition leader in the Knesset and prevent the emergence of any opposition within the Likud.
Anyone who decides to challenge Netanyahu in Likud, following his failure to form a government for the fourth time, will likely find himself following Gideon Sa’ar out of the Likud and at best heading a small party in a future Knesset.
To see the Likud’s future during a Bennett-Lapid unity government, look no further than what is happening to the Republican Party in the United States. Former US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley initially criticized former US president Donald Trump, until she realized Trump still controlled the party and had no choice but to backtrack.
Before he left the White House, Trump made clear that he intended to return, which ensured that his party would not be able to move on.
If that is happening in a presidential system of government in the US in which a former president like Trump has no active role, imagine the influence of Netanyahu on Likud when he remains the leader of the opposition in the Knesset, the chairman of the party, and its candidate for prime minister in a future election.
Netanyahu may have to spend plenty of time in court in the months and years ahead, but he will still come to the parliament to lead the attack on Bennett from the Right. If he is effective enough as opposition leader, Netanyahu could succeed in a matter of months in bringing down the government and forcing a fifth election, or perhaps in two years before the rotation from Bennett to Lapid.
There is no doubt that the 71-year-old Netanyahu would remain the Likud’s candidate for prime minister, unless his health deteriorates or his criminal trial progresses faster than the three to five years expected and brings him down. The prime minister’s father died at age 102, so Netanyahu could still have three decades of political activity ahead of him.
So barring a conviction, Netanyahu will remain the focus of Israeli politics, much like the name of the show where his political career began.