The ministers of the outgoing government, and their teams, are anxious to take long overdue holidays. But they can’t book any tickets. A month has elapsed since the election and no one can say for sure when Benjamin Netanyahu will finally swear in his new government.
It’s not that there are any doubts he will, but the process has got bogged down and by Sunday, three weeks will have been used of Mr Netanyahu’s four-week mandate to form a government. It is looking likely that he will need to ask President Isaac Herzog for a two-week extension.
“Who thought Bibi would make us take a Christmas holiday?” joked a senior ministerial adviser this week.
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Aryeh Deri
This was supposed to the most cohesive coalition Israel has known in a generation: a small but solid majority consisting of like-minded parties.
Indeed, Mr Netanyahu’s aides were predicting in the aftermath of the election that they would be ready to inaugurate the new government at the opening session of the new Knesset. That has now been in session for two and a half weeks and Likud haven’t even managed yet to get down to replacing Speaker Mickey Levi, a holdover from Yesh Atid.
“We know perfectly well we’ll be sitting in Netanyahu’s coalition,” says a member of the Religious Zionism list.
“We also know Netanyahu very well. So we’re trying to make sure as many of the promises he makes us are both written down and double-guaranteed before we actually form the coalition.” If need be, they will draw this out for the entire six weeks of the extended mandate until they nail down as much as they can.
One of the main obstacles at this point is the demand by Shas that the law on cabinet appointments be changed to make it clear that a convicted politician who didn’t receive an actual prison sentence can become a minister.
Otherwise, their leader Aryeh Deri may be barred from returning to cabinet. To pass the law, the Knesset will need a new speaker as the current Yesh Atid speaker will do everything to slow down the process. But Likud’s partners, including Shas, are in no rush to appoint a new speaker from Likud, as they are still waiting for other demands to be met.
This has created a Catch-22 situation in which Shas’s demands for a change in legislation can’t be met before a new speaker is voted in, but a new speaker won’t be voted in until Shas’ demands are met — another reason there’s no new government yet.
What’s coming?
With the jigsaw of cabinet appointments in the new Netanyahu government finally starting to take shape, more details are emerging of possible new policies.
None of these are verified and may or may not end up in the official “coalition guidelines” that will be published before the new government faces its initial confidence vote.
Some details are leaked to the media as part of the coalition parties’ attempts to pressure each other. Some are being floated to gauge public reactions or as a distraction from other policies.
Last Sunday Likud leaked that they are interested in shutting down the public broadcasting corporation.
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Avi Maoz
On Wednesday there was a different leak from Likud saying that the party had rejected a demand from Religious Zionism and the strictly-Orthodox parties to cancel the “grandchild clause” in the Law of Return, which allows the children and grandchildren of Jews to become Israeli citizens as well.
“I don’t know for certain if Likud will stick to this position. Netanyahu is under a lot of pressure from the charedim on this,” says Alex Rif, head of the One Million Lobby, an advocacy group for Olim from the former Soviet Union.
“I do know that Likud are also worried about their own Russian-speaking voters, who are very much against removing the clause, which could make it very difficult for their own relatives to make aliyah.
"There’s also a lot of pressure on Likud from Diaspora groups in America on this, so that has had an effect as well.”
One of the expected appointments in the new cabinet will be Avi Maoz, leader of the openly homophobic Noam party. Under the terms of the coalition agreement he signed, Maoz will be a deputy minister in the prime minister’s office in charge of a new department for “Jewish identity.”
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Nachman Shai
In addition, he will control “Nativ,” the government agency which handles immigration from the former Soviet Union. There are fears that even if the “grandchild clause” is not removed, Maoz could use his power over “Nativ” to make it much more difficult to make aliyah for those who are eligible under the Law of Return but not considered Jewish by the Orthodox rabbinate.
“Throughout its entire history Israel has been careful not to wade into the issue of ‘Who is a Jew?’ because it would have caused major problems with the diaspora,” says the outgoing Minister of Diaspora Affairs, Labour’s Nachman Shai.
“We’re talking here about the majority of the large Jewish communities in eastern Europe — only a quarter of those who consider themselves Jews in Russia and Ukraine would be recognised as Jews by the rabbinate.
"Now we’re alienating them, and it won’t stop there. This new government is also against the Reform and Conservative movements, but that’s the majority of Jews in America.
“I don’t think there’ll be an open rift because that’s not their way. Instead there’ll be a quiet distancing from Israel and the next time Israel needs significant support in America, in the next war or Intifada, which will come with this government, we may not find American Jews so willing to come out for us.”
Identity crisis
The little group of religious left-wing activists who were at the centre of a confrontation with a couple of IDF soldiers in Hebron last week don’t know whether to be amused or offended by the “anarchist” label which parts of the media and right-wing politicians stuck on them.
As it is, they’re a bit uncomfortable with all the fuss caused by footage of one of their group being assaulted by a soldier from the Givati Brigade, and a second soldier who said to them: “I don’t like leftists, I’ll break you up. Soon [Itamar] Ben-Gvir will sort things out here. You’re screwed.”
Both soldiers have now been charged and the one who assaulted an activist will face a military court. The other was sentenced by his commanding officer to ten days of military jail, enraging soon-to-be National Security Minister Ben-Gvir.
But what sparked it all off? Hebron and other parts of the West Bank are full of various types of activists, from left and right, and clashes with the security forces, whether from the more radical elements of the settlers or far-left groups like the one which used to call itself
“Anarchists against the Fence” are not uncommon. But as Pnina Pfeuffer, a charedi feminist activist who was part of the group that raised the ire of the two soldiers, said this week,
“We’re just a study group of frum lefties who get together to read mussar (Orthodox texts on ethics) and occasionally go and see what’s happening in places like Hebron as part of our study.
“I still don’t know why that soldier detained one of our group and then began hitting him. I think perhaps he got angry because we said we really need to leave Hebron before Shabbat begins and he thought that we were laughing at him.
"I guess he’s never actually met religious Jews who are both serious about keeping mitzvot and also against what’s happening in Hebron. Poor kid.”
