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Bibi-time is coming — pending the deal on cabinet convicts

A month has elapsed since the election and no one can say for sure when Benjamin Netanyahu will finally swear in his new government.

December 1, 2022 13:09
Benjamin Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opens the weekly cabinet meeting at his Jerusalem office on February 10, 2019. - Nudged by rightwing political rivals after a deadly Palestinian attack on a young Israeli woman, Netanyahu who seeks re-election pledged today to freeze money transfers to the Palestinian Authority. (Photo by GALI TIBBON / POOL / AFP) (Photo credit should read GALI TIBBON/AFP/Getty Images)
5 min read

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.

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.