Jerusalem—Last week, in the final hours allotted for building a coalition, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu successfully secured his government for the Twentieth Knesset. After March’s election yielded a decisive victory for the centrist and right-wing parties of Israel’s parliament, many expected quick negotiations to lead to a relatively strong right-wing government of 67 seats. At the beginning of last week, Netanyahu had successfully signed a deal with Koolanu, whose leader Moshe Kahlon will serve as economics minister, and the Haredi parties United Torah Judaism and Shas, giving them the powerful positions on the finance and education committees, as well as their choice of appointee for deputy Knesset Speaker (Haredi parties do not take head ministerial positions in the government for ideological reasons). However, a last minute twist came in the form of Yisrael Beitenu’s party head Avigdor Liberman refusing to join the coalition on the grounds that Netanyahu had made too many concession to the Haredi parties. Liberman vowed to loudly protest their participation from the Opposition during the next government.
With less than two days until President Rivlin’s deadline for forming a government, Netanyahu was left with the possibility of a very small majority of Knesset seats. Despite pressure from nearly everyone to try to include polar opposite party Zionist Union in a larger but significantly weaker unity government, Netanyahu instead went to woo Jewish Home to finalize the 61 mandate coalition. Intense hardball negotiations ensued, with the latter party’s leader Naftali Bennet playing hardball knowing that Netanyahu’s government would fall through without him. At 10:15 PM on Wednesday night, less than two hours before the deadline, Prime Minister Netanyahu successfully signed a deal with Naftali Bennet, giving Bayit Hayehudi the Education and Diaspora Affairs, Justice and Agriculture ministries. This leaves the right-wing nationalist party in a unique position to affect change in the Israeli government’s less than enthusiastic policy regarding their citizens in Judea and Samaria, as well as its heavily left-wing and overly powerful judicial branch.
While all of this happened last week, the fallout against the makeup of the Twentieth Knesset has been particularly strong, especially from those outside of Israel. Many are concerned that it will not be stable nor will it last very long- after all, it consists only the smallest majority of Knesset members. However, a look back to previous coalitions will show that most of them, including the previous one, fell apart mainly because of an ideological gap between members. If one party in the government is not happy, then leaving will destabilize the coalition no matter how large it is, and will lead to new elections. In the parliamentary system, the most stable government is not the largest, but rather the most homogeneous one, and this is why Israel’s Twentieth Knesset will be so stable- the right-wing parties, a bigger majority than usual in this election, are on the same page about almost all major issues. They are not likely to leave “willy-nilly,” so we can foresee a longer-lasting and certainly more stable government.
Another concern about the incoming Knesset is, due to the concessions that PM Netanyahu made to Jewish Home, MK Ayelet Shaked will become the new Justice Minister, including the powers of appointing judges (something which Likud had initially tried to keep from her). Many opponents have expressed concerns about nearly every aspect of her, from her relative youth, lack of experience in Israeli law, and proclaimed agenda to reform Israel’s overly-powerful court system. Recent events, however, have shown that the judicial branch of the Jewish state needs to be reined in. Israel’s left-wing Supreme Court has constantly shown a bias against Jews, especially those living over the Green Line, ruling against them in nearly all court cases, even ones where the opposite outcome seemed clearly correct.
The issue comes down to the Basic Laws, Israel’s de facto constitution, which gives very broad powers to the judiciary. This has led to some justices, such as former President of the Supreme Court Dorit Beinisch, to use the bench to change and make new laws that would not pass in the Knesset, completely against the spirit of Israel’s founders. Shaked, along with most of the incoming government, wants to return the power of legislation to those elected by the people, by limiting the powers of the court and making an addendum to the Basic Laws declaring Israel a Jewish State, to ensure that this is taken into account in future court decisions. However, many left-wing politicians are afraid of the effect that this will have on Israel’s international standing and the peace process, so they instead chose to personally attack the new Justice Minister, in the hope of smearing her reputation before she could even begin to affect change.
As the new government is sworn in this week, there is hope that the right-wing and religious-leaning incoming government will affect change and reform in Israel, and its homogeneous makeup will ensure a long lifetime. However, as King Solomon once said “There is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Russian activist Emma Goldman clarified this in terms of politics, writing “if voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.” We cannot know what the future will hold, and what the new government will do. We only know that this Twentieth Knesset has the potential to make sweeping reforms, and change the way of life for all Israelis. But will they make change? Only time will tell.
By Tzvi Silver, JLNJ Israel Correspondent
