By: Fern Sidman
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party has formed a coalition government with the help of Mansour Abbas, head of the United Arab List (Raam Party) shortly before a midnight deadline, concluding the era of long-time Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
With 17 seats, Yesh Atid is the second-largest party in the 120-member Knesset. Abbas’ United Arab List is a small party that represents Palestinian citizens of Israel.
According to a Jerusalem Post report, the agreement was reached Wednesday night at Ramat Gan’s Kfar Hamaccabiah Hotel, in an effort to resolve the final differences preventing the formation of a unity government.
Abbas joined a coalition to oust Netanyahu at the eleventh hour. “The chairperson of Ra’am (United Arab List), Mansour Abbas, signed a document which allows the chairperson of Yesh Atid, Yair Lapid, to inform the president he has succeeded in forming a government after agreements were reached,” Lapid’s spokesman said in a statement.
“Mansour Abbas and Yair Lapid signed a coalition agreement to form a unity government.”
Lapid notified Israeli President Reuven Rivlin that he has a coalition for a government, a party statement has said.
Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel-Hamid has posted on Twitter: It now allows for Israel’s government to be formed, “that would be headed by far right Yamina leader Naftali Bennett. Israeli media in a frenzy over this.”
The Times of Israel reported that Yamina MK Nir Orbach was considering taking an oppositional stance to the proposed government in “a move that could very likely sink its chances of being formed.”
“Reports have previously said that Orbach has considered resigning rather than vote to back the government”, The Times of Israel reported.
Israeli political correspondent Tal Schneider called the signing of the coalition agreement a historic moment. “For the first time in Israel history an Arab party will become a part of a coalition,” Schneider wrote.
Israel National News reported that Ra’am chairman Mansour Abbas demanded that the government’s guidelines not include laws in favor of the LGBT community.
This is a significant withdrawal on the part of some of the left-wing bloc parties from their positions in principle on the issue, for the sake of the formation of a government not led by Netanyahu. Abbas also demanded the repeal of the Kaminitz law and the regulation of illegal construction in the Arab sector, and it has not yet been announced which of these he received in talks.
“We are negotiating not about political posts but about solutions to the challenges faced by the Arab community,” Abbas told Channel 12 as he entered his car en route from the Shura Council to his meeting with Bennett and Lapid, as was reported by the Jerusalem Post. He added: “We do not intend to flex muscles but to remain focused on our professional requests.”
The decision to empower Abbas to decide whether the Raam party will enter the coalition with Lapid was made by the Southern Islamic Movement’s Shura Council in Kfar Kassem on Wednesday night.
Lapid said in a tweet later in the day that he has “succeeded to assemble the government. I pledge that this government will work in the service of all Israeli citizens, those who voted for it and those who did not. It will respect its opponents and do everything in its power to unite and connect all parts of Israeli society.”
Yamina head Naftali Bennett and Lapid agreed to rotate the role of prime minister, with Bennett taking on the post for the first two years, before he is replaced by Lapid, according to reports. Lapid would begin in the role of foreign minister.
World Israel News reported that New Hope MK Ze’ev Elkin said the Ra’am party demands were “impossible for me and for [Yemina’s number two Ayelet] Shaked. We will not agree to them under any circumstances.”
Also, a demand by Shaked to sit on the committee for judicial appointments threatened to torpedo the new government, according to the WIN report. That seat had already been promised to Labor Party leader Merav Michaeli. They eventually compromised by agreeing to a rotation, with Michaeli serving first.
The new “change” government includes Yesh Atid, Yemina, New Hope, Blue and White, Labor, Yisrael Beiteinu, Meretz and Ra’am, with the minimum 61 seats necessary.
Not everyone in Israeli political circles is happy about the coalition agreement that was signed.
WIN reported that Bezalel Smotrich, head of Religious Zionism, which refused to serve together with Ra’am said, “Get this through your heads: Naftali Bennett, Ayelet Shaked, Matan Kahana, Nir Orbach, Idit Silman and Abir Kara signed, for the first time in the history of Israel, a coalition agreement with an anti-Zionist party and a supporter of terrorism.”
“It was possible to form a right-wing government and they torpedoed it and consciously preferred the Left and supporters of terrorism. We will not forget nor forgive,” he said, according to the WIN report.
“The left is celebrating, but this is a very sad day for the State of Israel. Bennett, Sa’ar and Shaked should be ashamed,” said MK Miki Zohar, chairman of the Likud Knesset faction.
The Raam party supports the two-state solution, and the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital; and full rights for Arab citizens of Israel. Its constituency consists mostly of religious or nationalist Israeli Arabs, and enjoys particular popularity among the Bedouin – in the 2009 election, 80% of residents of Bedouin communities voted for the party.
Political observers across the wide spectrum in Israel and across the world have expressed grave doubts that such a government comprised of parties that stand diametrically opposed to each other from a philosophical perspective can survive the turbulent political waters in Israel.
In a searing op-ed article that appeared on Wednesday on the Israel National News web site, political insider Shmuel Sackett addressed the issue of the blatant hypocrisy of Yamina’s Naftali Bennett and his complete betrayal of those who cast their votes for him in the most recent election. Bennett, who has invented himself as a candidate who is even more “right wing” than Benjamin Netanyahu has according to Sackett shown his true colors in this despicable political power grab.
Sackett writes: “The most powerful force in Israeli politics today is the “Anti-Bibi” camp or, as they like to call themselves, The Camp for Change. These politicians – Lapid, Sa’ar, Liberman, Bennett, Gantz (among others) – have vowed that they will not sit in a coalition government led by Mr Netanyahu. This is the same Netanyahu who made Gantz the Defense Minister – a position he still holds today. This is the same Netanyahu who, a few years back, made Bennett the Education Minister and the Economy Minister and the Diaspora Affairs Minister and the Defense Minister. Bibi also made Lapid the Finance Minister, Lieberman the Foreign Minister and Sa’ar the Education Minister plus the Interior Minister.
That’s right; the dreaded, hated, evil Bibi took these nobody politicians and turned them into nobody Ministers! (Whoops, that’s also not politically correct). Let me rephrase that: Without Netanyahu, you would have probably never heard of people like Liberman and Lapid… but they hate him. Huh?
The final “Huh?” will undoubtedly come from the fact that in Israeli politics, right is right during elections but right becomes left after elections. To prove my point, here is an exact (translated) quote from Naftali Bennett; “I will never lend my hand to setting up a government led by Yair Lapid, not even on a rotation basis, simply because I am from the Right wing and he is from the Left wing. I will never work against my own values.” He said this more than once and signed a declaration saying that on TV.
Yet, as you are reading these words, Bennett is indeed lending his hand to setting up a government led by Lapid… but didn’t he say he would never do that? Easy my friend… he said that because he is Right and Lapid is Left but now that elections are over, Right becomes Left so they are really the same! Understand? Huh?”
Also weighing in on this hot button issue is Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Mordechai Kedar, senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. Speaking to David Isaac at the Jewish News Syndicate, he said of the coalition agreement: “This looks to me like a car with four different wheels, and every wheel is going in a different direction. The only thing today which they agree upon is the need to get rid of Netanyahu. This objective will be achieved in the first minute of this government. So what will keep it together in the second minute?”
He added that there are too many ideologically based issues and those will lead to a “divorce in this unnatural marriage.” He argues also that there’s no escape from ideology because the voters are watching, and anyone who concedes his agenda will be seen “as some kind of spineless invertebrate.” Kedar foresees that the coalition partners will find themselves caught in an impossible situation.
Sensitive issues are embedded in the budget, he notes, like building roads in Judea and Samaria. “If Meretz agreed to such a thing, they’d actually be cutting off the branch on which they sit because according to their ideology, Israel should withdraw from those areas altogether.”
On the other side of the coalition are Bennett and Saar, who need to prove their right-wing bona fides precisely by building in those areas.
“This is why I think this government will not last more than a few weeks,” says Kedar.
Moshe Phillips, the national director of Herut North America’s US division told the Jewish Voice that, “Herut North America is a Zionist educational movement that is committed to Zionist unity and as such we are greatly disappointed that Israel’s Zionist political parties were unable to set aside petty political needs and personal pettiness and find a way to work with fellow Zionists to form a new government.”
He added: “By bringing the United Arab List party (Ra’am) into a coalition these party bosses have left their Zionism at the door. The seriousness of this move will reverberate for decades. What is at issue here is not just that Ra’am is not Zionist, but that Ra’am can be expected to actively work against funding Zionist education from within the coalition. This will be the first time this has occurred in Israel’s history. Herut North America is not a political organization and we are not connected to any active political party in Israel.”
Meir Jolovitz, the former National Executive Director of the Zionist Organization of America told the Jewish Voice in a statement of the signing of the coalition agreement: “In a remarkable betrayal of the voters in Israel – those who have traditionally voted for the nationalist right-wing camp in significantly higher numbers than Israel’s Left – we have witnessed an act of perfidy unseen before in Israeli politics.”
He added: “When Naftali Bennett, Ayalet Shaked, and Gideon Sa’ar joined forces with Yair Lapid in establishing a so-called ‘unity government of change’ they aligned themselves also with the Raam Party of Mansour Abbas. Abbas and his Arab cohorts, defenders for many years of Muslim terrorism and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, have successfully driven a wedge between the Jewish nationalist camp, one that can never be undone. That perfidious bell has been rung. And once again – the very dream of Jewish sovereignty over Jewish lands has been squandered by the very element that professed to cherish it. History will not be forgiving.”
