Dissatisfaction with the government is growing in Israel – not only among the population, but also in the coalition itself. But a break would be political suicide for the coalition partners.
The tones are getting shrill in Israel’s governing coalition. Above all, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Minister for National Security, was recently dissatisfied. In his opinion, the Israeli army’s response to more than 100 rockets fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip had been too weak.
“This is not a totally right-wing government. Gaza keeps bombing us and the response is weak,” said Ben-Gvir. “If the prime minister doesn’t want my Jewish Strength party in the government, he’s welcome to fire us. We will boycott parliamentary votes until the prime minister has internalized that the goal of this government is to be ruthlessly right-wing.”
Above all, Ben-Gvir was probably outraged that he was not involved in important security consultations. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party, the Likud, promptly released a pithy statement: The prime minister alone decides who is a relevant discussion participant. If Ben-Gvir does not accept that, then he does not have to stay in the government.
Not a break, but big discontent
The Israeli government is not yet on the verge of a break, observers agree. This is also due to the disastrous poll numbers: if there were elections, this government would no longer have a majority. Breaking the coalition would be political suicide.
But dissatisfaction is growing not only among Netanyahu’s national-religious and in some cases right-wing extremist coalition partners, but also among the ultra-religious parties. Meir Porush of United Torah Judaism holds the title of Minister of Jerusalem Affairs and Jewish Tradition. In his opinion, the Netanyahu government has so far delivered too little.
Porush complains that the agreements on the subject of education had not been complied with, and now it is said that there will be no compulsory military service law. He wonders why he helped form this government. With regard to the judicial reform, he calls for sticking to the original plans: Parliament should be able to overrule court decisions with a majority. “If Netanyahu can’t implement that, then he shouldn’t be prime minister and go home.”
Judicial reform creates major tensions
The reform of the judiciary is probably the cause of the greatest frustration. It has turned large parts of the population against the government. Abroad, too, people are wondering whether Israel is still a democratic constitutional state after the reform intended to weaken the judiciary.
In the meantime, it is no longer entirely clear what will still come through and what Netanyahu still wants. The project has broken down into over 150 individual laws and has become quite confusing – also in order to weaken resistance.
But the damage that the government has caused with the reform project is already enormous in the eyes of many. Naftali Bennett, Israel’s head of government until the summer of last year, sees the economy being affected, among other things: “Investors are worried about the uncertainty that exists. Our diplomatic standing in the Middle East and in the world demands that the uncertainty disappear. And that applies also for the security situation – it’s all connected.”
How the judicial reform will continue is currently unclear. Also because the government has to solve another important problem, namely to draw up a budget. There is still time for this until the end of the month – and the desire is great. In recent years, previous governments have not always succeeded. This will be another test for Netanyahu, who has lost a lot of the trust of his coalition partners.