Bennett’s moment of truth approaching

The country is in turmoil. Conditions are finally right for a change of leadership. Can Yamina leader Naftali Bennett withstand temptation and beat Netanyahu in an election?

By Ariel Kahana, ISRAEL HAYOM

In August 1970, then-Opposition leader Menachem Begin walked up to the Knesset podium and issued a harshly-worded warning to the government about Israel being unprepared for an attack by Egypt.

Three years passed before Begin’s warning came true. The 1973 Yom Kippur War, which came as a surprise, resulted in heavy casualties to Israel’s air force, which hampered its ability to provide cover for the ground forces. It was then-Prime Minister Golda Meir who had shut her eyes to Egypt’s progress on its anti-aircraft batteries, about which Begin had warned the Knesset. The price was unbearably heavy.

Four years after the Yom Kippur War came the first political change of leadership in Israel. The thousands of casualties, the military failure, the economic crisis, the mass protests, and the public’s dissatisfaction with the socialists, did their work. Menachem Begin, who had been a junior and right-wing partner in Golda’s government, was elected prime minister. His prophetic speech from 1970 contributed to his victory. He was seen as someone who had warned about an impending disaster while the leaders preferred to ignore it.

Fifty years have passed since Begin’s speech. In August 2020, Yamina leader Naftali Bennett stepped up to the same podium to speak. Until recently, he had been a junior, farther-right partner to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Bennett spoke about the helplessness of the “unity government” in fighting the COVID crisis.

“What have you do in 80 days? What change have you made to the number of tests? What have you done about contact tracing? What have you done about flights? What have you done for businesses? Nothing! Are you all crazy? What have you done? You are ruining the lives of millions of Israeli citizens. You’re killing them, killing them from within. Children with disabilities aren’t provided with solutions because you’re fighting among yourselves. Tell us, have you gone crazy? This is life and death! People are dying!” Bennett roared into the microphone, choking up.

Apart from political interests, which are always a factor, Bennett’s explosion let out an enormous amount of personal rage he had been building up for months. As defense minister in Netanyahu’s transitional government, Bennett looked on as personal political calculations by the prime minister, Health Ministry bureaucracy, and incorrect decision-making – from Netanyahu on down – brought a public health and economic disaster upon Israel. Bennett begged to send in the IDF Home Front Command, the entity designed to handle situations like this one. Netanyahu refused. Nor did he allow Bennett’s successor, Benny Gantz, to use the Home Front Command.

Frustrated and disappointed, Bennett did what he liked to do and went out into the field, visiting businesses, mayors, and experts. In his last few days as defense minister, and the months afterward when he was outside the government, he proposed another way of dealing with the COVID crisis. For example, he wanted Israel to contract with private laboratories like My Rating to process coronavirus tests (a decision that was later implemented by new Health Minister Yuli Edelstein); set up a “corona cabinet” (long before the government made one official); produce lifesaving public service announcements; provide help to individual business owners, and more. He also wrote a book: How to Beat an Epidemic.

The alternative he presented, his clear voice amid all the governmental chaos, his creative ideas, what people saw as his connection to what was actually happening, and the government’s belated adoption of some of his ideas, greatly strengthened his standing in public opinion. Bennett become Israel’s corona doctor as the government’s policies were turning out to be colossal failures.

Israel was dealt a double death blow – both in terms of the number of dead and dying and in terms of economic harm – when a second lockdown was declared at the start of the High Holidays. Israel, which had been an example for the rest of the world in the first wave of COVID, became a cautionary tale in the second.

Political developments also helped boost Bennett to 20 projected seats in polls. The lack of personal example shown by Netanyahu and his ministers, the lack of any punishment for his people who violated regulations, and the refusal to admit mistakes all hurt Netanyahu no less than the actual administrative failure. The political infighting in Yesh Atid shifted one or two projected seats to Yamina. The right-wing Blue and White voters, as well as some Likudniks who were disappointed at the government giving up sovereignty in Judea and Samaria as part of the process of normalization with the UAE and Bahrain, had already gone over to Bennett, at least in the polls.

The COVID crisis has made Bennett, for the first time, a viable candidate for prime minister. If he grows a little stronger, and if Netanyahu weakens a bit more – which is plausible – there will be a real contest between the two. A 25-seat tie between Netanyahu and Bennett, or something close, doesn’t seem farfetched.

But before we get to that, Netanyahu, Bennett, and Benny Gantz are going to have to make some tough decisions. It will be a bitter December – on Dec. 23, the time allocated to vote on a state budget for 2021 will run out. If the Knesset can’t pass a budget, the government will fall. Netanyahu will have to decide if he wants to pass a budget or forgo the rotation and dissolve the government.

Gantz is also facing a dilemma. Should he keep working with Netanyahu as his own party crumbles, or pill our and risk another election that could end his political career?

The current government no longer has a right to exist, since it is not functional – not when it comes to COVID, and not when it comes to any other domestic issue. In similar situations in the past, Netanyahu was not deterred from calling an election. But what does he have to bring to a campaign this time around? A country that hasn’t passed a budget for two years? With the bungled handling of the COVID crisis? How will Netanyahu convince the people, especially the Right, that he would address the crisis better than Bennett would?

So Netanyahu will to his best to avoid an election and cobble together a government with the few remaining Blue and White representatives. But for that move to succeed, he needs support from people who loathe him – Bennett, Ayelet Shaked, and their partners. Without them, Netanyahu doesn’t have 61 votes. He will offer Bennett the moon – the defense and justice ministries, maybe even the job of acting prime minister, as well as responsibility for the COVID crisis, of course.

The ball will be in Bennett’s court. He will have to decide between a fantastic showing in a fourth election and considerations of “pitching in.” An election is a risk for Bennett, too. How knows better than he does that what looks good in polls can end badly at the ballot box.

Meanwhile, Yamina is insisting that it will not join this “bad government.” Bennett, they are saying, will replace Netanyahu like Begin replaced Golda: the politician who warned about an incipient crisis and who refused to join a failing government. They have no reason to help Netanyahu after he broke up the right-wing bloc.

Conditions are ripe for a change of leadership. The country is in turmoil. People are feeling the failure. Protests are filling the air, but maybe what took seven years in the 1970s could happen in a year in the new millennium. If the Bennett’s argument continue to bring in more support, and he can withstand Netanyahu’s tempting offers, and we indeed hold another election this winter, there’s a fair chance that spring 2021 could see a new prime minister in Israel, one named Naftali Bennett.