According to an old Jewish proverb, those who need the services of a thief must take him down from the noose. In the case before Israel, the thief is being accused of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, but has nonetheless convinced the citizenry that his services are essential. In this regard, Israel’s interim prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has turned himself into a vital cure for a horrible epidemic. In addition, he is demanding that the political hangman, Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, and his associates restore him to the status of permanent prime minister. On March 22, Netanyahu appealed once again to his rival Gantz to join a unity government to tackle the coronavirus crisis. With the help of this tiny virus, the larger-than-life accused has successfully placed responsibility at the door of his accuser and created conflict in the accuser's camp.

Blue and White, established in late 2018, rode the waves of voter disgust with Netanyahu to its current position at the head of a slim, 61-seat Knesset majority, and its leader has been tasked with forming the next government. Over 1.2 million Israelis who voted for Blue and White were fed up with Netanyahu’s indecent assault on Israeli democracy and his abuse of the state’s social fabric. In the run-up to the March 2 elections, Gantz tweeted, “Support Blue and White in the polling booth, or else you’ll get an Erdogan entrenched in the PM’s residence,” referring to Turkish strongman President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He also announced categorically that his party would not join a government led by an indicted prime minister, the first article in Blue and White’s contract with its voters. Had this been a legal document, a decision by Gantz and his friends to join a Netanyahu-led government would have been the basis for a damage award on the grounds of a contract violation.

The problem is that the contract includes another commitment, the violation of which could be considered deceit if not outright vote theft. In March 2019 during Gantz's early days in politics, he announced that he would not conduct a dialogue with the political leadership of Israel’s Arab community because it “speaks out against the State of Israel.” Thus, the second article in Blue and White’s contract with its voters promises that any government the party forms will only include Zionist, or patriotic, parties. In light of the March 2 election results, which gave Blue and White 33 Knesset seats and the Arab Joint List 15, Gantz had no choice but to chip away at this pledge and invite the Arab political leadership for talks.

Yisrael Beitenu leader Avigdor Liberman, who has built a reputation for himself as the archenemy of the Arab lawmakers, swallowed the bitter pill of political cooperation with the Arabs in his quest to unseat Netanyahu. The head of the small Telem faction in Blue and White, Moshe Ya’alon, a former general considered a straight shooter, also decided that the first article in the contract with voters was so crucial that it justified violating the second. Ya’alon failed, however, to convince Zvi Hauser and Yoaz Hendel, his two fellow Telem colleagues, to follow in his footsteps. Hauser and Hendel, both of a distinctly right-wing persuasion, had had firsthand experience with Netanyahu’s deceptiveness — the former as his cabinet secretary and the latter as his spokesperson — and thus had set out to topple him. Now they are refusing to cooperate with the Joint List even at the cost of perpetuating Netanyahu’s grip on power. There are increasing signs in recent days that Gabi Ashkenazi, a member of the Blue and White leadership, is leaning toward joining the two rejectionists and accepting Netanyahu’s call to join a unity government under his leadership for the first 18 months of the term.