Three options for Benny Gantz to compose a government
As his deadline to form a government approaches, Blue and White party head Benny Gantz is left with three main options before returning the mandate to the president.
The last time someone from the liberal camp gave up on a chance to form a government, the opportunity was lost for over a decade. Throughout that entire time, the country’s leader was drawn from the hard right instead. Kadima leader Tzipi Livni was supposed to re-create Ehud Olmert’s coalition after he was forced to resign over suspicions of criminal activity in 2008. Everyone knows what happened next. Livni grew disgusted with the way negotiations with the ultra-Orthodox parties were going, and hoped that by advancing the election, she would win enough seats to prevent those parties from making demands that were impossible to meet. But in the February 2009 election, her party, Kadima, won a plurality of just one seat. She found herself unable to form a coalition, and the rest is history. The president tasked Benjamin Netanyahu with forming the new government, which he did. Netanyahu has served as prime minister ever since.
The delusional appointment Nov. 8 of New Right senior right-wing hard-liner Naftali Bennett to the position of defense minister indicates that Netanyahu is determined to ensure his continued role as prime minister.
Now Benny Gantz has that rare opportunity to form the next government. It is not because his Blue and White party has one seat more than the Likud. It is because Avigdor Liberman, chairman of the Yisrael Beitenu party, decided to keep victory out of Netanyahu’s clutches. The motivation behind Liberman’s decision to fill the role of liberal in his current incarnation remains unclear. Then again, it doesn’t really matter. As long as this is the situation, it is a patriotic duty to save Israel from the unenlightened forces of extremism, and to start a new chapter in the country’s history. Giving up on this option to return the liberal camp to power is too big a risk, as will be seen if all other options are blocked.
Since Gantz owes this chance to form a government to Liberman, the Blue and White chairman will have to coordinate everything with the Yisrael Beitenu leader. Liberman is willing to accept a coalition consisting only of Blue and White, the Likud and Yisrael Beitenu, which would then pass a series of laws that the ultra-Orthodox parties could not support. A budget could then be approved, and other parties could then be brought into the coalition. But that is not enough.
