[ Benjamin Netanyahu leads a new Israeli government, the most
right-wing ever of all Israeli governments. What will happen next?
Within months, perhaps a year, barely concealed settler militias will
be running rampant against West Bank Palestinians.]
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NETANYAHU CONSISTENTLY PROMISED VOTERS A “FULL-FLEDGED RIGHT-WING
GOVERNMENT”  
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Yossi Alpher
December 19, 2022
Americans for Peace Now (APN)
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_ Benjamin Netanyahu leads a new Israeli government, the most
right-wing ever of all Israeli governments. What will happen next?
Within months, perhaps a year, barely concealed settler militias will
be running rampant against West Bank Palestinians. _

Benjamin Netanyahu, then Israeli Prime Minister meets with then
President Donald Trump, Sept. 15, 2020, during bilateral meeting at
the White House for the Abraham Accords Signing Ceremony, , Official
White House Photo by Andrea Hanks

 

_Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former
director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv
University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF
intelligence officer. Views and positions expressed here are those of
the writer, and do not necessarily represent APN's views and policy
positions._

_Q. BENJAMIN NETANYAHU’S NEW GOVERNMENT LOOKS SET TO BE APPROVED BY
THE KNESSET BY THE MIDDLE OF NEXT WEEK. WHEN THE NYTIMES WARNS AGAINST
IT IN A LEAD EDITORIAL AND A FORMER IDF CHIEF OF STAFF THREATENS A
MILLION-PERSON PROTEST MARCH, YOU KNOW THERE IS A LOT OF CONCERN ABOUT
THIS MOST EXTREME EVER OF ISRAEL’S COALITIONS. HOW BAD IS IT GOING
TO BE?_

_A._ Netanyahu has been reassuring the world media (e.g., National
Public Radio in the United States) that he will be in full control of
the most right-wing ministers in his government and will prevent
extreme measures like cutting electricity production on the sabbath
and extreme actions on the Temple Mount that could ignite a war. But
he has not been reassuring the Israeli media, perhaps because he knows
that in Israel few people believe him, even among his political allies
(“liar son of a liar”, incoming racist minister of finance Bezalel
Smotrich called him). 

“There will be no halachic state,” Netanyahu told the Knesset last
week with reference to the Jewish law demands of his incoming
ultra-Orthodox partners. “We’ll follow the path of the liberal
right”. How to explain Fascist-Kahanists like Itamar Ben Gvir in key
ministries like ‘national security’? Ben Gvir has "modified a lot
of his views” since being convicted as a follower of racist Meir
Kahane in 2007," Netanyahu told NPR. "With power comes
responsibility."

As for the destructive effect on Israel-Arab and Israeli-Palestinian
relations caused by awarding Ben Gvir and Smotrich control over major
areas of governance in the West Bank, Netanyahu told the Saudi _Al
Arabiya_ that the peace with Saudi Arabia that is now on his agenda
“will change our region in ways that are unimaginable. And I think
it will facilitate, ultimately, a Palestinian-Israeli peace.”

What’s more, Netanyahu got an American endorsement. On Sunday, US
Ambassador Tom Nides told _Haaretz_, “We believe he’s very smart
. . . . He says he wants to be prime minister of all of Israel.”

_Q. BUT IS NETANYAHU CREDIBLE IN HIS REASSURANCES? OR HAS HE REALLY
TAKEN THE EXTREMISTS ON BOARD AND AGREED TO THEIR MOST EXTREME
SCHEMES, AND HANG THE CONSEQUENCES, IN THE HOPE THAT THEY WILL HELP
EXTRACT HIM FROM PROSECUTION FOR CORRUPTION?_

_A._ Netanyahu possibly hopes to square the circle: allow the
extremists enough extreme measures to keep them on board but not
enough to make Israel look and feel fascist, racist and
fundamentalist. And possibly he has some other agenda in mind.
Beginning in January 2023, we will be able to identify one or more of
several bad governance scenarios. Which is most likely? Take your
pick.

_Q. START WITH LEAST BAD . ._ .

_A._ Netanyahu will allow extreme Haredi measures, but will shield
secular, liberal Israel from their worst effects. He will buy off the
ultra-Orthodox with heavy budgetary allotments for their yeshivas and
by ending vestiges of secular education for their youth. He will end
the never-impressive program for conscripting their sons. He will find
a few unused coastal spaces to install their gender-segregated
beaches. But he will not change sabbath laws, and secular Israel
simply will not feel what is happening in the ultra-Orthodox
strongholds of Bnei Brak and Mea Shearim.

The ultra-Orthodox and Orthodox demand to restrict the law of return
by eliminating the grandparent clause that allows immigration to
Israel of non-halakhic Jews (i.e., immigrants with one Jewish
grandparent and no Jewish parents) will be relegated to study by a
committee. Perhaps minor amendments will eventually be introduced.
Here, under the least bad scenario, Netanyahu will prefer Diaspora
interests so as not to antagonize global Jewish support for Israel.

The demand of the entire political right wing, including the Likud, to
reduce the High Court’s independence by passing a measure whereby
the Knesset can override some Court decisions, and by watering down
the ‘leftist’ majority they perceive to be dominating the Court,
will be mitigated by pressure from the Court itself, the attorney
general and the public. But some sort of measure will pass, and its
effect on checks and balances and the rule of law in Israel will be
negative.

Itamar Ben Gvir will concentrate on restoring law and order in lawless
areas of the Negev and Galilee and may even earn some praise for his
tough measures. He will avoid interfering in Israel Police
investigations and will, according to one supportive retired Israel
Police general, “make the changes the police have been waiting for
since the 1970s.” He and Bezalel Smotrich, known as an accomplished
administrator, will avoid antagonizing the IDF by giving extreme
orders to Border Patrol units in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. 

The price for this display of ‘moderation’ will be large budgetary
allotments for favorite extreme-right causes, creeping West Bank
annexation, and settlement outpost legalization and expansion. It will
all be carried out quietly, far from the Tel Aviv public’s eye.

Avi Maoz, the racist homophobe from the Noam party being parachuted
into the Education Ministry as deputy minister, will be awarded only
limited authority to mess with the education system. Netanyahu
understands that, unlike steps in the West Bank and the yeshivas, here
he cannot shield the broader public from the damage, hence will be
deterred from letting it happen. Maoz, a man of his extremist
principles, will resign in frustration at an early stage but without
disrupting the coalition. 

This ‘moderate’ version of the coming coalition begins in January.
The immediate consequences will as noted be mitigated. But the
long-term consequences will be disastrous: unbridled expansion of
Haredi population growth and education for backwardness; unbridled
expansion of the national orthodox project to annex the West Bank and
reduce or force out its Palestinian population; gradual encroachment
of Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount. 

Nearly all of this will be financed by the secular-liberal half of
Israel that pays around 80 percent of the taxes and for the most part
did not vote for this coalition. But for a while, most people will not
be aware of the damage, some of which has in any case been accruing
for many decades under left-leaning governments as well, and will now
be accelerated.

Think, live frog in a slowly boiling pot of water.

_Q. BAD ENOUGH. SKIP FROM HERE TO THE WORST CASE . . ._

_A._ Ben Gvir, Smotrich and Maoz will not be bought off with extra
budgets. They will go all out to Judaize the West Bank and the Temple
Mount. They will try to take over authority in key sectors of the IDF,
the Israel Police and the Shin Bet, and change the face of Israel’s
55 years of occupation to the extent that the international community
no longer recognizes it. They will hold Netanyahu hostage to his need
to legislate his way out of his corruption trial, while Netanyahu
holds his Likud members of Knesset, fully half the 64 MK coalition and
many of whom profess secular liberal views, hostage to their hunger
for power, bribing them with unnecessary ministries and appointments
to keep them from revolting.

The once-secular education system of half the population will be
‘reformed’: pupils will learn Avi Maoz’s Jewish values.

Within months, perhaps a year, barely concealed settler militias will
be running rampant against West Bank Palestinians. The IDF and Border
Patrol will prove ineffectual under restrictions by Ben Gvir and
Smotrich. A new intifada will break out in the West Bank, with
Palestinian terrorists penetrating Israeli cities. Gangs of Arab
citizens of Israel will join in: the country’s Arab sector is
already flooded with weapons smuggled from Jordan. 

A taxpayer revolt will break out in Israel. Key gatekeepers like
outspoken Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miari, who warned last week
that the next government’s “reforms” of the judicial system will
strike “a fatal blow to democracy”, will resign. So will some
senior security personnel. By the end of 2023, a few leading cyber
companies will announce plans to move with their employees to Cyprus.

_Q. HOLD ON. COULDN’T NETANYAHU BE PLANNING A SCENARIO WHEREBY, ONCE
HIS GOVERNMENT HAS LEGISLATED HIS WAY OUT OF HIS CORRUPTION TRIAL, AND
IN VIEW OF THE DAMAGE DONE BY HIS COALITION PARTNERS, HE FIRES SOME OR
ALL OF THEM AND INVITES CENTRISTS LIKE BENNY GANTZ AND YAIR LAPID TO
JOIN HIM IN A LIBERAL CENTRIST GOVERNMENT?_

_A._ That is the wishful thinking of many, including a few moderate
Likudniks. Netanyahu could perhaps be tempted to proceed this way if
the international, regional and domestic reaction to his imminent
coalition is angry and effective enough. Whether Gantz (National
Union) and Lapid (Yesh Atid) will abandon their current refusal to
serve under a prime minister facing criminal charges who is totally
bereft of credibility, all in order to save the country from the grip
of fascists and fundamentalists, is another question.

Lest we forget: in this election Netanyahu consistently promised the
voters a “full-fledged right-wing government” (_yamin al maleh_).
He, and they, got what they voted for.

_Q. GENERAL DAMAGE UNDER ANY SCENARIO?_

_A._ Netanyahu’s Haredi and Kahanist partners have figured out that
he needs them so badly he will pay inflated prices. Accordingly, this
is already emerging as the biggest and most wasteful government in
Israeli history. Extra ministers are being added to existing
ministries. New ministries are being invented. New deputy minister
tasks are being invented. Vital missions are being removed from the
ministries of defense and education and transferred to far-right
ministers. This, after previous Netanyahu coalitions tore off key
functions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs like links with the
Diaspora in order to feed the appetite of bloated coalitions.

Further, we will now witness the acceleration of Israel’s descent
down the slippery slope toward a violent bi-national entity of
Palestinians and Jews that is increasingly more Jewish than
democratic. Fundamentalism and racism at the Israeli domestic level
will merge with the evils of an ultra-nationalistic land grab in the
West Bank and East Jerusalem.

_Q. BOTTOM LINE?_

_A._ Ehud Barak was a failed prime minister and a lackluster defense
minister. He lacks people skills and negotiating skills. But he has
always been a sharp analyst of Israeli strategic and political
interests. Last week in _Yediot Aharonot_ he summed up the impending
disaster succinctly:

The elections ended in a clear decision. The government is legal. But
it is founded on a political deal that may be constitutional but is
repulsive and illegitimate. We’ll give you [Netanyahu] relief from
your trial even if to that end we have to shatter the legal system and
[the principal of] equality before the law. In return, you will give
us: first, relief from equality before the law for our criminals
[ministers Deri, Smotrich and Ben Gvir]. Second, tools to end openness
in Education Ministry enrichment programs. Third, suppression of IDF
authority and sovereignty in the West Bank and a new reality of rule
by political militias in order to ready the ground for full
annexation, meaning either apartheid or transfer or bi-nationality
with a Muslim majority. All three together are a mark of disgrace on
Israel and the beginning of the end of the Zionist dream and vision.

* Benjamin Netanyahu
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* Israel
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* Itamar Ben-Gvir
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* Bezalel Smotrich
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* Religious Zionist Party
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* Otzma Yehudit
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* Palestine
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* Palestinians
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* West Bank
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* Saudi Arabia
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* Avi Maoz
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* IDF
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* Occupied Territories
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* zionism
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