Newsman: The Benjamin Netanyahu era is over in Israel. Naftali Bennett was sworn in as Israel’s new prime minister on Sunday, after winning a confidence vote with the narrowest of margins, just 60 votes to 59. His victory ends a 12-year grip on power by former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving leader. After the new government was sworn in, Netanyahu and his right-wing Likud party moved to the opposition for the first time in more than a decade. The government will be made up of a broad group of Netanyahu opponents that includes the United Arab List, known in Israel as Ra’am, which made history as the first Arab party to join an Israeli governing coalition.
US President Joe Biden in a statement on Sunday congratulated Bennett in his first statement about the political situation in Israel, saying he looked forward to working with the new prime minister.
“Israel has no better friend than the United States,” Biden also wrote in his statement. “The bond that unites our people is evidence of our shared values and decades of close cooperation and as we continue to strengthen our partnership, the United States remains unwavering in its support for Israel’s security. My administration is fully committed to working with the new Israeli government to advance security, stability, and peace for Israelis, Palestinians, and people throughout the broader region.”
The son of American immigrants, Bennett is a former settler leader whose nationalist politics contrasts with several of the dovish left-wing parties included in his unwieldy coalition. As head of such a disparate clan, he may find it difficult to achieve much beyond ending Netanyahu’s grip on the premiership.
“Twice in history, we have lost our national home precisely because the leaders of the generation were not able to sit with one and another and compromise. Each was right, yet with all their being right, they burnt the house down on top of us,” Israel’s new prime minister Naftali Bennett said. “I am proud of the ability to sit together with people with very different views from my own.”
“We will focus on what can be done, instead of arguing over what is impossible,” he said when announcing his deal with Lapid.
But Bennett promised on Sunday to continue Netanyahu’s confrontational policy in a speech prior to the vote, opposing any movement from the U.S. to revive the dismantled Iran nuclear deal.
“Israel will not allow Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons,” Bennett said. “Israel will not be a party to the agreement and will continue to preserve full freedom of action.”
Throughout his political career, Israel’s new prime minister has served as the defense minister, economy minister, education minister and more. But it was always under Netanyahu, and Bennett began his political career as Netanyahu’s chief of staff. In replacing his former boss, Bennett has already etched his name into the country’s political history, especially after years of unprecedented political stalemate.
Bennett became the premier as the leader of Yamina, a right-wing party with only seven seats in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, making him the only prime minister in the country’s history with such a small faction.
After four elections in two years, Bennett’s incoming government breaks a long political deadlock and ushers in the most diverse coalition Israel has ever seen, including the first Arab party to serve in the government. In his speech before the Knesset confidence vote, Bennett celebrated the diversity and warned of polarization within the country.
Netanyahu’s Likud party won 30 seats in March’s election. Once again, however, Netanyahu could not cobble together a governing coalition with a majority of the 120 members of Knesset.
Netanyahu did not take his defeat lightly, promising Israel’s enemies that the Likud party would return to power in his final speech as prime minister.
During the debate ahead of the swearing-in, Benjamin Netanyahu assailed the coalition that ousted him from the Prime Minister’s Office after a record 12 consecutive years, calling it a “weak” and “dangerous” government.
“You call yourself the guardians of democracy, but you are so afraid of democracy that you are ready to pass fascist laws against my candidacy — the language of North Korea and Iran — in order to maintain your regime,” he said, referring to speculation that the new government would impose term limits or make it illegal for someone who has been indicted to be Prime Minister.
Warning that the new government would not stand up to Iran, Benjamin Netanyahu warned his internal rivals and outside enemies, “We’ll be back soon.” “If it is destined for us to be in the opposition, we will do it with our backs straight until we topple this dangerous government and return to lead the country in our way,” he said.
Bennett’s path to victory seemed all but lost during 11 days of fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants last month, when Netanyahu appeared to scuttle any chances of the opposition parties forming a government to replace him. But Yair Lapid, head of the centrist Yesh Atid party which holds 17 seats, forged the agreements between the different parties that led to the end of Netanyahu’s grip on power. The arrangement places Bennett at the head of a coalition that includes right-wing, left-wing, and Arab parties, united largely by their desire to dethrone Netanyahu.
These disparate interests will challenge the coalition to find common ground on key issues, such as what policy to pursue with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank or how to manage the relationship with Gaza. The international community, including the United States, are pushing for the renewal of a peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians. Instead, Bennett will focus on domestic issues during his two years as prime minister, before he hands the reins to Lapid according to their coalition agreement. These will include the relationship between religion and state, the cost of living, and quality of life issues. Israel also has not passed a budget since March 2018; the newly anointed government has three months to enact one or the Knesset will dissolve and the country will once again head to elections by law.
The new administration will have no choice but to deal with some of the thornier issues. In East Jerusalem, the eviction of several Palestinian families in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah is still awaiting a High Court decision. The final ruling was delayed in an attempt to avert tension and violence in Jerusalem last month, but it nevertheless sparked a chain of escalation that led to more than a week of conflict between Israel and Gaza, leaving hundreds dead, most of them Palestinians. But this government is ill-equipped to handle such negotiations, since two of the parties are vocally opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Bennett’s success and political survival ultimately depend on his ability to forge compromise between the different parties in the coalition, even if only on a narrow domestic agenda. If not, he risks ending his time as prime minister shortly after it begins.
Long considered the “magician” of Israeli politics, Netanyahu had survived years of challenges to his power, outlasting and outmaneuvering his opponents. But on the night, he had too many opponents who wanted to see him gone.
Netanyahu, or Bibi, as he is known in Israel, first became prime minister in 1996 and served for three years as head of the right-wing Likud party. After losing the next election, he left politics, only to return in 2002 as foreign minister and then as prime minister in 2009. He won elections in 2013 and 2015, and retained his grip on power through three more elections between 2019 and 2020.
He has supported the continued building of Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank — also home to some 2.7 million Palestinians who seek the territory, captured by Israel from Jordan in 1967, for a future independent state.
The new government will also inherit normalization agreements with four Arab countries — the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco — that many in the Jewish state hope can stand as a lasting foundation for efforts to end its isolation in the Middle East.
