Internal strife within Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government earlier this week may prove to be the beginning of the end of his ugly coalition government consisting of rightwing extremist and ultra-Orthodox political parties. For the first time since his government was formed in December, Netanyahu openly clashed with his minister for national security, Itamar Ben Gvir, leader of the neo-fascist Otzma Yehudit party.
The issue at hand was Israel’s response to a major Hamas rocket attack on May 2; the terrorist organization fired 104 rockets at southern Israel and hit a construction site in the southern town of Sderot, where three people were wounded. Israel responded with air strikes against 16 targets in Gaza and then appeared to reach a ceasefire with Hamas.
Ben Gvir was incensed. He accused the government of managing only a “feeble” response to the rocket attacks, and, visiting Sderot with his party colleagues the day after the attacks, he announced that Otzma Yehudit would not vote with the coalition that day unless Netanyahu took a harder line against the Palestinians.
Ben Gvir has had several other personal and policy grievances against Netanyahu for some time. When Ben Gvir tried to prevent imprisoned Palestinians from using their cell phones, Netanyahu reportedly blocked the move. What likely infuriated Ben Gvir even more, however, was Netanyahu’s refusal to let him participate in security cabinet discussions, despite his official ministerial title.
As he put it, “if he [Netanyahu] wants us in the government he needs to invite us to these [cabinet security] deliberations…[and] more importantly, have influence. If the prime minister wants that, we will be happy. If not, we will not come to votes.”
Netanyahu and his Likud party leadership responded in kind, making it clear that if Ben Gvir was unhappy, he could leave the government. Ben Gvir shot back that his party would continue to boycott government votes, and told Netanyahu “if you don’t want Otzma Yehudit in the government you are welcome to fire us. If you don’t want a real right-wing government, you are welcome to send us home.”
Ben Gvir is betting that Netanyahu is bluffing and ultimately will cave in to his demands, for fear of losing his governing majority. Indeed, that same fear likely led to the prime minister’s about face after announcing that he was firing his defense minister, former general Yoav Gallant, after the latter spoke out against the government’s refusal to compromise on its plans to undercut the Israeli Supreme Court. The firing had upset several Likud parliamentarians, creating the very real prospect that the government would fall. Now Ben Gvir was openly threatening to bring it down.
Fearing that Netanyahu would not cave to Ben Gvir’s increasingly radical demands, Ben Gvir’s close ally Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, pleaded for calm, stating that “we have to keep the government unified and not give a prize to terror and bring back the left to rule.”
It is unclear, however, whether Ben Gvir will heed his colleague’s advice, or whether Netanyahu is prepared to do so either.
Even as Ben Gvir was ratcheting up his pressure on the prime minister, the religious parties were threatening to leave the coalition unless the government increased its financial support for yeshivas and their students. The government’s burden supporting this sector of the population has grown tremendously since some 400 students were granted military exemptions when the State of Israel first came into being in 1948.
There are now tens of thousands of such students. They are exempt from military service, overwhelmingly remain outside the labor force and receive government subsidies for their large families. Yet, as with Ben Gvir’s demands, what the government is doing is not enough for the ultra-Orthodox parties. Since they too have a stranglehold on the government’s prospects for survival, they are not shy about issuing threats themselves.
Whether Netanyahu will ultimately cave to the ultra-Orthodox or, more urgently, to Ben Gvir remains an open question. He desperately needs the government to survive and to reach a deal on the Supreme Court that will allow him to avoid possible conviction and jail time for offenses while in office. Yet he has stated that he seeks a compromise with respect to the Supreme Court, one that no doubt would obviate any threat of imprisonment. But any compromise is anathema to Ben Gvir, who is even more extreme in his views than Smotrich, and who could well cause the government to fall if he does not get everything he wants.
Netanyahu has unleashed a whirlwind that has bitterly divided Israel in a way never seen since its creation. If he gives in to his extremist partners, he will create even more chaos on Israel’s streets. But he may at last put his country ahead of his coalition partners, and, indeed, ahead of his own personal interests. His government would surely fall, but his country would be the better for it.
Dov S. Zakheim is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and vice chairman of the board for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He was undersecretary of Defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2004 and a deputy undersecretary of Defense from 1985 to 1987.