Polls show Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in serious trouble in Israel’s upcoming elections as his top rivals announced a united front against him.
A dramatic week in Israeli politics culminated on Thursday when Benny Gantz, a former general chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, and journalist turned politician Yair Lapid decided to join forces to challenge Netanyahu from the center. Two flash polls taken after the announcement found the newly formed alliance would win 36 seats in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. One of the polls had Netanyahu’s Likud party gaining 30 seats, while the other had the party at just 26.
Generally, the party with the most seats will get the first crack at forming a government, which requires a combination of 61 seats for a majority of the 120-seat body.
Netanyahu, who has promoted his close relationship with President Trump, has found himself in a deteriorating political situation as he faces possible indictment in a corruption scandal and many Israelis have grown weary of somebody who has served about 13 years as prime minister, including the last 10 consecutively. Put another way, Netanyahu has lead the country for nearly 20 percent of Israel’s 70-year existence.
This week, Netanyahu faced more blowback when he maneuvered to bring a far-right, racist, fringe party back into the political fold as part of a calculation to maximize Knesset seats. Under Israel’s system, parties that don’t reach a certain threshold don’t get any seats in the Knesset, so votes for that party essentially go to waste. By working to have them merge with another right-wing party, those votes could now boost the number of right-of-center seats in the Knesset, giving Netanyahu more of a potential cushion to form a government.
But this news was one of the factors that Gantz and Lapid cited in forming an alliance, which includes the unique prospect of a rotating prime minister. If they win, Gantz will serve as prime minister for the first two-and-a-half years, at which point Lapid will become prime minister, and Gantz will take over the defense portfolio. The deal also reportedly includes a provision under which Gantz promised that the alliance would not join any government led by Netanyahu.
Gantz, a military man who first created his Israel Resilience Party in December, has unleashed blistering personal attacks on Netanyahu, criticizing the time he spent in the United States as a student and consultant. “When I lay in the muddy trenches with my soldiers on frozen winter nights, you left Israel to learn English and practice it at fancy cocktail parties,” Gantz was quoted as saying. Netanyahu, who served in a special forces unit, fired back, “I risked my life time after time for the country.”
Netanyahu is a crafty, resilient politician who has managed to bounce back many times in the past when he had been written off. He initially served as prime minister from 1996 to 1999 and briefly left politics after losing. He went on to serve in Ariel Sharon’s government, only to resign over the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. He eventually won back the leadership of Likud, and became prime minister in 2009, a post he has not relinquished since. Despite being a polarizing figure who has been theoretically vulnerably, nobody has been able to emerge to take him down. In 2015, polls leading up to the election forecast that he was heading for defeat, but he rallied to an upset victory. So, one would be foolish to write off Netanyahu.
At the same time, the merger, coupled with his legal troubles, finds Netanyahu in the fight of his political life.
