CIJR Editorial Board
As Israel heads to elections for the third time in less than a year, the spotlight is centred squarely on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the pending indictments against him in three separate criminal cases.
In Case 1000, as it is known in Israel, Netanyahu is accused of accepting expensive gifts (primarily cigars and champagne) in return for providing favors to benefactors. In Case 2000 he allegedly sought to trade positive newspaper coverage for benefits to Arnon Moses, owner of the Yediot Ahronot daily. In Case 4000, Netanyahu is charged with orchestrating positive media coverage for himself from the owner of the Walla news site, Shaul Elovitch, who is the controlling shareholder of the Bezeq communications giant. In return, the prime minister allegedly helped Bezeq buy an Israeli satellite cable provider while overriding any anti-trust issues.
Despite his repeated insistence that he is innocent and the subject of a witch hunt, Netanyahu’s political status could be resolved soon, as Israel’s High Court has called on Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit to draft an opinion on whether Netanyahu can be tasked with forming a coalition should he win the March 2 national vote. Legal precedent requires Israeli cabinet ministers to resign if indicted for a crime, while a prime minister must resign only if he is convicted of a crime and out of avenues of appeal. There is no law pertaining to the issue of whether an indicted prime minister can form an entirely new government.
But perhaps the most acute and, ironically, least discussed, concern for Netanyahu is that he may not even be perched atop the Likud come the March election. In this respect, the party will on December 26 hold a leadership primary – and waiting in the wings is Netanyahu’s fiercest rival, Gideon Sa’ar, who only this year returned to the political fray following a half-decade hiatus from the Knesset, which he attributed to a desire to spend more time with his family.
A trained lawyer and journalist, while Sa’ar’s is not a household name outside of Israel, he is a formidable politician and maintains enthusiastic grassroots support. A former Education and Interior minister, he has twice been voted Likud’s No. 2 behind Netanyahu, and made an impressive comeback by placing fifth on the party’s list of candidates for the April election (the same list was used for the September vote).
Buoyed by this immediate success, coupled with a widespread view that he is Netanyahu’s heir apparent, Sa’ar was the only senior Likud lawmaker to break ranks and speak out against the prime minister during the latest failed coalition negotiations. Since then, he has received public endorsements from many Likud mayors and heads of regional councils, as well as from at least four parliamentarians, including Haim Katz, the head of the Likud central committee, from the short-lived 22nd Knesset.
Sa’ar’s right-wing “credentials” have also endeared him to many Likud voters. A staunch opponent of Palestinian statehood – the defining issue for many on the Right – Sa’ar on Sunday denounced the gospel-like “two-state solution” to ending the conflict as an “illusion.” He slammed Netanyahu for normalizing the paradigm and making “endless” concessions to Ramallah, which he claimed “is not a position that helps anyone.”
Instead, Sa’ar advocated for the creation of a federation between a self-governing Palestinian “entity” and Jordan. “Between the Jordan River and the [Mediterranean] Sea there cannot be another state,” he asserted.
Despite his ideological rigidity on the Palestinian issue – a position that some analysts argue Netanyahu still shares due his repeated campaign calls to annex parts of the Palestinian-administered West Bank – Sa’ar is considered a pragmatist, maintaining good relations with lawmakers across the political spectrum. When launching his bid for the Likud leadership, he suggested that he was best suited to form a government as he could unite the political arena by being less divisive.
Given his experience and growing appeal among – this, in light of the prime minister’s legal problems and perhaps due to “Netanyahu fatigue” – a window of opportunity is opening for Sa’ar, a reality reinforced by two recent opinion polls showing that more than 40 percent of the Israeli electorate blames Netanyahu for the political deadlock. This is compared to less than 10% for Benny Gantz, leader of the Blue and White list, a center-left alliance that won more seats than the Likud in the September election.
Most striking is that a separate poll published on Friday by the Israel Hayom daily – which is widely viewed as “pro-Netanyahu” – showed that prevailing public sentiment could have tangible effects, with Blue and White predicted to win 37 out of the Knesset’s 120 seats in March – a gain of four over the previous vote – versus 31 for the Likud, a loss of one mandate. Notably, once again neither Likud nor Blue and White is expected to be in a clear position to head a minimum 61-member coalition, as the country’s Right and Center-Left blocs are projected to receive about the same overall representation as they did in both April and September.
The prospect of another political stalemate could lead to the defection of additional Netanyahu allies, a potentiality strengthened by the Israel Hayom poll’s prediction that the country’s right-wing and ultra-Orthodox bloc would receive more mandates (56, as opposed to 51) in the next national election if Likud were led by Sa’ar instead of sNetanyahu.
Nevertheless, most agree that it is premature, if not foolish, to write off the prime minister – a political wizard seemingly with nine lives who this year became Israel’s longest-ever serving leader. During his tenure – which, in addition to being in power from 2009 to the present, also includes a stint as prime minister from 1996-1999 – Netanyahu has repeatedly outwitted and outmaneuvered Likud up-and-comers and, subsequently, weathered criticism and storms created by former allies-cum-opponents. These include, among a slew of others, Yisrael Beiteinu chief Avigdor Liberman and New Right party head Naftali Bennet, who both started out as close Netanyahu confidantes.
Moreover, a recent Likud-commissioned poll showed that Netanyahu would beat Sa’ar in the upcoming primary by a margin of 53-40 percent, although some analysts believe that the survey was biased in favor of the prime minister. Even so, Netanyahu continues to maintain a fervent base within the Likud, as well as the support of a large segment of the electorate, with some members of both cohorts sharing the prime minister’s belief that he has been unfairly targeted and backing his call for “the investigators to be investigated.”
That said, Netanyahu’s legal issues, in addition to mounting evidence that Israelis will punish the Likud at the ballot box in March, are among the factors that ultimately portend the possible end of the reign of “King Bibi.” While Netanyahu has done wonders for Israel’s economy and diplomatic standing, in democracies there is no forever in politics.
As the challenges Netanyahu faces intensify, many Israelis for the first time in over are thinking beyond him. Indeed, few would be surprised if the people, as opposed to the courts, were primarily responsible for Sa’ar’s ascent to the highest office in the Land.