The Unity Myth

Among those who support unity between Lapid, Eisenkot, and Netanyahu, the claim is that the “anyone but Bibi” policy led to the formation of the last terrible government. According to them, the boycott of Netanyahu left him with no choice but to form a coalition with the ultra-Orthodox and the far-right. However, this claim does not hold up under scrutiny.

Netanyahu’s legal interests shaped his coalition. Since the indictments were filed, his main goal has been to influence the outcome of his trial. 

As Yair Lapid put it, Netanyahu wants to choose who will prosecute him. Neither judicial reform nor ideology is at the center of the move, but rather the exploitation of a political opportunity to change the judicial system.

Even Avigdor Lieberman, a staunch right-winger, defined Yariv Levin’s reform as a move to save Netanyahu rather than a judicial reform. Benny Gantz saw it as an attempt to reorganize the regime in a way that would serve Netanyahu, and perhaps Aryeh Deri, too. If this is Netanyahu’s goal, Lapid, Gantz, and Liberman could not have been partners in the move. All three set the preservation of the judiciary’s independence as a red line. 

The rotation government that Netanyahu formed with Gantz in 2020 collapsed within less than a year. While Gantz held the Justice portfolio, no significant move was made to weaken the court or the legal advisory. Even the emergency government established after October 7 was focused solely on the war and did not change Netanyahu’s policy on legal matters.

Netanyahu has therefore learned that a partnership with the center can provide him with temporary stability, but not what he truly needs: a coalition that will support changing the balance of power between the government and the judicial system.

For this, he needs partners with an independent interest in weakening it. 

The ultra-Orthodox parties see the Supreme Court and the attorney general as obstacles to regulating the exemption from military service for yeshiva students. Smotrich sees the judicial system as a brake on de facto annexation and settlement expansion. Ben-Gvir seeks to promote a policy that will harm the equality of rights of Israeli Arabs and sees the judiciary and legal counsel as obstacles to this.

Thus, a coalition formed in which each partner has an interest in weakening the judicial system, and they all support a move that also serves Netanyahu. 

The mistake of the liberal camp was not in refusing to join Netanyahu’s government of horrors but in leaving the Arabs of Israel out of the struggle for democracy. Palestinian citizens in Israel have justified grievances against the judiciary and legal counsel, who for years have legitimized the occupation and allowed discrimination, among other things, through the Nation-State Law. For this reason, they understand the importance of the struggle for the principles of the Declaration of Independence against corruption, racism, and occupation.

However, when Israelis took to the streets to defend democracy, many of them were horrified by any mention of the occupation and any recognition of Palestinian national identity. They sought to defend Israeli democracy but ignored the fact that it cannot coexist for long alongside the denial of the rights of millions of Palestinians.

This was the liberal camp’s strategic mistake. Not boycotting Netanyahu, but the attempt to separate the struggle for democracy from the struggle to end the occupation and achieve equal rights.

Eisenkot has the opportunity to correct this mistake, not by uniting with Netanyahu, but by building a broad democratic camp that includes Arab citizens as full partners. Only such a camp can protect Israeli democracy and ensure its future. If Lieberman is not interested in that, a minority government without him is preferable.