The centrist leader negotiates with the right a national emergency cabinet in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
Benjamin Netanyahu seeks to undertake his fourth consecutive term as Prime Minister in Israel thanks to the unity government agreement that he negotiates with Benny Gantz since Saturday. He wants the pact with the centrist leader who challenged him in three elections in the last year to shield him from justice, as accused of corruption, as long as he remains at the head of the Government and protects him with the same legal protection when he has to give up the helm of the Cabinet in 18 months.
The former general Gantz has made a triple somersault, with fifteen deputies, to agree on a national emergency government against the coronavirus pandemic along with the nationalist and religious right that supports Netanyahu, who adds 58 of the 120 seats in the Knesset (Parliament). The unexpected turn he took Thursday, becoming provisional president of the ChamberAnd reaching out to the Prime Minister's Likud party, he deployed the center-left and Arab bloc, which with 61 seats had supported him the previous week so that he would receive the order to form a government after the legislatures you held last day 2. As a consequence, the Blue and White centrist alliance that he had co-founded a year ago has been blown to pieces as an alternative power in Israel. "It is what the nation needs to face the health crisis," was justified in his first speech at the head of the Knesset.
If finally confirmed, the government pact will establish, as anticipated by the Hebrew press, the investiture of Netanyahu in the fourth legislature that he has headed since 2009 and that, accumulated to the one he led between 1996 and 1999, ratifies him as the president who for more He has long held office in the history of the Jewish state.
After leaving the parliamentary presidency, Gantz - the army chief who commanded the Gaza war in 2014 and the candidate who promised for three campaigns that he would never bargain with a corrupt politician - will initially serve as deputy prime minister. He hopes to reserve for himself and his supporters the strategic portfolios of Defense and Foreign Affairs, as well as that of Justice. The latter will be key during the trial against Netanyahu for three cases of bribery, fraud and abuse of power. The process should have started on the 17th, but the sanitary restrictions established in the courts due to the pandemic have postponed the appearance until the end of May.
Once the Unity Government is underway, it is anticipated that in September 2021, at the equator of the 36-month Unity Government agreement, a rotation will have to take place in the post of Prime Minister to be occupied by Gantz. The political pact includes - according to concordant information from the Israeli press - a clause that guarantees the approval of legal reforms so that Netanyahu continues to enjoy the same status as deputy prime minister as the head of government. In addition, as number two of the Executive, it will have veto power over appointments that are the competence of the Prime Minister.
The basic laws that act as a constitutional text in Israel stipulate that, unlike the rest of the Cabinet members, the chief executive is not obliged to resign if he is prosecuted, and that only a firm sentence can force him to leave the post. His predecessor in office, centrist Ehud Olmert, was convicted of corruption after a process that lasted for six years.
Partners in the conservative bloc The conservative Likud and his ultra-orthodox Jewish and far-right associates, for their part, demand the key ministries of the Interior, Public Security, Finance and Education, as well as that of Health, which concentrates command of the national strategy against the coronavirus.
Netanyahu and Gantz met Saturday night to Sunday to close the deal with "significant progress." The final text had to have been finalized this Sunday by the negotiating teams, but at night the parties announced a new round of contacts starting Monday, in a complex distribution of 30 portfolios to various gangs. The centrist leader wants Likud leader Yuli Edelstein not to return to the post of president of the Knesset, after having resigned on Wednesday without complying with a resolution of the Supreme Court to resume the activity of the Legislative. The constitutional crisis aroused by Edelstein's contempt precipitated understanding between the two main parties to forge a government of viable unity after more than a year of institutional blockade.
The pandemic did the rest. Although the levels of contagion and mortality are still low, it is feared that Covid-19 disease will spread among the country's main minorities. The leaders of the Arab parties, which represents 20% of the population in Parliament, warn that hardly any cases have been registered in this community because not enough screening tests are being carried out. Among the ultra-Orthodox (12% of the population) positives for coronaviruses have multiplied in their bastions, such as the Mea Shearim district of Jerusalem or the city near Tel Aviv of Bnei Brak, where religious ceremonies have continued to be held despite the ban from the authorities.
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