A relentless succession of worrying developments is coming under Bibi's watch

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“This government has no siyata d’Shmaya,” Degel HaTorah chair Moshe Gafni said back in the days of the short-lived Bennett-Lapid government.

But as the baalei mussar teach us, we’re required to examine our own faults first, and the right-wing bloc (of which the chareidim are a part) has a lot of soul-searching to do. The government has been replaced, but success hasn’t returned. The weeks are flying by, and the difference has yet to be felt on any metric: security, diplomacy, the economy, or political stability.

Earlier this month, Netanyahu appeared before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee for an emergency three-hour meeting. The agenda: Hezbollah operatives had recently infiltrated the “blue line” — the demarcation line between Israel and Lebanon — and set up camp on Israeli territory.

According to everyone present, Bibi addressed the issue at length, giving committee members a sweeping rundown of the situation; even the committee’s opposition members were impressed by his analysis. As a leading Likud member on the committee tellingly put it, “As a commentator, Bibi sounds great.”

But Bibi is not a commentator, and a relentless succession of worrying developments is coming under his watch. The Iranians are seeing a summer of unprecedented growth on every front. They’ve made Russia dependent on their missile supplies, brought the Americans to the brink of another deal, caused the Saudis and Egyptians to rethink their options, and brought Syria back into the Arab League. Netanyahu, who succeeded in fighting back and forming alternative alliances in the Obama era, is now isolated internationally.

Netanyahu has yet to receive the invitation to Washington, and recently banned all government ministers from flying to the American capital. Some were reminded of the old IAF joke about the air cadet who, after failing pilot training, joined the anti-aircraft unit, explaining: “If I can’t fly, no one will.” Bibi is grounded, and with him the entire government.

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Further troubles emerged with another resounding defeat this week, this time in the Israeli Bar Association elections. That vote took on critical importance in the context of the government’s judicial reform plans, because the IBA sends two representatives to the all-important Judicial Selection Committee.

“In Sayeret Matkal,” Bibi reminisced recently, “we learned that you don’t embark on an operation without at least two exit plans.”

But with Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s judicial maneuvers, it seems there isn’t even one adequate exit plan.

Could this all have been done differently, pursuing concrete results without the drama? Judge for yourself.

A while ago, a leading coalition figure, frustrated by his inability to get through to the justice minister, sat down for a long and discreet talk with a former attorney general, a figure with no clear political alignment who has stayed clear of the judicial reform brawl.

Asked for his take on the reform and the protest movement, the former attorney general gave a surprising answer: “I don’t understand what you on the right are trying to achieve. After all, any conservative justice you elect will become an independent actor from the moment of his appointment. He’ll enter the aquarium of the Supreme Court, drink coffee with his colleagues, and very quickly forget whom he owes his appointment to. Just take Trump’s Supreme Court nominees, whom he counted on to overturn the 2020 election.

“You want a real revolution?” the former AG continued. “Target two issues and you’ll turn the government legal advisors into part-time employees. The first is the reasonability clause, which allows the court to strike down any government measure that it doesn’t approve of. The second is the right of standing, which gives every citizen the right to appeal government decisions. Deprive the attorney general of these two anchors, and you’ll achieve more in practice than you would with the most draconian reform, with a lot less opposition.”

When this conversation was relayed to Netanyahu, he nodded and suggested that the figure talk to Levin about it. Bibi knew his justice minister well — as expected, Levin would have none of it, saying, “First we’ll settle the judicial selection process and then we can talk about the rest.”

When Yariv Levin set out on his flagship reform, some of his associates advised him to go about it strategically: Split the powers of the attorney general, build up alliances ahead of the Israeli Bar Association elections, find a suitable candidate that the right could rally around in the IBA elections. But Levin bulldozed ahead — the reform had to be made in his image, and any idea that didn’t spring from his own fevered brain was irrelevant.

“Levin even told Bibi that he should stay out of the matter because of his legal proceedings,” a source in the prime minister’s office told me.

Levin designed the entire crooked edifice himself, neglecting to include an emergency exit. “When we warned him he was making a mistake, he said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m taking care of it, let me do it in my own way.’ Now we’re all paying the price, week after week.”

With compound interest.

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Sitting on the porch of his Har Nof home last week overlooking the Jerusalem Forest, Aryeh Deri felt like he was witnessing a rapidly spreading wildfire. His return to the government table through a bill overriding his High Court disqualification has become one of the core issues of the judicial reform, but Deri is closer than ever to saying enough is enough.

Two weeks ago, it was Deri who rejected an offer from the opposition to allow his return to the government table in exchange for the government shelving judicial reform. Specifically, the opposition offered to end its resistance to eliminating the reasonability clause if the rest of the reform were shelved. Dermer, who was leading the coalition’s negotiating team, tried to convince Deri to accept the deal, even getting the prime minister involved.

Netanyahu was heavily inclined to accept the proposal, believing that Deri’s return would project stability. As Dermer argued: “Deri’s return to the government table through broad consensus will project stability. It will take away another one of the pretexts for the protest. I believe that once we can reestablish trust, we’ll be able to advance the rest of our agenda within a timeframe of seven months. And even if can’t, we won’t be any worse off. After all, we have four years to pass the legislation, and this would buy us some quiet, both domestically and vis-à-vis the Americans.”

But Deri, who’s heartily sick of the rightist flank’s conduct, said enough is enough. He knew very well that accepting this deal would make him a target for Ben Gvir, Smotrich, Rothman, and Levin, who would accuse him of having killed the reform in exchange for getting his cabinet seat back.

Deri’s response nipped the project in the bud: “If all we get is eliminating the argument over the reasonability clause, then what will everyone say? That all we achieved was Deri’s return? Under those circumstances, I don’t want to come back. In PR terms, it would be a dumpster fire. Our base won’t understand why we abandoned the rest of the reform, and our allies, led by Yariv Levin, will tear the document to shreds.”

Deri’s reaction left the participants in the conversation stunned, but it wasn’t a momentary outburst, either. As the weeks pass, and more and more food fights break out around the government table, Deri is increasingly leaning toward announcing that he won’t serve as minister in the current term, regardless of his legal situation.

Those who have spoken with him recently have the impression that he isn’t enjoying the current government. A seasoned traveler, Deri knows that mechanical trouble can send the best-laid plans into disarray. Like a plane with mechanical trouble, this coalition has all the equipment it needs yet is struggling to take off.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 967)