Netanyahu's Troubling Burden: How Likud Became an Obstacle on the Path Back to Power | Avi Benayahu

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Benjamin Netanyahu was not supposed to surprise anyone. He has a long-standing legacy in the field of credibility, loyalty, and a political culture based on deceit, and in his attitude toward his party, which is nothing more than a platform for realizing his political desires.

Netanyahu is currently in a state of political and personal survival, dragging behind him an entire party that has lost its identity, prestige, and legacy under his leadership. He understands well that the political mutation he assembled, reserved, and shaped together with his surroundings and family, and which served him faithfully in the Knesset and in the public in the war against the State Attorney's Office, the Supreme Court, the media, the civil service, and more — is now becoming a troubling burden that is alienating voters and distancing him from the Prime Minister's chair.

Netanyahu, who thought Gadi Eizenkot would be easy prey and Naftali Bennett the bitter rival, was wrong. The bloc opposite him and parts of his own bloc are channeling unprecedented opposition to what Netanyahu has to offer — in security, in peace, in the economy and the fight against the cost of living, in public diplomacy, in legitimacy, and in Israel's status in the world. Netanyahu is like the magician Houdini, who gave a long performance, added an encore and another encore, and has no more tricks left.

Netanyahu, who understands the polls he reads well and knows that with what Likud voters will produce for him in the list for the Knesset he won't be able to go to the grocery store, overnight switched from the General Staff Reconnaissance Unit to the Armored Corps and appointed himself Chief Armored Officer: he is rudely kicking the Likud center members who are waiting for the primaries like grooms waiting for their wedding, kicking the second and third-tier Knesset members who were his loyal soldiers and soldiers of his office, trampling this democratic and popular party, and seeking to shape the list according to his will and taste. The truth is that there is a certain logic to this: he is the one who brings them victories, he is the one who brings them power, jobs, prestige, and authority. To him, his family, and them.

But the response is not great, certainly not from his preferred candidates, who are supposed to be tie-breakers. There is no rush to Netanyahu's Armored Corps. The candidates fear he will deceive them, mock them, use them, and discard them.

They say there is no second chance to make a first impression, and here, after receiving what he wanted from the Likud institutions, his first reserved candidate is a high-tech person who left Israel for Palo Alto, USA, with his business 16 years ago (this is called a "yored"), who curses and insults the President of the USA, as if he were the heir of Tally Gotliv, and whose father is a friend of Avigdor Lieberman and is a member of the organizing committee of Yisrael Beiteinu. Oren Dobronsky, it turns out, is not the joker Netanyahu wanted to appoint.

He reserved Gideon Sa'ar to signal to the next defector after Sa'ar — Amichai Chikli, and Idit Silman, that there is appreciation and reward for defection. He reserved Haim Katz to preserve his control over the party mechanism, and he reserved Defense Minister Israel Katz out of shame, given the accelerated political activity, the embarrassing videos, the escaping from cabinet meetings to circumcisions and bar mitzvahs, the meetings with rabbis, and the abuse of the IDF.

The truth is that I, too, here and on social media, advised reserving the Defense Minister to avoid embarrassment in the midst of a war, but at the beginning of the campaign and not at the end before the primaries. Between us, I did not believe that Israel Katz, "the bulldozer," the threatening one, the claimant to the throne — would agree to a reservation himself, but the appetite, the authority, the instinct for power and jobs — all these outweigh everything else. In any case, the night of the long knives was drawn in Likud even before the elections, and we still expect surprises until the closing of the lists, even in the ruling party.

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In my eyes, Mansour Abbas is the greatest and most important leader to have arisen for the Arab citizens of Israel since the establishment of the state. He is a pragmatic leader, understanding where he lives and whom he is supposed to serve. He recognizes Israel as the state of the Jews, calls for the establishment of civil service for every 18-year-old boy and girl, Jews and Arabs, disconnects from the Shura Council, and builds an Arab-Israeli party.

In my eyes, Yoav Saglovich, an MK who resigned this week from Yesh Atid, a retired police officer and former Deputy Minister of Public Security, is the breaker of the political "Burma Road" in Israel. His joining as number 2 to Abbas is an important message for joining hands between the Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel, it is the laying of a bridge between the two populations that live here together — for partnership, for coexistence, and for partnership in security and mutual respect.

It is a message for joint dealing with public security in the Arab and Jewish sector, and it is a move that radiates boldness, hope, and belief that it is possible otherwise. Mansour Abbas should be in the next coalition not as a "Shabbos goy" who completes a political minyan, but as a full partner so that Israel can advance in this area as well and deal together with countless challenges from within and without.

More than Netanyahu himself and more than Gideon Sa'ar, Israel Katz, Nir Barkat, and Tally Gotliv — Abbas and Saglovich stand to fulfill in practice the vision of Ze'ev Jabotinsky, who determined in his doctrine on the image of the Jewish nation-state: "In every cabinet where a Jew serves as Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister will be an Arab, and vice versa." Thus he determined, emphasizing the principle of full equality and ensuring senior representation for the Arab minority in the Jewish state. He was far-sighted, and the eyes of those claiming to be his students have gone blind.

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This was supposed to be the section that opens the column, but I, like everyone else, am tempted to give urgency to the political and push the important to the back. Never mind me, but the problem is that it is also in the government and the cabinet, and it is not related to one party or another or a new government that will be formed or not.

Our geopolitical and security situation, as they say, is "in the pits." Whoever rises with a drone over the area will notice the following processes: while the Trump administration is preparing for the midterm elections under difficult conditions and is looking with its advisors for a way to end the war with Iran (which will be concluded as a loss), and while Israel is preparing for the most fateful elections in its history, the Middle East is being reshaped in a very dangerous way for Israel.

The weakness, hesitation, and empty threats of Donald Trump against Iran are severely damaging the status of the United States, including by countries traditionally supported by it, and this also harms Israeli deterrence, which is built not a little on the intimate proximity and the American political and military power. In the region, an alliance is being woven between Turkey, which seeks to receive regional hegemony, with Iran, Pakistan, and Qatar, and Al-Julani in Syria, who is turning in the Israeli security establishment from a "riddle" to a ticking problem on behalf of Erdogan.

Hamas and Hezbollah apparently have no intention of disarming, and the Revolutionary Guards who control Iran also have no intention of releasing them from their mission. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have already taken a significant step when they joined the defense alliance built by Turkey, Qatar, and Pakistan, and I have no doubt that the "Abraham Accords" countries will conduct, or are already conducting secretly, a reassessment regarding the effectiveness of the United States in the new era and the question of whether it is a broken reed.

Facing this entire fast and dangerous process, with Iranian militias sitting in Iraq and ready for the order to storm Jordan or the Gulf of Eilat, with the Houthis becoming a troubling arena and more, Israel stands in the fourth year of the war, with all arenas open and ticking, with a fear of burning in Judea and Samaria, with a low and unprecedented state of public opinion in the United States and around the world, and with "leaders" who are supposed to be statesmen and have become primary-ists and network tweeters, when their future battlefield is the evening news edition, and for some of them, the far-sighted ones — the weekend poll. And this is a true alarm. Believe me.

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In Nachalat Yitzhak on the border of Tel Aviv and Givatayim, the neighborhood residents held a moving farewell party last week for Rina Cohen, who served for 40 years as a cashier at the neighborhood supermarket. Rina became a real "institution," served the first, second, and third generation at her register, became a comforter and psychologist, a confidante, a matchmaker, the one who prepares sandwiches for children for school when parents are rushing to work, and she became the heart of the community in Nachalat Yitzhak.

Her supermarket names changed, owners came and went, residents died and were born — and Rina 40 years at the register. Dozens came to the surprise party, who applauded her and said thank you, and in such a country I want my children and grandchildren to live. I was lucky.

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This week, the August recruitment. One after another, our sons and daughters arrive at the induction base and are evacuated to the beginning of basic training in Golani, Givati, Armored Corps, Combat Engineering, and so on. They are the ones who constitute in my eyes the appropriate Zionist answer to the bands of draft dodgers and deserters and to those there in Jerusalem who spread over them in legislation "Iron Domes" and "Walls of Protection," to justify their desertion.

And our young men and women, secular, religious, and here and there also ultra-Orthodox, march in their turn and in their generation, just like dad and mom and grandpa and grandma and the older brothers. Entering under the stretcher, understanding the magnitude of the hour, the magnitude of the challenge, and the fact that this is the only country we have, and that whoever will not fight for its freedom, independence, and security will not be worthy of it.

Therefore, in my eyes, these young men and women, some of whom, to my deep sorrow, may not return, have and will have a golden share in the Jewish state and the Zionist enterprise. Only to them, from the depths of my heart, I carry a prayer together with you so that they go out in peace, perform their holy mission — and return home in peace. Let it be. That we will be good and worthy. Shabbat Shalom.