Clockwise from top left: Ben Gvir, Smotrich, Netanyahu, Goldknopf and Deri

Despite The Warnings, Israel's New Government Might Accomplish The Impossible

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Emanuel Engelmayer
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According to the latest report, the Benjamin Netanyahu-led coalition is to be sworn in this coming Thursday. After months of talks between the Likud and other right-wing parties like Otzma Yehudit and Shas, 'Bibi' is on his way to govern what many say will be his last Knesset gathering. Bibi alone in his own right is a controversial figure, albeit popular with the Israeli public, but this coming government is receiving worldwide scrutiny from both allies and foes of the Jewish state. 

If you were to ask the average New York Times or The Guardian reporter, 2022 has been quite the year for global fascism. Prominent figures like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and freshly elected Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni have gained the attention of international liberal media. Terms like “Mussolini’s return” have been thrown along with “Neo-Nazi” for the Hungarian conservative leader. And just as journalists all over thought the business of salacious and leading headlines couldn’t have been going any better, Israel’s election results are suitable for the headline “Danger and Extremism in Israel’s new Government” used by the Financial Times just a few days ago. 

Although Italy and Hungary seem to be in a period of systemic growth and Israel’s new government has yet to spend a day in office, observers have a point in noting the rise of fiscal and cultural conservatism around the globe. Their mistake was not in reporting the pattern but in aggrandizing its negative consequences. 

In Italy and Hungary’s case, internal policies that are virtually insignificant were embellished by the media, while avoiding the talk of all too many economic milestones and achievements the new governments have been reaching.

For example, according to hard data published by The Heritage Foundation “with an increase in the property rights score outpacing a loss of fiscal health, Hungary has recorded a 1.1-point overall score gain since 2017 and remains in the upper half of the ‘Moderately Free’ category…The government’s more nationalist and populist approach to economic management has set Hungary somewhat apart from its [ Eastern European] neighbors.” Georgia Meloni’s Italy has been relatively even more successful than Hungary, with a 0.5% GDP growth for the first three quarters of 2022. 

The well-reported rise of fascism according to the papers is manifested in Israel’s case by a feared significant reform to the domestic and diplomatic “status quo”. The term “status quo” in Israel generally refers to maintaining a certain temporary solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict and other localized domestic and demographic issues. The temporary solution offered by the status quo is the intermediate situation of the Palestinian Authority and the unspecified lawful definition of the State of Israel’s motto, "Jewish and Democratic." 

Is Israel a Jewish state before being a democratic one? Should the demands of the Palestinian nationalist movement be met? Only twice before in Israel’s intense political history were these questions truly confronted. The victory of Menachem Begin and Israel’s right wing in 1977 was all about delivering an answer to these issues, along with Yitzhak Rabin’s second term in the early 1990s. 

Ironically the categorization in the latter is perhaps the only type that puts Rabin and Begin in the same group. Also noted is in both significant steps to reform Israel’s status quo, somehow peace was the result, along with the heartbreaking assassination of two leaders, Rabin and Saadat.

Nevertheless, it is pretty established the two most productive and efficient Israeli governments, excluding the temporary 1948 founding government, were the ones that saw the status quo as an existential threat. Although Netanyahu’s rule could most definitely be described as right-wing, he admittedly has little interest in changing any elements of the status quo. According to the voting history of the parties that have long stood by him in past coalitions, they too had no real interest in changing any part of it. 

Yet, for the first time in a long time, Israel is awaiting a ceremony that will anoint a government expected to rock the very core of its status quo. Many politicians have bragged about changing the status in the past, but the upcoming coalition really means it, at least according to international reports. 

Two possible outcomes are the likeliest to occur after Thursday’s Knesset ceremony. The first one is no significant policy change will actually take place, just like all the previous governments who ultimately kept the status quo in place. The second option is the status quo will be shattered into pieces which, should be viewed as a positive thing by all stern political sides; If there was one thing Rabin and Begin agreed upon the status quo will be the death of Israel and Zionism.

Netanyahu wants this last stint as Israel's leader to be his defining legacy. He is eyeing peace with Saudi Arabia and despite campaigning on the promise (mostly to woo hard-right voters) that he will oversee the formal annexation of Judea and Samaria, he announced that he is suspending that in exchange for that peace. Just today it was announced that the Saudi-Israel peace deal is already in the works with the U.S. as the mediator. This deal would formally solve the Arab-Israeli conflict and usher in a new era of mutual cooperation. 

While liberal Western media sound the alarm bells, the fact is this 'far-right' religious coalition might just do what every Israeli government has sought to do since the founding of the modern state, bring peace to the Middle East. 

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