Israel: Is Netanyahu moving toward the center?

Has our prime minister lost his senses? said Yael Paz-Melamed in Ma’ariv. Benjamin Netanyahu had been predicted to double the number of seats for his right-wing Likud party in Knesset elections expected in September. Instead, last week he surprised everyone by canceling the elections and announcing that he was bringing the centrist Kadima party into his governing coalition. “Why did he need this bizarre move?” It’s no surprise that Kadima leader Shaul Mofaz agreed to join the government—after all, with his party plummeting in polls, he naturally sees this chance at power-sharing as his best way of “fighting for what is left in his emptying oxygen tank.”

Mofaz has “sold his soul,” said Yoel Marcus in Ha’aretz. The Kadima leader has repeatedly called Netanyahu a liar and sworn he would never join his government. Both men knew full well this was an “indecent” deal. They didn’t even negotiate openly, but instead sent emissaries scuttling back and forth in secret. Whatever the process, look at the outcome, said Isi Leibler in Israel Hayom. Mofaz simply wanted to help Netanyahu move back to the center. With a coalition composed only of Likud and the Orthodox parties, the prime minister has been forced to move ever rightward, bowing to the demands of far-right settlers and the ultra-Orthodox. With Kadima on board, Netanyahu can stand up to the “extreme right-wing fringe”—by complying with a recent Supreme Court ruling that says Orthodox youths may no longer be exempt from military service, for example. “If Netanyahu is wise enough to pursue a responsible, centrist policy, he will stop being the subject of blackmail.” There may even be a chance for real negotiations with the Palestinians.

It all sounds very adult, said Nahum Barnea in Yedioth Ahronoth. And maybe a partnership between the country’s two biggest political forces will be effective. But there’s a real danger in having the government control a record 94 out of 120 Knesset seats. We’re left with no real parliamentary opposition. “Don’t cry for Netanyahu’s morality or Mofaz’s credibility. Cry for Israeli democracy.”

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Some say Netanyahu is partnering with the opposition because he’s prepping for war with Iran, said Caroline Glick in The Jerusalem Post. Historically, Israel has always formed national-unity coalitions right before wars, because no party wants to bear sole responsibility for leading the nation into battle. It’s certainly true that “from the perspective of political optics, it is better for Netanyahu to order an attack on Iran with a massive coalition standing behind him.” But he doesn’t need one: Everyone knows that the Israeli public will rally around the prime minister as soon as bombs begin to fall. Far from being motivated by nefarious schemes, it appears that Netanyahu was simply “presented with an offer he’d be an idiot to refuse.” Let’s see how he uses his new, “unprecedented power.”