Facing a rebellion of right-wing elected officials and the threat of Arab deputies leaving because of the new escalation of Israeli-Palestinian tensions in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is playing the tightrope walker to maintain his motley coalition in able.
A former tech entrepreneur and herald of the settlement movement, Naftali Bennett put an end last June to 12 years of uninterrupted reign of Benjamin Netanyahu by rallying a motley coalition of deputies from the right, left, center and, for the first time in the history of Israel, of an Arab minority formation.
This grouping made it possible to reach 61 deputies, the threshold of a majority in the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament.
But in early April, the coalition lost its majority with the departure of hard-right MP Idit Silman, while another right-wing MP, Amichai Chikli, threatened to withdraw his support for the government.
And on Sunday evening, the Israeli Arab formation Raam “suspended” its participation in the coalition due to renewed tension at the Esplanade des Mosques, the third holiest site in Islam and the holiest place in Judaism under its name of Mount of the Temple.
“If the government continues its arbitrary measures” on the esplanade of the Mosques, where the clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian demonstrators left more than 170 injured, “we will submit a collective resignation”, threatened the party led by Mansour Abbas, and with four MPs in the coalition.
“It is clear that the question of the Temple Mount is testing the limits of such a heterogeneous coalition which brings together right-wing parties and an Islamist formation”, explains to Agence France-Presse (AFP) Emmanuel Navon, professor of sciences politics at Tel Aviv University.
On the one hand, the government wants to apply “law and order” to satisfy the right flank of the coalition; on the other, tough measures, with Israeli police deployed on a holy site of Islam, are already arousing strong reactions in the Muslim world, including among the Arab deputies of the coalition.
“It’s going to be a very big headache to manage” for Prime Minister Bennett, he warns.
However, he says he is optimistic about the survival of the coalition, because “Mansour Abbas has no interest in leaving it. He took a huge political risk [en la rejoignant] and he needs time to show his electorate that the game was worth the candle”.
According to the political scientist, the leader of the Raam party wants to prove to his electorate that by being pragmatic, he has managed to improve the daily life (of Israeli Arabs) unlike other Arab parties.
The Netanyahu card
In the event that the Raam party would leave the coalition, it would see its support melt to 56 deputies, which would force the government to negotiate to pass each bill.
Opposite, however, the opposition would not have a majority de facto to bring down the government, because Arab elected officials remain reluctant to join a “right-wing bloc” of Benjamin Netanyahu with his Orthodox Jewish allies and the far right (53 elected).
In 2014, Israel adopted the system of “constructive motions of no confidence”, requiring the opposition to muster a majority in favor of a proposed alternative government to replace the one in power.
“Even if Netanyahu manages to muster a majority to bring down the government, it is not clear that he can muster a majority to propose a new one, even with deserters,” said Shmuel Sandler, professor emeritus of political science at Bar Ilan University, near Tel Aviv.
“He won’t be able to add Raam either, because the religious nationalists will oppose it,” he said, hence the real possibility, according to him, of seeing the opposition muster enough votes at least to dissolve the House and provoke new elections, the fifth in three years.
In addition to keeping the coalition in power and new elections, a surprise could also reshuffle the cards: the political retirement of Benjamin Netanyahu.
Elected members of the coalition refuse to join a government led by Mr. Netanyahu, because of the accusations of corruption which weigh against him.
Mr. Netanyahu gone, this lock would jump. “It would then be possible to form a government without going to new elections,” notes Mr. Sandler. “The government would fall in five minutes,” adds Mr. Navon.
But there is little chance of that happening, analyst Dahlia Scheindlin believes, because Mr. Netanyahu “is not known to be someone who leaves”.