Naphtali Bennett made himself a king, but will there be a coronation?

It was a dramatic announcement as these things went on.

“I told Netanyahu (Prime Minister Benjamin) and I will say it here too – Likud can rely on the votes of the Yamina party to support the formation of a right-wing government,” Naftali Bennett told cameras on Monday afternoon.

There it was. After a long and grueling election campaign in which he did not want to bind the pro-Netanyahu or anti-Netanyahu camp, Yamina leader Naftali Bennett finally made his choice.

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His party would support a Likud-led coalition and bring Netanyahu’s parliamentary support – which now consists of Likud, Shas, United Torah Judaism, Religious Zionism and Yamina – to 59 seats. These are just two who are shy of a Knesset majority that will enable Netanyahu to pull the country out of its two-year nightmare of repeat elections.

Why then does Netanyahu not seem convinced of Bennett’s good intentions? Why does Betzalel Smotrich, leader of religious Zionism, insist that Bennett intends to form a government with Yair Lapid and the political left?

The answer enables us to compile a picture of this political moment and reveals many of the strange new norms of Israeli politics.

Best plans

Bennett leads a small faction of only seven seats. But the political deadlock put him at the heart of the coalition that was wrestling on both sides. He is not exactly the ‘kingmaker’, in the sense that his support is not enough to put any side on top. But he is the indispensable partner that Netanyahu and Lapid need if they are to hope to form a coalition.

That’s why both parties offered him the moon this past week.

Likud apparently offered Bennett a rotation agreement with which Netanyahu will serve as prime minister for the first two years and Bennett for the next two.

If the idea was indeed driven – reliable sources say it was, Likud denies it – it was not a serious offer. Netanyahu now leads Israel’s 35th government in 73 years; Israeli governments last just two years on average. Bennett also does not trust that Netanyahu will abide by any agreement. The prime minister is even now working to torpedo the still valid rotation agreement he signed with Benny Gantz.

Bennett reportedly responded to the Likud offer with one of his own: Netanyahu would get the first year, then Bennett would be prime minister for two years, then Netanyahu would return to the prime minister’s presidency for the final year of government. . It’s an offer as irregular as Netanyahu’s – and a message that brightens Bennett’s mistrust by posting the second half of Netanyahu’s half – term to Bennett.

For Netanyahu’s supporters, both offers are bile. Netanyahu leads a 30-seat faction. Bennett only has seven.

But even for Bennett, the offers do not come without pitfalls. He is running his campaign on the premise that Netanyahu’s policy has failed and that he needs to be replaced. Bennett may not face voters again – possibly soon – if he seems too eager to drive in another Netanyahu government. With or without a rotation agreement, Bennett must obtain significant concessions to ministries and policy influence from Netanyahu.

Knock-on effects

Sources close to Shas leader Aryeh Deri said earlier this week that any rotation with Bennett should become a three-way deal that includes Deri in the rotation. After all, Shas has nine seats for Bennett seven.

Deri does not take the chair of the prime minister seriously. He explained to Netanyahu that he would not agree to a Netanyahu-Bennett rotation.

It is possible that Netanyahu sought the backlash to lower Bennett’s claims. Either way, Deri has a point. There is an inherent paradox in Bennett’s position. Bennett must demand enough from Netanyahu to justify joining the government. However, the very demands can make the new government untenable.

Netanyahu has already promised the Religious Zionism Party twice as many ministers as their faction size grants them (to unite them with Otzma Yehudit). Bennett, meanwhile, is demanding a rotation, a possible ‘parity government’, and no doubt a large number of senior ministerial posts as well.

After handing over so much to the religious Zionist factions, Netanyahu can offer no less to his loyal supporters in the Haredi parties Shas and United Torah Judaism. It’s not just a matter of ego. The Haredi parties are under pressure from disgruntled voters who accuse them of not zealously defending the interests of the Haredi community in the outgoing government. They will not stand on the sidelines while Netanyahu oversees a fire sale on cabinet posts.

Once Bennett, Smotrich, Moshe Gafni, UTJ chief and Deri van Shas are all satisfied, the hard work comes to satisfy the many competing ambitions within Likud.

The more Netanyahu concedes to Bennett, the more he has to concede to the rest of his coalition and the more inflated and troublesome the next government becomes. This is not a good start for a government that will initially be narrow and unstable.

The alternative

According to reports from sources familiar with the coalition talks, Bennett has been in regular contact with the leader of Lapid and the New Hope for the past two weeks. The contacts, they say, amount to a quiet backlash for unofficial coalition talks.

Is Bennett even negotiating with Sa’ar and Lapid while trying to reach an agreement with Likud?

Or to put it another way: is Bennett playing hard to get Netanyahu to raise his price, or is he doing it to ensure that Netanyahu does not eventually form a government, opening up the political space for a coalition with Lapid? After all, Lapid offered Bennett something that Netanyahu would never do: the first turn in the rotation.

Netanyahu seems to believe that Bennett is aiming for the latter.

At a meeting Friday between the two, Netanyahu asked the Yamina leader to consider an offer from Likud to merge Bennett’s faction with Likud’s Knesset slate, which fulfilled Bennett’s long-standing dream of ‘ a great support to return to his former party.

But Bennett put the idea out of action. Party leaders are irrelevant for the time being, he told Netanyahu, because there will not be a fifth election anyway. Bennett apparently turned down the offer again when the two men met on Tuesday.

Bennett’s unexpected confidence that no new election was imminent led to suspicions in Likud that he had already reached a coalition agreement with Lapid. How else would he be so sure that there will not be an election again?

Still, Bennett held on and promised to support Netanyahu, even though he believes the Lapid channel is alive. Why?

Simple: So that the blame for Netanyahu’s failure does not fall on him.

Betzalel Smotrich last week backed Bennett’s alleged plan to form a ‘left-wing government’ with Lapid. Netanyahu has similar suspicions. But none of this matters if Netanyahu does not have 61 seats with Bennett on board. For now, at least, it’s not Bennett who denies him the victory. This is Smotrich. Smotrich persisted in his refusal to accept any coalition support from the Islamic Party Raam, a fact that prevented Netanyahu from locking up a parliamentary majority for his government – a fact that Bennett can count on.

The president is impatient

President Reuven Rivlin suggested last week that he had little patience to drag out the coalition talks. He is unlikely to extend the May 4 deadline for Netanyahu or select another candidate if Netanyahu fails. If Netanyahu has no coalition by May 4, the mandate to form a government will probably be transferred directly to the Knesset, which will then have 21 days to vote in a government or, if not, to a fifth election. to dissolve.

That tight schedule presents a dilemma for Bennett. It can not be seen that he is negotiating with Lapid while the negotiations with Netanyahu are still ongoing. But 21 days is a short time to put together the kind of complicated and internally divided coalition that a Lapid-Bennett government needs. He cannot wait until Netanyahu’s mandate ends in three weeks.

Bennett’s leverage will also decline dramatically once Netanyahu fails. Lapid is now offering Bennett the first turn as prime minister to ensure he does not hand over Netanyahu to his government. But once the Netanyahu government is no longer an option, why would Lapid keep the offer on the table? Lapid is one of the few faction leaders in the 24th Knesset who does not fear a round at the ballot box again. His Yesh Atid party has proven its steel and resilience in the eight years since its inception.

That is, anything Bennett can not get from Lapid in their silent conversation in the channel before May 4, he may not get any more on May 5.

A seven-seater premier? Really?

Can Naftali Bennett and his seven-seat succession really negotiate over the Prime Minister’s office? Likud thinks so.

One senior Likud official told Channel 12 this week that this is not only a possible outcome, but probably also.

“We will let Bennett and Sa’ar try to continue with Meretz and Labor and the Joint List. We will embarrass them with bills that will make them uncomfortable,” the Likud official said defiantly. “Let’s look [Yamina’s Ayelet] Shaked handle [Labor leader Merav] Michaeli of [Meretz leader] Nitzan Horovitz. We are not afraid of the prospect of sitting in opposition. ”

An executive led by Yamina would be unprecedented. But over the past two years, Israel’s political system has systematically shattered one assumption after another. The April 2019 election was the first in Israel’s history that did not result in a government. Basic laws were changed to create ‘alternative’ prime ministers and ‘parity governments’. The government has not adopted an updated budget law since 2018, which is another unprecedented achievement.

A Prime Minister Bennett would be just one in a long list of firsts who would come out of the political stalemate.

Perhaps the only safe takeaway from the political acrobatics currently underway is that the crisis of the past two years is far from over. If a dramatic deviation by either party is ruled out, any coalition that Netanyahu succeeds in mixing will be awkward and unstable, and any coalition Lapid and Bennett will team up even more.

Or as Public Security Minister Amir Ohana of Likud put it to President Rivlin last week: “If everyone keeps their election promises, we’re going to a fifth election.”