“Transforming a crisis into an opportunity”. The headline of the daily “Israel Today”, unconditional support of Binyamin Netanyahu, speaks volumes about the vacuity of the elements of language deployed by the head of the Israeli government, after his about-face on the very controversial reform of the Supreme Court. Difficult, even for his best-intentioned friends, to find the slightest political gain in the political sequence that is ending. Elected triumphantly last November after a short crossing of the desert, the Israeli Prime Minister already seems at the end of the race. Monday evening, after his televised speech, two polls showed a drop in his popularity, only 19% of favorable opinions, and the loss of seven seats of deputies in the event of early elections.
One could hardly imagine, it is true, a more disastrous management of this reform presented as a priority of his mandate. Carried by the Minister of Justice Yariv Levin, a faithful among the faithful, the text responded to a particularly strong expectation of his electorate. For decades, the people of the right have been shouting down the Supreme Court, this willingly progressive institution sensitive to the rights of minorities, Palestinians included. Nationalists, settlers and Orthodox, the three pillars of the government coalition, had a common interest in controlling the appointment of Supreme Court judges and limiting their ability to intervene in the legislative process. Netanyahu therefore enjoyed the enthusiastic support of his partners and a good part of public opinion.
But from the first debates in the Knesset, the resistance of the opposition – which Netanyahu had underestimated – was to prove fierce. Fights, slamming of doors and broncas broadcast every evening on television contribute to splitting opinion. In the streets, demonstrations bring together tens of thousands of Israelis every Saturday evening in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem. A mobilization of an extremely rare scale in a country where, in 2004, a reform raising the retirement age to 67 years made almost no waves.
The worm was in the apple
Probably overconfident in his maneuvering abilities, Netanyahu long remained inflexible in the face of popular anger. Sunday evening again, he sacked a rebel defense minister who demanded a break in reform. But this brutality increased tenfold the anger of the demonstrators and led to a call for a general strike in the Histradrut. The inescapable single union, a remnant of all-powerful Labor, blocked part of the country on Monday, including Ben Gurion International Airport, the only gateway to Israel. Under this unbearable pressure, “Bibi” had to go to Canossa. Only 24 hours after dismissing his minister, he takes exactly the measure that the latter had advocated: the suspension of the legislative process. Incidentally, Netanyahu must grant the far-right minister Itamar Ben Gvir a “national guard”, in other words an armed force directly under his orders, in exchange for his retention in government. A double snub.
How could “the magician” have lost control like this? No doubt the worm was in the fruit from the beginning. Because to regain his seat as Prime Minister, Netanyahu could only count on the last parties willing to ally with him: the Orthodox and the far right. The negotiations to form the coalition were laborious because its partners, in a position of strength, monetized their support at a high price. The Orthodox got rivers of shekels for their educational systems and good works. And also a morocco of choice for Arié Dehry, the leader of the Sephardic Shass party, a repeat fraudster. What to direct an opinion already exasperated by the exemption from military service granted to the Orthodox and their reluctance to integrate the labor market. “Bibi” has also yielded a lot to the settlers by letting go of the colonization of the West Bank and to the extreme right by appointing Ben Gvir to the ministry of security.
Pulled to the right by radical allies, Netanyahu, this secular from the Ashkenazi elite, rather inclined to consensus (he governed for a long time with the centrists Tsipi Livni and Yaïr Lapid) undoubtedly carried out this explosive reform reluctantly. Admittedly, he has had a strong enmity with the magistrates since his legal troubles and he recently passed a law guaranteeing him immunity. But in twelve years at the head of the state, he had never considered such an upheaval in the balance of power.
Its failure could make us forget its diplomatic successes (Abraham’s agreement, American embassy in Jerusalem, etc.), its good economic results or even its flash vaccination campaign against Covid. At 74, Benyamin Netanyahu still has boundless energy, but seems to have lost his legendary political sense.