The political upheavals of the past few weeks are likely to result in some strange bedfellows. Case in point: last week, in an interview with a local radio station, United Torah Judaism MK Meir Porush was pressed on the issue of political loyalty, and while he said that his party would back Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he eventually admitted that, if circumstances prove Netanyahu is unable to form a coalition, Haredi politicians may turn elsewhere.
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"What are we supposed to do if Netanyahu can't form a government – condemn ourselves to sit in the opposition?" he asked his interviewer, adding, "Did we ever say we wouldn't talk to [New Hope leader Gideon] Sa'ar?"
With that one remark, Porush had all but buried the right-wing bloc – a political model that had served Netanyahu time and again since 2009, when he defeated then-Kadima leader Tzipi Livni in the race for the Prime Minister's Office.
When the 23rd Knesset dissolved last week – a mere nine months after it was inducted – Netanyahu noted that the only way for the likes of Sa'ar or Yamina leader Naftali Bennett to form a government is by "teaming with the Left and [Yesh Atid leader Yair] Lapid. The only way to ensure a fully right-wing government is by voting for Likud. It's simple math."
But is it really?
The past two years have seen Netanyahu try to form right-wing governments three times – only to fail. The elections held in April and September 2019 resulted in no government at all, and the March 2020 vote resulted in a national unity government with Blue and White – a strange political mutation that will be remembered as the most wasteful and failed government in Israel's history.
Chances of Netanyahu being able to form a right-wing government at this time – in the midst of the coronavirus crisis, with polls showing 60% of the public think the coalition's crisis management was an utter failure – are slim, at best.
The prime minister's constant labeling of Yesh Atid as "leftist" and his efforts to delegitimize any non-right-wing party is also absurd, especially given the fact that he had no problem sharing the government table with them in the past. Yesh Atid, Kadima and later Hatnuah, Labor, Yamina, and Blue and White were all his coalition partners at one time or another.
There is little left of the right-wing bloc. Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Lieberman has kept his word throughout the last two years and has not joined a Netanyahu-led government. Bennett – abandoned in favor of Blue and White - has officially challenged Netanyahu for the premiership.
Porush has all but announced what United Torah Judaism plans to do, leaving only Shas leader Aryeh Deri as a Netanyahu loyalist. Deri may have stated the Shas will back Netanyahu through thick and thin, but even he had to admit recently that when push comes to shove "everyone knows we'll sit in whichever government we have to."
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The premise that has been so deeply ingrained in Israeli consciousness, according to which Netanyahu is the only one who can lead the Right no longer stands the test of reality or the test of simple math.
Currently, according to all the polls, Sa'ar's chances of forming a stable government with a right-wing majority are much greater than Netanyahu's chances of forming a government. Just do the math.
Dr. Dana Raviv is a lecturer at Ariel University's School of Communication.
