It has been said of former Prime Minister Ehud Barak that he is good at dismantling things, usually the branch he is sitting on, i.e. his party and his camp. It turns out Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also has a knack for dismantling things, although in his case, he is good at breaking up others. In every election campaign, Netanyahu has tried to engineer the right-wing camp and grind his rivals on the Left to a pulp. It doesn't always go exactly as planned. This time, though, he appears closer to achieving this goal than ever.
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After dismantling the Blue and White party and watching as the remaining components of the left-wing bloc disintegrated on their own, Netanyahu turned his attention to two political tasks more pressing even than closing party lists, the vaccines, or the peace accord in the works: dismantling the Joint Arab List and Yamina. In both cases, the mission is not yet complete, but the process is well underway.
Netanyahu met with the heads of Arab local authorities, Sunday. Just as it had on previous occasions, the prime minister's visit was met with heated debate in the sector as to whether to cooperate with Netanyahu or boycott him for his actions and statements. In the meantime, those advocating for dialogue with the prime minister are helping legitimize someone who, up until a few months ago, was an illegitimate figure and tearing the Joint Arab List to shreds.
If in the last election, Arab Israelis were arriving at the voting stations in droves to cast their vote for the Joint Arab List, today they are overflowing with criticism and disappointment. Arab lawmakers see what is happening and understand exactly what Netanyahu is up to but are mute and helpless to respond. The attacks on him and efforts to make any dialogue with him illegitimate only encourage their opponents. Arab enthusiasm for the Joint Arab List has completely crumbled, something apparent in recent polls that show the faction garnering one-third of the Knesset seats they did last time around.
Even if the Likud fails to gain another three Knesset seats as Netanyahu has claimed, the damage has already been done. Following Rafi Peretz's retirement from politics, members of Habayit Hayehudi will convene tomorrow to elect their next party leader. Last time around, Netanyahu tried to convince Yamina head Naftali Bennett to bring in the far-right Otzma Yehudit party to avoid losing any votes. He now finds himself in a similar situation, with National Union head Bezalel Smotrich having apparently decided to run independently of Yamina in the upcoming election.
In an instant, the internal elections of a dying religious Zionist political party became more relevant than ever. The winner's identity could determine what direction the party, and the entire right-wing camp, is headed: a joint run with Yamina or a divided run that could increase the chances of securing 61 Knesset seats for the right-wing bloc while threatening to keep one of its members out of the Knesset should it fail to meet the electoral threshold. Absent this formulation, the chances of getting to 61 seats are slim to none.
Netanyahu's default setup is a large Likud contending with a comparable party on the Left. That's how he is used to creating the tension that spurs right-wingers to vote for Likud at the expense of other parties. This time around, no such left-wing party may be found. Netanyahu may therefore adopt a different strategy that sees a large Likud surrounded by many small- and medium-sized parties. In the distribution by blocs, it doesn't matter much, but it will make it easier for a small party to prefer to join the coalition rather than be dragged into another election and disappear from the political stage. With 16 Knesset seats, New Hope leader Gideon Sa'ar can reiterate his absolute refusal to unite with Netanyahu. Should he garner just five or six seats, he will be forced to recalculate his path.
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