First of all, let's keep things in perspective. What happened in the government on Tuesday is not a coup, not the collapse of democracy, and it isn't anarchy. To be sure, while this could be politically damaging to Netanyahu, the situation might not be irreversible.
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Out of all the options on the table, which were far-fetched regardless, it seems just one – a government with Blue and White – is now completely irrelevant. Apparently, that option never really existed to begin with. Despite Gideon Sa'ar's scathing comments, it's possible that in exchange for removing Netanyahu for 12 or 18 months and making him alternate prime minister, he would join the government. And if not, it's entirely uncertain that Tuesday's events are the reason he wouldn't.
It's easy to view Netanyahu as unfit or as someone motivated by personal considerations when it comes to Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit. By the same token, we can also assert the opposite. The thesis whereby government clerks are always professionals and politicians are always liars has long been debunked with countless examples – including Mendelblit's own remarks, which were made public after he was secretly recorded. Just as he had the right at the time to think former State Attorney Shai Nitzan was squeezing him, it's Netanyahu's right to think the same about his attorney general.
The slippery slope doesn't have to be one-sided; sometimes there are two sides to a coin. Mendelblit argued that the appointment of Ofir Akunis was not on the government's docket and therefore the vote should not have occurred, but a quick perusal of the docket shows that Gantz's name also didn't appear in the proposal.
The political damage from Netanyahu's perspective, at such a sensitive juncture, is likely climatic. In recent days the trend had begun shifting and a left-wing government, which seemed a certainty following the expiration of Netanyahu's mandate, became less likely as the prime minister started turning the tide in his favor at the last second. Things changed course again on Tuesday. The "anyone-but-Netanyahu" bloc was bolstered, while the Likud's efforts to form a government suffered a setback. As of now, it doesn't seem like something that can't be mended and restarted.
Simultaneous to the government meeting, the Likud Central Committee approved Netanyahu's proposal to merge factions that supported a Likud-led government in the current Knesset. The purpose of the proposal was to coax Yamina into only supporting a government headed by Netanyahu and to abandon its efforts to establish a left-wing coalition. It's safe to assume that regardless of Tuesday's events, negotiations with Bennett aren't finished and will continue as well from where they left off, despite all that's happened.
There's another assessment, however, whereby Netanyahu has buried himself politically and won't be able to dig his way out. That all of his potential political partners can see that even now, at this critical and sensitive point in time, he is opting for a personal interest. The question is whether or not this is simply another case of preaching to the choir, to those who already held this view of him.
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