Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is concerned about a possible breakout of the Omicron coronavirus variant. He is concerned tourists will land in Israel who will infect an increasing number of Israelis, about the potential collapse of Israel's hospitals, and violations of coronavirus guidelines. He is really concerned by the unvaccinated, but he is most concerned by what his predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu will have to say if any of those things do transpire.
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Bennett has performed pretty well to date: He passed a state budget, has maintained an impossible coalition, created a new set of priorities, and he has done all of those things without any unnecessary drama. Here and there, he has made the kind of mistake that could have been easily avoided. His embarrassing decision to fly overseas with his wife comes to mind. All in all, though, he has proved that you don't need hundreds of binders and drawings of bombs to run a state.
Bennett came to a realization: Israeli society needs quiet. There is no need to add more fuel to the fire.
The opposition has not given up and continues to try and inflame the situation. Time and again, Likud MK David Amsalem tries to stoke ethnic tensions, while his fellow Likud MK Galit Distel Atbaryan refers to the government as a "collection of losers." Unfortunately for them, Bennett and his fellow government members will not be dragged willingly into this mud bath. They aren't playing along. In response, opposition members are turning to increasingly more offensive speech, still to no avail.
Bennett does have one large weak spot: his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The virus built Netanyahu up and then brought about his downfall. The pandemic changed the world and the political world in particular. This is the area where Bennett references the former premier without the latter having to say a word.
Here, Bennett has failed not because there are too many confirmed cases but because he appears hysterical. His desire to prove he can skip over his predecessor's mistakes is making him appear helpless. He seems to be issuing statements and making decisions as if Netanyahu is right there waiting to excoriate him for any and every wrong move he makes.
It is in fact the long and threatening shadow of the opposition leader that is in practice now managing the Omicron crisis. Bennett may be authorizing the moves, but it is Netanyahu whose voice is hanging in the air – the voice of a man who, at the time, took ownership of the correct management of the first wave of the pandemic and the fact that Israel escaped from it relatively unharmed.
That is why every new confirmed case is perceived as a threat, and every vaccine opponent is an enemy of the state. Instead of finding his own voice, Bennett is being taken along for the ride. Netanyahu doesn't need to say anything to be heard. The man who wrote the book on how to defeat a pandemic is now behaving like someone who is looking for their place in the sun.
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