Blue and White leader Benny Gantz is going through what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went through when he tried to form a government.
Gantz, like Netanyahu when he was given the presidential mandate several weeks ago, has not been able to break the political impasse. This means Israel may very well end up holding another early election soon.
The fact that Gantz and Netanyahu only met once this week attests to the lack of progress.
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Hashing out the details of a national unity government is very different than other forms of coalition agreements, mainly because of the legal language that has to be finalized.
The drafting of an agreement for a unity government takes hundreds upon hundreds of hours and cannot wait for the very last moment. Blue and White negotiators are fully aware of that, but they still dragging their feet.
Perhaps Blue and White is no longer interested in a unity government with Likud. Perhaps it wants to form a minority government that would rely on the Arab parties and Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beytenu party in confidence votes (Lieberman would presumably abstain). Or maybe it is just Gantz being unable to make up their mind.
Joint Arab List Chairman Ayman Odeh has seen his popularity rise. Having recommended Gantz as prime minister and getting praise from the Left, he feels like he and the other Arab MKs are no longer outcasts. In fact, the Democratic Union is already all out in favor of a government comprising Arabs and Jews, something that Blue and White officials dare not say out loud.
The anti-Netanyahu camp keeps outdoing itself in order to unseat the prime minister. After doing all it can to embrace the prosecutors who have investigated Netanyahu and defended bureaucrats who have abused their powers in order to curtail freedom of expression, it was only a matter of time before the Left would join forces with the parties that reject Israel's right to exist as a Jewish and democratic country. It was a small step toward the over-arching goal of toppling Netanyahu.
Odeh is clever. He knows that he has finally made inroads into the mainstream of Israeli politics because of the Left's anti-Netanyahu obsession. That is why he has toned down his statements on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and focused more on civilian matters such as eradicating violence in the Arab sector. It is unclear where Gantz is heading, but should he decide to form a minority government based on outside support of the Arab parties, he will discover that Odeh has already laid the groundwork.
Gantz has insisted that progress is being made and even claims that he has been in contact with additional right-wing parties.
On the one hand, he says Netanyahu cannot represent the 55-MK right-wing bloc. But on the other hand, he has been holding direct talks with members of the same bloc. It appears that Gantz's ultimate goal is to make Netanyahu paranoid, hoping that this would somehow resolve the political gridlock.
In this game of chicken, Netanyahu has already decided that a third early election is preferable to ditching his right-wing allies or having a power-sharing deal in which he steps down temporarily from the premiership. The only question left unanswered is where Gantz stands.
If Blue and White don't consider an early march to the polls as the worst possible outcome, another election is all but guaranteed. But if Gantz wants to avoid another election, it is just a matter of time before he makes a concession.
