Clever girl, that Netanyahu.
Israeli politics is one of the most cutthroat forms of government out there and even if you don’t care much about the middle East, it’s fascinating to watch as political gamesmenship.
What it appears Netanyahu did here was latch his party with the religious parties to strengthen his hand in coalition negotiations with the blue and white.
On his own, he couldn’t form a government. With blue/white, likud could form a very stable unity government but Netanyahu would be a plurality partner and likely forced out of the premiership, possibly even tossed from the party list in a rebellion.
The religious parties could have been shut out of the government entirely if blue/white led negotiations and so desired. In theory, if one religious party joined with blue white, likud could have been shut out of power, though this is a less likely scenario given party goals and personalities involved.
If blue/white calls Netanyahu’s bluff and refuses to negotiate from a position of weakness with an already established Bloc of parties, it probably loses its momentum as a political party. If it does negotiate and Netanyahu remains PM or shares the status of PM, it loses its momentum as a political party. It seems more likely today that Netanyahu lives for another day as PM, but his opposition has only been outsmarted, not defeated.
Blue and white defeated itself. It can’t have a coalition, according to my count, without the religious parties, and they have only one thing in common, their mutual hatred for each other.
“Cutthroat” is right. When I was an attorney I had some Israelis for clients. My read is that their geopolitical situation is what makes them absolutely as tough as nails. I love the people of Israel. Spines of steel
There was a Danish TV series that Rush Limbaugh used to talk about. It was called Borgen. I came across it on some obscure cable channel. It’s in Danish with English subtitles.
It’s all about a woman who becomes the first female PM of Denmark (they actually elected one after this show became popular there). It portrays all of the backroom maneuvering and backstabbing of the parliamentary system in exquisite detail.
Not to mention some damn fine looking women on that show.