Analysis | Savvy politician or ‘hostage’? Netanyahu’s uncertain role in judicial push.
And perhaps the biggest one of all: Is Bibi really in control?
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, known here as “Bibi,” rose to power and kept it longer than any other Israeli leader, largely on his reputation as a master of political maneuvering and strategic pragmatism.
But the chaotic events in the first seven months of his new government have fed speculation that he doesn’t control his coalition — the most nationalist and religiously conservative in Israel’s history — as much as it controls him.
The issue has grown in importance as Israel wonders how far the government will go with the rest of the judicial proposals and other contentious projects dear to its most extreme supporters.
“It’s a huge question in Israeli discourse,” said Nadav Eyal, a political columnist for the daily Yediot Ahronot who has been covering Netanyahu for more than two decades. “Is Netanyahu weak and being extorted by his partners, or is he a master Machiavelli who wants to establish a Mediterranean Hungary or a Jewish Turkey?”
Since the surprise debut of his government’s plan to overhaul the judiciary in January — a process that spun immediately into turmoil — political observers have waited for Netanyahu to gain command. Israel’s largest-ever protest movement filled the streets week after week. Generals warned that dissent was threatening military readiness at a time of mounting violence. Foreign investment fled, and Netanyahu tanked in the polls.
The prime minister had never made judicial overhaul a priority before, and his own commitment to the project has never been clear. His opponents have been quick to describe him as helpless in the face of zealots in his coalition, whom he needs to appease to keep his four-seat majority in the 120-seat parliament.
“We have no prime minister,” opposition leader Yair Lapid said after Monday’s vote. “Netanyahu has become the doll of messianic extremists.”
Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on the record. But a senior government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters, dismissed speculation that the prime minister was not fully in charge.
“The guy who has two hands on the wheel is Benjamin Netanyahu,” the official said. “He has the last word.”
It is a familiar turn of phrase for the prime minister. After winning a record sixth term in November, Netanyahu embarked on an American media blitz, seeking to reassure nervous allies in Washington that he would not be captive to his coalition.
The prime minister did stand up to hard-liners in March, pausing the overhaul legislation after a general strike paralyzed the country and his own defense minister went public with concerns. Netanyahu promised to enter compromise talks and seek consensus.
But when those talks collapsed in June, coalition members rushed to pass the first piece of the package over mounting domestic and international condemnation and without a single opposition vote.
Some believe Netanyahu remains a skilled political operator who may be just fine with the outcome of Monday’s vote. The 73-year-old was rushed to the hospital early Sunday for treatment of an undisclosed heart condition. He returned to the Knesset on Monday with a new pacemaker but gave no sign of being weakened.
“He is still a talented politician,” said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute. “If he really wanted the government to move in a different direction, I trust he would find a way to do so.”
Plesner, who has served with Netanyahu in the Knesset, thinks that two things may be true at once: that Netanyahu has less room to maneuver in this coalition than he has had with previous, more moderate ones, and that he is not sorry to see the power of the courts reduced.
Netanyahu’s relationship with courts and prosecutors, Plesner notes, has grown more contentious since he was indicted on corruption charges in 2019.
“He himself doesn’t seem to be playing a moderating role,” Plesner said. “He has become more radical, perhaps because of his trial.”
Netanyahu formed his government by turning to politicians who had previously been considered on Israel’s political fringe. The most startling alliance was with Itamar Ben Gvir, an ultranationalist settler leader who has been convicted of inciting racism against Arabs. He became the minister of public security in charge of police enforcement in the new government.
There is no ambiguity about the importance Ben Gvir and Netanyahu’s other partners attach to reining in the courts.
Ultra-Orthodox parties don’t want the courts to strike down special privileges such as draft exemptions for yeshiva students or curtail their authority over marriages and other civil law. On Tuesday, ultra-Orthodox lawmakers submitted a bill that would put the study of Torah roughly on par with military service, although Likud officials said it wasn’t on the legislative agenda.
Nationalist parties have chafed over the court’s restrictions on the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, with some members openly calling for annexing the occupied territory.
And they have not been quiet about their willingness to bring down the government should Netanyahu go too far in slowing or softening the proposals.
Ben Gvir threatened to quit the coalition shortly before Netanyahu paused the legislation in March, according to Israeli media reports. He was then given control over a new national guard unit, which critics condemned as a dangerous quid pro quo. Ben Gvir repeated the threat Monday, warning during a last-minute attempt to water down the proposal that it would crash the government.
During the vote, Netanyahu was seen sitting placidly between Justice Minister Yariv Levin, the overhaul’s main advocate, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who has been critical of the legislative push, as they argued over a potential compromise.
The prime minister’s own view was not obvious. But members of the coalition later told reporters they had made it clear to him that he should not try anything on his own.
“The prime minister discovered that there is a very strong coalition here and that it wouldn’t be possible to simply make a decision to delay the legislation,” Likud member Tally Gotliv said in an interview with the daily Zman Yisrael. “I think that for the first time, the prime minister realized he couldn’t take some sort of step backward.”
In a speech after Monday’s vote, Netanyahu pledged again to seek consensus on the legislation to come: “We are not giving up on the chance of reaching broad agreement, and I tell you that it is possible.”
But with protesters vowing to stay in the streets, and Netanyahu’s partners promising to plow ahead, room for compromise may be vanishing, whatever he might want.
