It’s un-Jewish to be too optimistic. But in Israel, there’s now faint cause for hope

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This time last year, Israel faced a nearly perfect storm. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s no-holds barred attempts to remain in office, at virtually all costs, had shaken the very foundations of Israeli democracy. The economy was in a tailspin and unprecedented domestic tensions threatened to rend the national fabric, raising the horrific specter of severe internecine conflict.

The left and right, secular and religious, increasingly viewed each other as enemies. The ultra-Orthodox were in open rebellion. The dead horse of Ashkenazi-Mizrahi tensions was being whipped back alive. Growing tensions between Jews and Arabs actually led to an eruption of unprecedented fury in May. Ties with the U.S., Israel’s foremost strategic ally, were increasingly tense.

What a difference one year makes. Israelis, of all political stripes, stared into the abyss and decided that they had more in common than not. An imperfect, but responsible government, took over the national helm. Much could still be better, but ministers are hard at work, tackling the challenges of their ministerial portfolios. A state budget was adopted for the first time in three years, with important and long-postponed reforms.

An almost banal, but critical, sense of normalcy has returned. The faint but tantalizing scent of hope is in the air.

Analysts have long speculated that Israel’s secular and traditional majority would ultimately coalesce around that which unites it, rather than the far narrower differences that divide it.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews protesting a bill that would draft them into the military, Jerusalem, July 2018.Tomer Appelbaum

For the first time in over a decade, and one of the few instances in Israel’s history, there are no religious Jewish parties (whether ultra-Orthodox or ultra-nationalist) in the coalition. The center and right-wing parties are still hedging their bets, out of fear that they may have to form a coalition with them in the future, but the government has begun chipping away at the semi-autonomous religious state-within-a-state.

The changes are already significant and the truly unconscionable preferential benefits that the religious parties extorted over the years will soon have to be addressed. The ramparts have been breached and the religious parties rightly fear that the entire temple may come crashing down.

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For the first time, an Arab party – not just any party, but an Islamist one – is now an active coalition partner, unabashedly demanding its share in the budgetary spoils and promoting the needs of its constituency. Ra’am is a big change for Arabs and Jews alike to swallow. Still, an important precedent has been set.

Mansour Abbas, head of the United Arab List/Ra’am and part of the governing coalition, in the KnessetOhad Zwigenberg

At a time when demographic and political trends in Israel are against the center and center-left, the legitimization of Arab parties as potential coalition partners, will provide them with new and heretofore unexpected prospects to forge future governments. When further combined with the possible exclusion of the religious parties, the prospects for a fundamental reshuffling of Israel’s coalition arithmetic increase greatly.

Time is pressing. If drastic measures are not taken soon to undo the counter-productive transfer payments that drive the Haredi community’s phenomenal birthrates, it will constitute over one third of Israel’s Jewish population by 2060.

If effective measures are not taken soon to further integrate the Arab community into Israel’s broader society and address its specific needs, the horrific violence of last May will not be a one-time event. Events in recent days in the Negev are a painful reminder of that.

In both cases, the ramifications for Israel’s society, economy and democracy, will be nothing short of ruinous.

A Bedouin woman reacts as she is detained by Israeli security forces during a protest against forestation in the Negev desert, Wednesday. AMMAR AWAD/ REUTERS

The new government faces a number of even more immediate challenges, including the ongoing ravages of the Covid/Omicron crisis. Its grade at the half-year point is satisfactory, but not outstanding.

On the Iranian nuclear issue, the new government, like its predecessor, views a return to the old nuclear deal as a dangerous mistake, but has wisely prioritized ties and communication with the U.S. To this end, it has made a concerted effort to undo the damage caused by the Netanyahu years, conducting the bilateral dialogue responsibly, offering constructive inputs regarding the nuclear negotiations, rather than just criticism of U.S. policy.

The unusually hardline stance that Iran has taken in the negotiations has made the administration increasingly receptive to Israel’s positions, although friction will grow if an agreement is reached.

Iran displays a range of missiles with posters of assassinated Revolutionary Guards’ head Qassem Soleimani in the foregroundVahid Salemi/?????

On the Palestinian issue, the new government is explicitly avowed to persist with the status quo, more a government of national stasis than of unity. In reality, the status quo is a mirage. Settlement activity continues, if at a lower rate, and the existential dangers attendant to the emerging one-state reality increasingly take hold, even while an overwhelming majority of Israelis, well above 90 percent, firmly oppose this end-state. The “point of no return” for a two-state solution is rapidly approaching, with dramatic ramifications for Israel’s future.

On this critical issue – still the foremost challenge to Israel’s national security – the new government is not the bearer of good tidings.

For now, the U.S. is focused on other issues and, in any event, remains skeptical of the prospects for progress with the Palestinians. It is also deeply committed to the new coalition’s longevity and wishes to avoid doing anything that might prevent the rotation to a Lapid-led government from taking place in mid-2023.

Unlike the Iranian issue, however, where U.S. and Israeli objectives are similar, even if there are differences on how to achieve them, the disagreements on the Palestinian issue are fundamental, at least with those in the coalition not committed to a two-state solution. The administration is thus likely to focus on secondary issues, at least for now, such as reopening the consulate in Jerusalem, or the PLO office in Washington, and restoring Palestinian funding. That, too, will present challenges to the coalition’s stability.

U.S. President Joe Biden and Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett shake hands during a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, in September. JONATHAN ERNST/ REUTERS

The danger of renewed conflict with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, possibly on multiple fronts, is constant and even growing. The buildup of their capabilities continues apace, including the transfer of highly sophisticated and potentially “game-changing” weapons to Hezbollah and Iran’s military entrenchment efforts in Syria. The new government may be called upon to take decisive action to address these threats. Although the coalition parties mostly share similar objectives on these issues, the measures necessary may, once again, present challenges to its stability.

The coalition’s ultimate challenge, however, will be to prove that national unity is more than just a one-off response to the excesses of the Netanyahu years. Most of the public yearns for it to become the new normal.

But it cannot be taken for granted. A possible plea bargain by Netanyahu, effectively ending his political career, may yet lead to the coalition’s unraveling and prevent the rotation of our uniquely “alternative” premiers. Opposition to Netanyahu was the political glue that held the coalition together. Some, on the right, will seek a return to a narrow right-wing government.

It is still premature to say that we have emerged from the darkness. To be excessively optimistic is un-Jewish, bordering on the antisemitic. But we may have begun that journey.

Chuck Freilich, a former deputy Israeli national security adviser, teaches political science at Columbia and Tel Aviv universities. He is the author of “Israeli National Security: A New Strategy for an Era of Change” (Oxford University Press)” and the forthcoming “Israel and the Cyber Threat: How the Startup Nation Became a Global Cyber Power.” Twitter: @FreilichChuck