One man is stitching together Israel’s impossible government – for now

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Is a coalition crisis that lasted less than 72 hours and ended with no damage to the governing coalition still a crisis? In a coalition that no longer has a Knesset majority and when one more defector could bring down the government and send Israelis to the polls yet again, it is.

Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi’s resignation letter on Thursday afternoon immediately generated headlines declaring the coalition’s demise and an upcoming election in September. By Sunday afternoon, though, it was all over and she was nestled back in the coalition’s warm embrace, as if nothing had happened.

But this mini-crisis taught us some valuable things, beyond highlighting yet again the government’s increasing fragility.

While Rinawie Zoabi’s resignation letter cited a long list of events in recent weeks that can loosely be described as part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – from the clashes between police and Palestinian protesters at Al-Aqsa Mosque during the month of Ramadan, to the chaotic scenes at the funeral of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh – none of these came up in the series of meetings Sunday that led to her rescinding the letter.

Instead, the meetings focused on budgetary issues in Arab-Israeli towns and how to resolve bureaucratic problems that have held up already authorized funding. Nothing about Al-Aqsa or Al Jazeera at all.

Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi, center, attending a Knesset Finance Committee meeting in Jerusalem on Monday.Ohad Zwigenberg

Whatever the actual reasons for Rinawie Zoabi’s temporary resignation, those that she wrote in the letter and those she brought up in the meetings are not as detached as they may seem. Between the two sets of reasons lie the inner struggle of Israel’s non-Jewish minority: between being “Palestinian citizens of Israel,” obsessed on matters of identity and conflict to such a degree that they can’t allow themselves to take part in Israeli life; and being “Arab Israelis,” eager to integrate as individuals and a community into Israeli society, if they could just get something close to an equal chance.

The most intense pressure on Rinawie Zoabi to relent came not from her coalition colleagues but from within Arab-Israeli society, where many fear the return of a Netanyahu government radicalized by its time in opposition and this time with a strengthened far-right component.

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Many of them also want to give the partnership in this coalition, which includes for the first time an Arab party and a greater number of Arab lawmakers than any previous Israeli government, a chance to prove it can make real progress.

This doesn’t invalidate what Rinawie Zoabi wrote in her resignation letter. Palestinian Israelis care deeply about all those things. But it does indicate a new level of pragmatism.

At the same time, though, pragmatism can also be an excuse for an absence of any actual policies. All the things Rinawie Zoabi mentioned in her resignation letter should have been on the agenda of her own party, Meretz. While she didn’t blame them directly, just the coalition in general, it was clear she was voicing frustration at her own left-wing colleagues becoming too comfortable in power.

Meretz is stuck. Its voters – who like all Israelis are still stuck in the “Bibi yes-or-no” rut – overwhelmingly want it to remain in government as long as there’s a realistic chance of a Netanyahu comeback if the government falls. But as one of the smallest parties in the coalition and with the right-wingers from Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s Yamina party constantly on the brink of defection, there’s very little Meretz can do to stand up for its values.

The party is stuck in an awkward, unnatural position within a right-leaning coalition from which it can’t escape. Rinawie Zoabi’s short protest only served to exacerbate that.

Another illustration of Meretz’s weak position is the fact that Rinawie Zoabi’s party leader, Nitzan Horowitz, barely played a part in talking her back from the brink. That was orchestrated and executed mainly by Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.

Foreign Minister and Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid at a press conference in Jerusalem last week.Ohad Zwigenberg

The Yesh Atid leader has a clear interest in making sure there are no defectors from the left flank of the coalition. Under the coalition agreement, the parties are divided into blocs between him and Bennett. If members of one bloc vote to topple the government, then the other bloc’s leader gets to be caretaker prime minister during the election campaign and until a new government is formed. Meretz is part of Lapid’s bloc, so he needs to ensure that none of its members defect if he wants a stint in the Prime Minister’s Office this side of the next election.

But the masterful way in which he quickly took control of the affair and swiftly resolved the crisis was a demonstration of how he has evolved as a politician. He’s no longer just a party leader, but something the Israeli center-left has sorely lacked for a long time: a senior politician looking beyond just their own party’s interests and is capable of marshaling a coalition of different parties, balancing their conflicting interests and maintaining them as a functioning bloc, in government or opposition.

In other words, doing what Benjamin Netanyahu has successfully done for so long with the right-wing and religious parties.

In his early years in politics, Lapid was a spoiler, focused on boosting only his centrist party at the price of forming a viable opposition to Netanyahu. Chances are that if Lapid had not launched his own party a decade ago, Netanyahu would have probably lost power in the 2015 election.

Today’s Lapid is a very different creature. He’s been through an uneasy 18-month partnership with Kahol Lavan leader Benny Gantz, followed by the trauma of Gantz defecting to join Netanyahu in the short-lived “emergency” government of 2020. Ever since, Lapid has taken personal responsibility for taking Netanyahu down.

In the March 2021 election, he entered a nonaggression pact with the other center-left parties. This probably cost Yesh Atid Knesset seats, but ensured that the other parties crossed the electoral threshold, preventing vote wastage. Then he engineered the impossible coalition of eight parties that ended Netanyahu’s long reign. And now he’s doing everything – much more than Bennett – to keep it going. And as fragile as the coalition is, the fact it’s been in government for almost a year is a massive achievement.

Lapid isn’t just the first opposition bloc leader who has seriously challenged Netanyahu in a long while. He also has one clear advantage over his rival: Netanyahu may be an unparalleled political operator, ruthlessly pragmatic and prepared to drop an ally without blinking, or charming an enemy if necessary. But there’s a massive limit to his powers. He insists on forming a government that only he himself leads. If he was prepared to be the power behind someone else’s throne, Likud would still be in power. Lapid wants to be prime minister, without a doubt, but he’s more flexible – which is why Netanyahu isn’t prime minister now.

The government’s first anniversary is three weeks away. If it reaches that milestone without the Knesset having been dissolved, it will be thanks to Lapid.