Published: 9 May 2023
Last updated: 5 March 2024
The Bennett-Lapid coalition, which lost to Netanyahu, failed to change the terms of public debate.
Israel’s “change government” held office for 18 months, from June 2021 to December 2022, briefly interrupting Benjamin Netanyahu’s extended rule of the country.
In the early days of the coalition, I felt compelled to defend it as a rare source of hope for progressives and liberals invested in Israeli politics. My article sought to counterbalance the cynicism and pessimism among some progressive Israel-watchers, who prophesised forebodingly about the new administration.
They warned the government was doomed to fail and King Bibi would be back on the throne in no time – but with an even more craven band of enablers. This, for me, was an unbearable prediction.
Two years and one fateful election later, I am revisiting my assessments and expectations. I missed the forest for the trees, confusing in-principle commitments, coalition agreements and reversible ministerial directives for meaningful indicators of lasting change.
It would be tempting for progressive observers to turn their cynicism about Naftali Bennett’s unwieldy coalition into mournful nostalgia. It is important, with the benefit of hindsight, to look at the change period with a clear eye and see how it contributed to the chaos of the present day.
Under the change government, the 24th Israeli Knesset passed more than 60 bills. Bennett’s government came good on a few of the key promises I praised in my 2021 article. These included increased funds to security in the Arab sector, more work permits for Palestinians, subsidised university for veterans, expansion of the “apartment at a discount” program and enhanced welfare services for people on disabilities.
However, these policies were unable to prevent deteriorating living standards. The role of external events here is indisputable, but the government lacked policy ambition because of the awkward composition of the coalition.
Avigdor Lieberman, a militant free-marketeer deeply suspicious of government economic intervention, was finance minister. He scuttled key initiatives that could have improved conditions for working Israelis – most notably, blocking a move by Labor to raise the minimum wage to NIS 40 ($A16) an hour, from an existing ate of NIS 29.12 ($11.92). Lieberman’s disapproval saw this key commitment in the coalition agreement withdrawn without a fight, garnering scant public outcry from Labor.
Housing and healthcare were often emphasised by the government as its core priorities, yet 2022 saw housing prices in Israel increase by a record 19%, and the number of hospital beds per citizen decrease to 2.91 in January 2022 (down from 2.97 in 2020, and 4.95 in 1988).
The lack of results on the economy and social services were accompanied by the government’s poor management of Israel’s occupation of five million Palestinians. With so many right-wing nationalists in its ranks, I never expected the coalition to broker a meaningful peace.
But the reflexive enthusiasm, and at times excessive brutality, with which it executed the tasks of occupation was disturbing. As an observer who deeply wanted to believe in this administration, my disappointment in this area was the last straw.
What progressive achievements were made under Bennett’s change government have proven easy to reverse. New bodies within the Diaspora Affairs Ministry have fallen into the hands of an extremist.
Human rights group B’Tselem reported that in the government’s first year, 90 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank were killed – a 60% increase from the preceding year under Netanyahu. The rate of demolition of Palestinian buildings kept pace with the Netanyahu years.
Between June 2021 and April 2022, 128 residential buildings were demolished, leaving almost 400 Palestinians homeless, including 195 children. On average, 57 buildings were demolished per month, a level consistent with the previous Netanyahu administration. In 2021, Palestinians weathered 650 incidents of settler violence, up from 500 in 2020.
The killing of Palestinian-American Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, and the inadequate investigation by the government, was another milestone of disenchantment. Not only did the Left factions of the government remain largely silent on her death, but Israel refused to co-operate with the FBI investigation.
The refusal of even this small gesture towards accountability made a joke out of the government’s only claim to ideological coherence - that it was distinguished from the Right faction in respecting impartiality, executive oversight and the rule of law.
The former defence minister, Benny Gantz, who is once again taking the mantle of “rising star” in the Israeli centre, also oversaw the raiding of seven leading Palestinian non-governmental organisations, in August 2022. This attack on human rights groups, which was justified with questionable evidence, was met with international condemnation and marked a tightening of Israel’s harsh grip on the occupied territories. In an order signed by Gantz, these groups were designated terror organisations and their activists threatened with prosecution should they continue their work.
the reflexive enthusiasm, and at times excessive brutality, with which it executed the tasks of occupation was disturbing.
What progressive achievements were made under Bennett’s change government have proven easy to reverse. New bodies within the Diaspora Affairs Ministry, which I applauded as an opportunity to improve ties with liberal Jews abroad, have fallen into the hands of Amichai Chikli, an extremist who recently described the Palestinian Authority as a ‘Neo-Nazi entity’ and equated criticism of Itamar Ben-Gvir to support for BDS.
Reforms to public transport on Shabbat, Kashrut privatisation, and pluralism at the Western Wall are either in question or well on the road to complete erasure.
Looking forward requires us to look back: I feel only disappointment for the missed opportunities of 2021-22. The bloated apparatus of Israel’s security state was left intact. The government had its hands on the wheel, but despite the foreseeable risk of a far-Right comeback, new regulations, restraints, controls, and oversights were not imposed on the settler movement, the scope of police powers, the army or the internal security agencies. Now in the hands of the Right, the security behemoth, unreformed, is being turned on Israel’s own citizens.
Netanyahu’s perversion of Israeli politics created the conditions for the change government. Its members were brought together by one goal, to prevent Netanyahu from staying in power. However, this narrow objective could not be transplanted into broader policy ambitions for the country.
In forming itself to oppose Netanyahu personally, Bennett’s change government could not challenge him politically. It failed to change the terms of public debate, the spread of economic malaise and the escalating bloodiness of the occupation. In 2023, I admit I was wrong. The change government did not change very much at all.
Photo: Netanyahu and Bennett in June 2021 (AFP)
