An object lesson in statesmanship midwifed by circumstances and born with good of country in mind, not party, has passed the hundred and ten day mark in Israel. A disparate group of political parties ranging from both sides of the political spectrum and including a tiny Islamist group formed a tenuous coalition to rescue Israel from the hate and division, orchestrated by an autocrat and criminal defendant Bibi Netanyahu. The basis of this rebirth allowed Israel to move forward on the many health, economic, racial and social challenges it faced. Individual ambition and party power was cast aside in favor of the citizens they served.
Jay H Ell has already written on the formation of the thirty sixth Israeli administration in seventy - five years, “A Miracle Just Happened in Israel” so this blog is more about the circumstances that allowed for it’s creation besides the political will of the party leaders. Jay H. Ell will postulate how three figures, Naftali Bennett, Micah Goodman and the late Rabbi Sacks, from three different worlds, influenced the unprecedented policies of national government as well the internal and external political situation that allowed these to be put in place. Central to the success was putting on ice the major controversy in Israel as to whether to incorporate the Palestinian West Bank into Israel or not.
Not many gave this rag bag of diverse constituencies, a chance of survival after forming a government thereby avoiding a fifth election where Netanyahu would once again attempt to form a clear cut governing mandate. But there they are alive and well putting personal agendas and party aside.
ISRAEL’S POPULATION DIVERSITY
The population of Israel is ten million people. Like America it is made up of wildly diversified cultures, skin colors, innumerable Jewish sects, and other religious groups. While the official language is Hebrew all the sign posts are in Arabic as well. There are a large number of French and Russian immigrants and these two languages are commonly heard in the streets and commercial establishments. And of course everyone speaks English. Israel has twenty four political parties represented in the Knesset, (parliament) eight of whom are involved in the current coalition. All in all there are thirty four political parties. Jews are of all sects, ethnic and racial groups. Roughly twenty percent of the ten million population are Arab Muslims and a remaining five percent Christians, Bedouin, Druze and other minorities.
So to look at Israel as being constituted by a monolithic group of likeminded Jews is not only a myth it is a myth stake. Yet another myth to dispel is that the Haredim or ultra orthodox are a large segment of the population. This is an understandable misconception as they have dominated Israeli policy as a result of secularist cynical Netanyahu pandering to them in return for their support. In fact that they are only represent ten percent. Also forty percent of Israelis claim to be secular which is a spectrum ranging from total indifference to religion to it not playing any significant role in their lives.
ISRAEL’S INTERNATIONAL SITUATION JUNE 2021
There are a host of factors in the international arena that allowed the new government the freedom to make bold internal moves and not focus solely on the interminable Palestinian - Israeli conflict. For the first time in seventy five years they had real regional allies.besides their long time peace partners Egypt and Jordan and their under the table co operation with the Saudis. In one week Foreign Minister Lapid opened an Embassy in Bahrain, Defense Minister Gantz visited Morocco while Dubai invited Israel to have an exhibit at their Expo. The confident Israelis are producing a history of the Zionist movement from Herzl onwards as their display. In addition they have also established diplomatic relations with Sudan. Premier Bennett gave a passable performance at the United Nations. But that’s what everyone wants at the moment in politics - boredom. The world in general is sick and tired of simple solutions to complex problems and a record thirty eight nations boycotted the Durban Conference where Zionism is ritually condemned as racism. Also while no one is neglecting the plight of the Palestinians caught in the middle of Iran backed Hamas’s predictable periodic aggression. West Bank’s Abbas’s indecision and ambivalence is getting old adding to the frustration of cobbling a solution.
So it was a big help not to have the world breathing down their necks thereby allowing Bibi Netanyahu to shout the odds that he was the strongman who could guarantee Israel’s security.. It is a masterpiece of understatement to note that he was not missed at the United Nations this year! Biden is only too happy that he hasn’t got Bibi to deal with and is adapting a wait and see policy with regard to the new government initiatives. Bennett has reassured him that he won’t publicly attack him on any Iranian moves whether he agrees with him or not. The American bipartisan agreement on Israel has all but returned with only a few votes against giving Israel what they were promised - money to repair the dome after Hamas attacks. There appears to be little doubt that no moves will be made unilaterally by Israel or America on Iran
There was now one overriding factor that there was international agreement on and that was that the Palestinian West Bank’s nationhood or incorporation was not a hot issue. For starters Abbas was old and weak and hadn’t held an election since January 2006. As for Gaza, Israel’s Sharon had handed the territory over to the Palestinians in 2005 and Hamas had ruled since 2006 and there was no way that the latter were remotely interested in stabilizing the region. So from an international point of view pressure to create a two nation state in the region was negligible. It was this as a background the thirty - sixth Israeli government was formed.
ISRAELI INTERNAL SITUATION MAY/JUNE 2021
Israel had just held its fourth inconclusive national poll in four years. The only support Netanyahu was guaranteed was from the extreme Orthodox, (Haredi), religious parties to whom he had made concession after concession. However, there was no way he was able to form a government. He had antagonized and belittled enough political parties on the right to make it impossible. The best he could hope for and actively sort was a fifth election where he hoped the electorate would finally come around to his greatness and allow him a clearcut victory.
Internally a number of factors and events came together to make the Bennett/Lapid coalition possible. While every vote of the sixty - one members was crucial - who can forget the pragmatism of the Islamic List, and the tireless work and orchestration of Yair Lapid, who by all rights should have been the governmental head. In addition each cabinet member would have autonomy over their portfolios giving them a free hand in decision making and each party an influence.
However there were three names that in their own way contributed to the policies of this government of national unity and they are linked to one another. They are Naftali Bennett, Micah Goodman, a historian turned political scientist and the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks.
BENNETT, GOODMAN AND SACKS AND HOW IT ALL HANGS TOGETHER
Naftali Bennett is ideologically to the right of Netanyahu but who like so many had had an irreconcilable fall out with the former premier. Bennett had been his chief of staff. Any hope of rejoining a Netanyahu coalition had to be blown when Bibi publicly mocked Bennett as the idea began being floated at Bennett becoming. Prime Minister. Besides being articulate Bennett has great credibility with the highly influential minority very orthodox Haredi Jews, being orthodox himself. He further has been a settler on the West Bank as well as being a highly successful businessman and a Major in the Israeli army. He is an avid advocate of incorporating the West Bank into Israel. Much like Netanyahu he has spent periods in the United States where almost half of world Jewry live. He has been Minister of Diaspora Relations and is more than aware of the tensions that have arisen between the predominantly non orthodox American Jewish Community and the Netanyahu Haredi influenced regime. He was also ad idem with improving the lot of the minorities in Israel.
The Bennett/Lapid coalition have immediately put into effect decreasing the welfare to the Haredi as well as enforcing that they should not be exempted from compulsory army training.
His attitude to the formation of this unlikely coalition can be summed up by a statement he made on the anniversary of the fall of both the first and second temples, “The Jewish people twice had a Jewish State on the Land of Israel, and both times we did not succeed to complete the eighth decades as an independent state, because of internal wars and baseless hatred……we mourn the awful destruction which a people with a little more love, restraint and listening could have saved us…”
Bennett’s political soul mate and guru is Micah Goodman, a well respected right wing historian known really only in academic and intellectual circles in Israel. To understand the nuts and bolts as to what Bennett either bought into or was part of creating one has to know the political philosophy of Goodman.
MICAH GOODMAN
Professor Micah Goodman is a Research Fellow who like Naftali Bennett is orthodox and a settler on the West Bank himself. Till very recently his works were only published in Hebrew and were extensive arcane analyses of topics such as “Moses’s Last Speech” and “The Secrets of the Guide to the Perplexed”. He is a pluralist and a supporter of inter faith co operation. The relevant publication which he announced his revolutionary approach to the Israeli/Palestinian land conflict is entitled, “Catch 67, The Left, The Right and The Legacy of The Six Day War” Although it has been translated into English it is little read outside of Israel.
Catch 67 contains an extensive analysis of the left and right wing positions in Israel and why they exist. Jay H. Ell disagreed with much of this forerunner to his solutions but Goodman has been criticized for its assumptions by far more knowledgeable authorities than him. Ehud Barak a former Israeli Prime Minister pulled his arguments apart particularly in relation to the current security position in a devastating twenty four page indictment. Barak claims that Goodman’s right wing bias is shining through. Happily this argument doesn’t really impact on the central thesis of his solutions and therefore the current Israeli’s administration position on the West Bank.
Goodman believed in the Talmudic tradition where always two sides were presented and respectfully listened to each other giving opposing interpretations of Jewish Law. Often no conclusions were derived at. That is what he suggests for the Palestinian question for the moment.
Goodman wrote that the situation in the West Bank should be improved by Israel, Currently the West Bank is a patchwork of non contiguous chunks of land. These should all be joined together with roads and bridges and become a continuous whole. Already a suggestion that Israel grant tens of thousands more work permits for Palestinians has been put into effect. There has been a five hundred million dollar loan floated for the Palestinian Government and Joined Economic Committees are to be formed. Also the building of two thousand Palestinian homes on the West Bank while alotting land for further Arab development just outside of East Jerusalem is part of the proposal. Another policy which could only emanate from a Bennett was to limit Israeli settlement on the West Bank to where they currently are settlements. Goodman advocates that the security of the region should still solely be the prerogative of Israel.
While there are critics both on the left and the right eighty percent of the Israelis are in agreement with the three pronged approach of the Administration, “Kicking the Palestinian solution down the road”, seeing to internal priorities and doing far more for the non Jewish minorities within Israel.
Micah Goodman’s guru is the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks whose work he believes he has carried on to the extent that he has extended his philosophy and paradigms.
JONATHAN SACKS.
Rabbi Sacks was a giant intellectually both in the Jewish world and the world generally. In a memorial service Prince Charles referred to him as a “Light Unto The Nations”. This Charles did in the company of four previous British Prime Ministers who had used Sacks as an advisor. Sacks’s paradigm changing work included “Not in God’s Name”, where he reinterpreted Genesis to show the brotherhood of three monotheistic religions. As Goodman has pointed out Sacks sought paradigm change which could be interpreted through his thirty books, his monumental Ted talks and his acceptance speech for The Templeton Prize which is awarded annually to a recipient, “… who harnesses the power of the sciences to explore the deepest questions of the universe and humankind’s place and purpose within it.”
Sacks, to the chagrin of many of his followers, avoided taking political positions. He did however have two cardinal viewpoints on Israel. There was no way he would comment on their politics per se. He believed Israel’s existence was crucial especially following the holocaust and particularly now in the light of the growth of anti semitism. With regard to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict he was committed to a two nations solution. The closest he came to approaching his political position vis a vis Israel was the limited extent that he broached the subject in an address to the Bar -Lian University “ on “The Contemporary Task of Judaism”
There are many pieces of Sacks’s philosophy that the new government reflects. Sacks stated at Bar - Lian till Israel included its minorities it could not really have a national mission. He re - emphasized that the Jewish Torah over thirty times enjoined the jews to “Love the Stranger” while only a few times stated “Love thy neighbor”. Empathy and respecting difference while all should join in the common cause of humanity was outlined in his book “Dignity of Difference”. In Bar Lian, as he developed more fully in his final book on “Morality”, he reflected on the current failure of society both in the loss of communities and the growing inequities between citizens. He argued that unfettered individuality in liberal democracy and free trade had left society without a soul.
The gist of Sack’s address in Bar - Lian was that Israeli universities and religious colleges were in a position to create a new political paradigm for society which combined the best features of liberal democracy, free trade, an ethical code of behavior and narrowing the gap radically between the have’s and the have nots. Sack’s fantasized that Israel might be a model for the world. While Goodman has certainly followed several of Sack’s precepts in his “out of the box” solution to the Palestinian crisis, this is a temporary solution. In addition no new political order has been established to ensure the paradigm Sacks called for. Whichever way the experiment is viewed the interplay between, Bennett, Goodman and Sacks makes for rare history.
AT THE END OF THE DAY
The new Israeli government is off to a great start and obviously all the participants are sticking to their objectives. There has to be a tremendous reserve of trust embodied in the whole exercise and the true test will be how it plays out. In addition the outcome is predicated on the belief that the Palestinians will agree to the unilateral decision of the Israelis, that the internal situation will improve between all groups in Israel and that the Iranian threat will simmer down.
Ultimately there has to be a resolution to the land issue, Hopefully the progress made by the new initiatives will help in this regard.
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