The election slogan that reveals: even in Likud they no longer believe in 62 mandates | Sofi Ron-Moria

The Likud election slogan is an official admission of the defeat for which the ruling party is preparing. Campaign strategists are taking care to prepare a cure for an electoral blow that, from their point of view, is inevitable. One can argue until eternity about whether there are ten, or even five, people in the Likud leadership who trust Momo Filber's polls. Even if three are found, it turns out they are not partners in decision-making regarding the campaign. Whoever drafted the election slogan does not trust Filber's polls and does not believe in 62 mandates for the Haredi-Likud bloc. Therefore, they are looking for a political alternative two and a half months before the elections without waiting for the day after.

The Likud slogan "a broad national government" actually broadcasts a message intended to establish Israel as a kind of constitutional monarchy in the British style. A royal family is a constant, but there is a parliament and elections are held. If a party that the queen or king favors is defeated in the elections, the monarch must accept the voter's decision and work with a prime minister who is not popular in the royal house.

Thus, Queen Victoria in the 70s and 80s of the 19th century was forced to accept the voter's decree not once or twice, but four times, and work with Chancellor William Gladstone and not with Benjamin Disraeli, whom she clearly preferred. But whether Disraeli or Gladstone sat on the Chancellor's throne, the queen kept the crown in any case. Victoria sat on the throne for 63 years, until the day of her death.

"A broad national government" in the Likud slogan is a change of coalition without changing the ruling family. The current government has no chance to continue, and the Haredi-Hardal-Likud bloc does not have a majority in the elections. What to do? By necessity, they are forming another coalition led by Benjamin Netanyahu. He will have to manage with coalition partners that the Israeli voter is expected to force upon him in their stubbornness.

What is a broad national government?

Ask a Likud supporter from the street which parties he would like to see in a "broad national coalition". Ask him to assemble the coalition. He will scratch his head and answer you, who actually? Ah yes, it's good to add to the coalition the right that was lost. Avigdor Lieberman, Naftali Bennett (well, let Yair Lapid be there too if they already connected). Maybe Gadi Eizenkot too. Without extremists, that is, Itamar Ben Gvir is out.

And what about the Haredim? Maybe without United Torah Judaism, but with Shas. Ah yes, Bezalel Smotrich is inside too. That is, Likud, Smotrich and maybe Shas, a magnitude of 35-36 mandates according to today's polls - which requires adding at least two more parties. Let's say, Bennett-Lapid and Lieberman, or Eizenkot and Bennett-Lapid.

A broad national government without extremists, without Ben Gvir and without Yair Golan, you say? Do a simple calculation. Without Golan and without Ben Gvir, the block of three parties (Eizenkot, Lieberman, Bennett-Lapid) bypasses the Netanyahu-Smotrich-Deri-United Torah Judaism block. So what will cause two out of the three parties to crown Netanyahu, when the candidate on behalf of the opposition parties will have a larger number of fingers in the Knesset? If the election results are like the results of today's polls more or less, who determined that Netanyahu and not Eizenkot should head a "broad national government"?

Ask a militant supporter of the current government. Let's say, a person from the combative Likud base, from the supporters of Tali Gottlieb, or one of Smotrich's voters. Not one who believes the promises of Channel 14 and expects 62 mandates that the block will rake in, but one who considers reality. He will tell you - a broad national government is the current government plus a party that will complete the majority needed for the block. Who will complete the majority? Bennett? Eizenkot? Lieberman? It doesn't matter, one of the three will suffice.

Even the hard core of the coalition is willing to accept the need to establish a "broad national government", only from its point of view the meaning is to thicken the block. The next government will continue the judicial reform, will continue to pour huge budgets on the Haredi autonomy, but will throw some bones from the state budget to a partner outside the block, because without it there is no majority.

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Basically, when there is no clear and sharp decision in the elections, the traditional option is the establishment of a unity government. See the Shamir-Peres government in 1984. A head of a large party can also prefer a unity government over a narrower government, if in his opinion small or medium parties present excessive demands - as Yitzhak Shamir did in 1988. Or establish a unity government and cheat the partner when the time comes to execute the rotation agreement, as Peres did in 1990 and Netanyahu in 2021 ("stinking trick" I and "stinking trick" II).

Only in 2001 did Ariel Sharon establish a government with the Labor party without rotation, and this is because he was elected in direct elections for prime minister after Ehud Barak's resignation without new elections for the Knesset being held. But since the ceremony ended, Uzi Landau and Yossi Beilin joined together to cancel the direct election law, and Israel returned to being a full parliamentary republic.

It is not for nothing that the phrase "national unity government" was erased from the Likud narrative. God forbid mentioning such a concept, it is unthinkable. A national unity government is a government with rotation, and there is no such animal, rotation on the king, unless it is a rotation within the royal family. Yonatan Hasson is the only candidate who can replace Netanyahu in the position after two years. The heads of the opposition parties are not in the family.

Without boycotts

"Enough with the boycotts," the Likud campaigners poetize. Israel has fallen into a severe political crisis because of the refusal of the "only not Bibi" camp to sit with Netanyahu. Let them remove the boycott, let them enter a broad national government - and salvation will come to Zion.

Only the one who disqualifies is himself disqualified. The opponents of the Netanyahu block have demonstrated at least three times their willingness to give up the boycotts. In November 2019, when Lapid and Gantz, then leaders of Blue and White, agreed to a compromise proposed by the then President of the State Reuven Rivlin, according to which a unity government with rotation would be established when the government is based on the two largest parties, Blue and White and Likud - 33 and 32 mandates respectively - the one who disqualified the possibility was Netanyahu. In March 2020, when Gantz dismantled Blue and White and joined the government, Netanyahu violated the agreement and hurried to dismantle the government to avoid rotation. In October 2023, when Lapid and Lieberman expressed willingness to join the coalition, when each one set a most logical condition, Netanyahu refused firmly.

Paradoxically, it is the opposition parties that are capable, as it appears as of today, to establish a broad national government, if the voter does not provide a clear decision between the blocks in the elections. A government based on the block of opposition parties to which one of the coalition parties will join. The house on Balfour Street is not registered in the land registry to the Netanyahu family. The question "why are you boycotting" should be directed precisely to the Likud representatives. They are the ones who boycott any government that Benjamin Netanyahu does not head as if Israel were a constitutional monarchy and not a parliamentary republic.

And finally, two words about the Ardan-Edelstein party. A few years ago, when the Likud party had not yet lost its mind although it had already begun the process, Yuli Edelstein referred to the proposals to change the Law of Return. The story he told was about a grandfather for whom they planned to sew pants for a grandson's bar mitzvah and an argument arose in the family. There were those who claimed that the pants were too short, and there were those who claimed against them that the pants were too long, they stretched and cut - and in the end the grandfather was left without pants.

Fate willed it, and the new party that Gilad Ardan and Yuli Edelstein launched last week was amazingly similar already at the time of its birth to the grandfather's pants from Yuli's story. It does not disqualify partnership with an Arab party, although actually it does. Ardan and Edelstein recently expressed support for the establishment of a state commission of inquiry that will investigate the failure of October 7, but actually they oppose it. The party will not sit in a narrow government of the opposition, and for the Netanyahu block, with it or without it - a government does not appear.

As of the time of writing these lines, on Wednesday, the party that still has no name receives less than one and a half percent in the polls. Even for short pants it will not be enough. This is not how one enters a synagogue and also not the Knesset.