Bennett’s reasons to be cheerful (one, two and three)

A government with a clear horizon of at least another 12 months can pursue actual policies and try to enact urgently needed reforms. That doesn’t mean it will be plain sailing, even if the coalition keeps together until 2023.

The unique makeup of eight parties, spanning nearly the entire political spectrum and including for the first time an Arab Islamist party, is a recipe for nearly constant disputes.

But its members have already proved they can act against their core beliefs to stay in power together. Members of Meretz have voted to fund West Bank settlements; the nationalists of Yamina, New Hope and Yisrael Beiteinu greenlighted planning permission for illegally constructed homes in the Arab sector.

Their joint desire to end the electoral stalemate and try to move Israeli politics beyond the toxic divide over the personal fate of Mr Netanyahu provided the motivation to overcome deep ideological differences. Since the now ex-prime minister seems to have no plans to leave the scene, denying him a comeback will still keep them together in 2022.

It’s sad the only thing creating a modicum of unity in Israeli politics is antipathy towards one political figure, but as the Talmud says: “Mitoch shelo lishma, ba lishma” – meaning if you do the right thing for the wrong reasons, it may be for the right reasons in the end.

Or in other words, the anti-Netanyahu coalition of 2021 can chalk up fresh achievements in 2022.

The pandemic policy pays off

The Omicron variant arrived in Israel in late 2021. Thanks to an early decision by Naftali Bennett to close Ben-Gurion Airport to arrivals from countries on the red list, the rapid spread of the much more infectious variant picked up speed four weeks later than in Britain and other European states.

This allowed the government to analyse data from abroad and formulate its own strategy in the first week of 2022.

Information from Britain (which over the past two years of the pandemic had established ever closer working relations between the two countries’ public health systems) convinced a majority of Israel’s medical experts that there was little point in restoring significant social restrictions, let alone a lockdown, as Omicron would spread anyway.

At the same time, the new variant, while much more contagious, posed less of a threat to the health of those infected, especially those already vaccinated with three doses – nearly half of Israel’s population.

Mr Bennett faced a difficult dilemma on New Year’s Eve. He could listen to one school of thought in Israel’s medical establishment, which advocated playing it safe and closing down parts of the economy in the hope of curbing not only the spread of Omicron and a new wave of the Delta variant but also an outbreak of ’flu.

Such a course of action, they argued, would give extra insurance that the Israeli health system would not be overwhelmed by serious cases of illness.

Or he could stick with the policy that had worked five months earlier with the first wave of the Delta variant, which Israel had come through without resorting to another lockdown, thanks in part to a swift rollout of the third ‘booster’ jabs.

He chose the second course. At the time of writing, it’s impossible to predict whether the calculated risk will pay off. Critics of the government’s strategy include some significant experts who argue that it is irresponsible not to put any restrictions in place when dealing with a variant which is capable of doubling the number of infections every three days.

Even though a relatively smaller proportion will be hospitalised, the numbers could still surpass the full capacity of Israel’s hospitals, which currently stands at 1,500 serious cases.

Mr Bennett is sticking though with the assessments projecting a likely lower number and in the meantime is rolling out a fourth dose of vaccine for over-60s and those at high-risk of serious illness.

He’s also stocking up on Pfizer’s new antiviral medication for the coronavirus, which should enable hospitals to send patients home within days.

It won’t take long to find out which prediction was more accurate. In the worst-case scenario, by the end of January Israel will be forced into a lockdown either way as a quarter of its population will be infected by then and hospitals overwhelmed.

The implications for the country in the third year of the pandemic will be dire. If the worst-case fails to materialise, Israel will have proved that a largely vaccinated population backed up by efficient medication for the worst cases can ultimately withstand the new variants of the coronavirus with only limited disruption to daily life.

But 2022 will become the year we finally learn how to live with Covid 19. And we can start to worry again about other matters.

Priceless peace now. Pay later...

The past year was a misleading one when it comes to gauging the situation of the Israel-Palestine conflict. May 2021 saw the worst outbreak of fighting between Israel and Gaza in seven years, with 12 days of intense rocket launches against Israel’s cities, provoking devastating air-strikes on Gaza.

These were coupled with a severe escalation in rioting in east Jerusalem and in Israel’s “mixed” cities. It also saw an escalation in rhetoric from many of Israel’s critics overseas, including two reports by human rights organisations describing Israel as an “apartheid” state and some prominent voices joining the boycott campaign.

But overall, the pressure on Israel to change its policies towards the Palestinians if anything was more muted in 2021. Especially once it became clear the ceasefire in Gaza was holding, and following the inauguration of a new Israeli government which has an official policy of not making any drastic moves on the Palestinian front.

That means no annexations in the West Bank and no diplomatic process with the Palestinians either. Expectations that the new US administration would change course and push Israel to make significant concessions to the Palestinians proved baseless.

In fact, President Joe Biden is showing no inclination of wasting any of his precious time on a conflict none of his predecessors succeeded in solving and is sticking for now by Donald Trump’s decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem.

And despite fears that an escalation in Gaza could wreck the peace agreements Israel signed with Arab regimes, the embassies in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco were opened as planned, and frosty relations with Egypt and Jordan visibly warmed up under the Bennett government.

The new mantra is “shrinking the conflict”, a formulation invented by Israeli philosopher and writer Micah Goodman, who has become the new government’s unofficial guru.

It means trying to minimise sources of tension on the ground with the Palestinians, especially in the West Bank, while deferring resolution of core issues of the conflict – borders, refugees, Jerusalem – for another decade at least.

Dr Goodman’s idea isn’t new. Israeli politicians, including Mr Bennett, have advocated similar ideas of “economic peace”, which were aimed at improving the material situation of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza while not allowing a full-fledge Palestinian state.

The Palestinians, of course, will not accept such a deal in the foreseeable future, but there’s reason to believe that unofficially at least they may be prepared to live with it in the short term. For a year or so perhaps.

The Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority is anxious to safeguard its fiefdoms in the West Bank from Hamas intrusion and democratic elections. While he will still grumble in public, the status quo works well for 86-year-old Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as his two recent meetings with Defence Minister Benny Gantz proved.

Likewise, Hamas is now focused on rebuilding and retaining its hold on Gaza and is more focused on trying to ease the blockade by diplomatic means than another round of rockets. As for Israel’s Palestinian citizens, for the first time they have representatives within the Israeli government.

The prevailing mood is to wait and see what Mansour Abbas’s Ra’am can do for them before embarking on new riots. The year 2022 may be the one in which the main players allow the conflict to shrink.

The only problem is that even if it shrinks, the conflict won’t go away and will still be around, and may be primed to explode in 2023.