Leaders
After more than a decade in power, Benjamin Netanyahu's light dims
The JC Leader: September 20 2019
September 19, 2019 13:24
1 min read
The JC Leader: September 20 2019
September 19, 2019 13:24As we went to press this week, the only certainty after this week’s Israeli election was that Benjamin Netanyahu’s grip on power is weaker than at any point over the past decade.
As in April’s election, neither main bloc has mustered much enthusiasm from voters. In short, neither Blue and White nor Likud won — but Mr Netanyahu lost.
The Arab Joint List increased its vote but the only real winner was Avigdor Lieberman, who just a few months ago seemed to be struggling even to make the electoral threshold and effectively forced this election. He gambled and won. Now he is kingmaker.
It is always too early to write off Mr Netanyahu but with Mr Lieberman backing Benny Gantz’s call for a unity government, the odds seem to favour the former IDF chief of staff as the next PM.
For all the rhetoric of the campaign, there is, in truth, little between the two party leaders on the key security issues. Indeed, that was Mr Gantz’s selling point to voters.
But, although it is beginning to look as if Mr Netanyahu’s political career will soon have to be described in the past tense — not least because he is about to face three criminal charges — and for all the frustrations so many Israelis have felt about him for many years, he has to be recognised as a political giant.
Love him, loathe him or merely acknowledge his skills, Bibi is the very definition of a heavyweight.
The mere fact of remaining as prime minister for a decade in a system where political collapse and chaos are almost constitutional requirements is testament to that.
But Mr Netanyahu is no longer the same dominant figure. It is clear that political change is coming to Israel, whether sooner or later.