{"id":300467,"date":"2026-02-20T05:30:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T05:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/300467\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T05:30:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T05:30:07","slug":"israel-cant-heal-if-the-govt-keeps-performing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/300467\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel can’t heal if the gov’t keeps ‘performing’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Months before voters head to the polls, and before Israel has even set a date for its next election, the opposition that is seeking to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> and his government is already breaking apart. The opposition leaders are engaging in attacks on each other, setting up political traps, and formulating excuses for failure.<\/p>\n

On Thursday morning, a leaked recording of former prime minister Naftali Bennett was published by Kipa News, in which Bennett floated the idea of a national unity government modeled on the late-1980s arrangement between Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Shamir.<\/p>\n

The comparison itself was not particularly controversial or unwelcome; Israel is still warring with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, with a second major war with Iran appearing more and more inevitable by the day.<\/p>\n

In the recording, he rejected the politics of blanket boycotts and said he would not rule out governing alongside National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich<\/a>. Bennett said that the national security minister is a \u201cdeeply unserious individual,\u201d adding that \u201cclowning is no substitute for seriousness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smotrich, by contrast, was described as \u201ccombative but hardworking,\u201d with Bennett arguing that his inclusion in Bennett\u2019s previous coalition would have removed the need to rely on Mansour Abbas\u2019s Ra\u2019am faction.<\/p>\n

These remarks drew the immediate ire of figures who are supposed to be Bennett\u2019s natural political partners in any post-Netanyahu alignment.<\/p>\n

\"PrimePrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former prime minister Naftali Bennett. (Illustrative) (credit: Canva, FLASH90, MARC ISRAEL SELLEM, REUTERS\/AMIR COHEN\/FILE PHOTO)<\/p>\n

Yair Golan warned that Israel must be \u201crepaired\u201d from its current condition, declaring that his Democrats faction would not \u201clend a hand to a government that includes those responsible for internal division, the systematic destruction of the rule of law, and the October 7 massacre.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yashar! Head Gadi Eisenkot struck a similar tone, arguing that anyone who held senior responsibility on October 7, \u201cincluding cabinet members and at their head Prime Minister Netanyahu,\u201d is \u201cunworthy, unfit, and must not hold public office.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eisenkot called on politicians to \u201clook forward,\u201d a sentiment that opposition leader Yair Lapid<\/a> endorsed with a brief but telling \u201cagreed.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Lapid found his own position under attack earlier this week after appearing to launch a preemptive \u201cgevalt\u201d campaign, warning of disaster before the campaign had even begun.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe polls being published, along with very troubling in-depth studies that have not been published, indicate that it is no longer at all certain that the liberal bloc will win,\u201d Lapid cautioned. \u201cIf we don\u2019t come to our senses, we will lose. If we continue working against one another, we will lose.\u201d<\/p>\n

And this is the heart of the problem that has been plaguing Israel\u2019s politics for years.<\/p>\n

Since October 7<\/a>, opposition figures have argued that they would have governed, prepared, and responded better than Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition. Yet now, those same figures appear to be laying the groundwork for explaining why victory may be impossible.<\/p>\n

Lapid is right about one thing: The opposition bloc appears unlikely to be able to reach a majority without the Joint List \u2013 a prospect that remains politically toxic for the majority of lawmakers and voters in his bloc. However, the uncomfortable truth for the sitting coalition is that it, too, appears to struggle to reach a majority on its own.<\/p>\n

Gov’t has become ‘overrun with identity politics, boycotts’<\/p>\n

If these realities push politicians to double down on mutually assured destruction \u2013 targeting the very people they will need to govern with \u2013 then Israel risks remaining trapped in the same cycle of division and identity politics that brought the Jewish state to October 7.<\/p>\n

This is true not only for the opposition. It is a symptom of a broader failure, on both the Left and the Right, to move past October 6. While Israeli voters are vying for their elected officials to highlight their responsibility and ability to govern, the Knesset has become overrun with identity politics, boycotts, and loyalty tests.<\/p>\n

Voters are tired. They have been scarred repeatedly, from every direction. They are less interested in populist rhetoric and more interested in answers. Answers on restoring security, holding those in power both politically and militarily accountable, and how the country will function on the day after.<\/p>\n

If Israel\u2019s political class continues to perform for the cameras instead of making their case, the result will stray far away from the \u201crehabilitation\u201d the nation needs. Instead, it will only lead Israel into deeper stagnation.<\/p>\n

Without a serious and immediate shift in tone and priorities, the divisions that have plagued and weakened Israel in the years leading up to October 7 will continue to define it in the years to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Months before voters head to the polls, and before Israel has even set a date for its next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,1982,12513,955,69,51,85,46,837,14406,953,43,112344,58,22171,19344],"class_list":{"0":"post-300467","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-benjamin-netanyahu","9":"tag-bezalel-smotrich","10":"tag-boycott","11":"tag-gadi-eisenkot","12":"tag-gaza-strip","13":"tag-hamas","14":"tag-il","15":"tag-israel","16":"tag-itamar-ben-gvir","17":"tag-knesset","18":"tag-naftali-bennett","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-october-7-commission-of-inquiry","21":"tag-the-october-7-massacre","22":"tag-yair-golan","23":"tag-yair-lapid"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}