The Israeli Left has had an obsessive compulsion to cry out constantly about the sanctity of Israeli Democracy. Ironically, no institution has done more to shame, tarnish, and cheapen Israeli democracy than Israel's Left, including the latest deceit that has unfolded with formalizing the Naftali Bennett government. His Yamina party that literally campaigned as "right-wing oriented" (the word's very definition) now has coalesced with an amalgam of left parties: (i) Yair Lapid's moderately left Yesh Atid, (ii) Merav Michaeli's even more left-wing socialist Labor, (iii) Nitzan Horowitz's even more extreme-left Meretz, and (iv) Mansour Abbas's anti-Zionist Ra'am that is has been described as pro-Islamist.
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The democratic system of Israel all-too-often proves to be a terribly disenfranchising democracy. Not that America's democracy is all that better. And maybe that is the point: If people of all stripes and countries are dishonest and deceitful — because they are human beings — then a government of the Deceitful, by the Deceitful, and for the Deceitful is to be expected everywhere.
Perhaps Israel's most difficult manifestation of Deceit Democracy came in 1992 when voters' predilections for a right-wing government were subverted by the quirks of that year's election rules and the foolish hubris of too many right-wing political figures who splintered each other into electoral oblivion. Likud, the right-wing Moledet and Tzomet parties, and three religious parties aggregated for 59 seats, and some didn't pass the minimum electoral threshold of 1.5%.
This resulted in Labor and Yitzhak Rabin winning, and they pushed through the disastrous Oslo Accords that gave Yasser Arafat a polity of his own. Rabin secured support for the accords using two right-wing novice Knesset members to vote with the left. One, Alex Goldfarb, notoriously was secured with various perks, and the other, Gonen Segev, later would be remembered also as a criminal.
Thus did Israeli democracy unfold to give Yasser Arafat control of television, radio, and print media with which to direct the education of future generations of Arab children in Judea and Samaria; an armed police force, and a polity that now sits in the United Nations and initiates ICC investigations into Israel.
The people of Israel did not vote for that, just as they did not vote for Gush Katif to be evacuated and 8,600 Jews to be displaced, along with all they had built in Gaza – homes, gardens, industry, agriculture, synagogues, yeshivot – when Ariel Sharon on the Likud ticket leveraged his landslide election over Labor's Ehud Barak in that way.
Now, once again, voters of Israel – particularly those who voted for Yamina – brace for the same outcome. They were presented with a smorgasbord of right-wing parties: the Likud, the two main Haredi parties, and the "Religious Zionism" party that amalgamated theologically Centrist Orthodox and political right-wing Jews. Yet they gave Yamina seven seats because they wanted a Likud-like government but more dependably right-wing than what they believed Netanyahu and Likud would assure. Many Yamina voters feared that Likud's and Netanyahu's most forthright campaign promises would not be honored after the election. In the past, he had guaranteed to annex whole sections of Judea and Samaria, such as Area C, but he not only failed to fulfill that promise but even presided over unprecedented illegal Arab building there. He had promised at least to annex the Jordan Valley but ultimately did not. Other promises likewise were not actualized.
The 273,836 Israelis who voted for Yamina predominantly wanted to hold Likud's toes to the fire by attaching a right-wing pressure point that would prevent Likud from reneging on core right-wing promises. Whereas Gideon Sa'ar and Avigdor Liberman made clear that their parties never would sit with Netanyahu, Bennett always made clear that he would sit under Netanyahu. That motivated Yamina voters to give Bennett enough seats to enter post-election negotiations in a position of strength to demand the Defense Ministry, where he previously had proved excellent and tough.
That is what makes Bennett's deal with Yair Lapid so pernicious. Bennett was elected with his team to coalesce with others to form a grand religious-right government that would fix the courts, secure the south, and refocus on issues like the Judaic character of Area C. He was not elected to create a government that would give cabinet ministries to a socialist Labor party of seven seats, a similarly sized Liberman party, a radically extreme-left Meretz of six seats, and an Islamist party of four seats. Bennett made an explicit promise to Israel's voters: under no circumstances would he ever sign a deal to form a government with Yair Lapid, not even to alternate as prime minister with him. And yet he just did.
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