Benjamin Netanyahu's mandate has expired. On Wednesday the president transferred it to Yair Lapid, who now has 28 days to establish one of the most complex and difficult governments to ever be formed in Israel.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
Jews and Arabs, right-wingers and leftists, religious and secular, conservatives and progressives, champions of "Jewish and democratic" alongside proponents of "a country of all its citizens." It could be a wonderful recipe for co-existence and unity, but it could also clash and quickly fall apart, and maybe not come together at all.
There's virtually no synchronicity in any area. Take, for example, the issue of security: Naftali Bennett is a right-winger, hawkish, his security outlook is militant, uncompromising, heavy-handed toward Israel's enemies, outspoken. How will it work when he has to cooperate with Arab MKs and Nitzan Horowitz, who wants to collaborate with the International Criminal Court at The Hague?
Take the matter of the settlements. Just on Tuesday, Gideon Sa'ar signed a bill, drafted by Religious Zionist party MK Orit Struck, promoting settlement development. Ze'ev Elkin is a proponent of the "Greater Israel" movement. How will they get along with Lapid, who has said the settlements are "too expensive for us" and that he won't "lend a hand to settlement construction?"
Ayelet Shaked, whose life work is to reform the justice system, the appointment of conservative judges, and a desire to pass the override clause (to give the government the authority to circumvent the High Court of Justice) – how is she supposed to work with Benny Gantz, who has already rejected the override clause and other anti-court legislation outright? And we haven't even mentioned the next minister of Religious Affairs, Matan Kahana, who considers himself far more orthodox than others perceive him to be, or his stance on surrogacy and civil marriage issues.
It isn't even a matter of brazenly breaking election promises anymore, such as Bennett ("I will never sit with Lapid or Meretz") and Sa'ar ("sitting with Lapid is like sitting with Peter Pan) – who both recommended Lapid to the president on Wednesday. The effort to form a Lapid-Bennett government lacks any common ground beyond "anyone but Netanyahu." This might be good for an election fight and rallying a political bloc, but can the country be managed with these colliding agendas? It's hard to imagine such a government ever functioning.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
