After eight months in power, it seems the right-wing flank of the coalition has decided to flex its muscle for the first time and pass the citizenship law with the help of right-wing opposition parties despite opposition from the Left. So far, the only side that has made it difficult for the coalition to function, opposed government legislation, and supported personal legislation to promote their own agenda unhindered has been the Left. As a result, Monday's vote in the Knesset will be remembered as a landmark event for the current government.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
This is not much of an achievement, truth be told. Israeli governments have passed the law in question almost automatically over the last 18 years. However, not everything that was a given in regular governments is relevant in a coalition whose members include the most radical members of the anti-Zionist camp. The passage of the citizenship law is one moment of clarity in the madness of the recent months.
The Knesset majority that will approve the law, assuming Yamina and New Hope do not chicken out in fear of threats from Meretz and Ra'am, is a vast majority and a better reflection of the will of the people, as emerged in the last elections, than the bizarre composition concocted by calculating politicians.
The citizenship law coalition provides a glimpse of the sanity that could have been had it not encountered the endless cynicism of the nothing party heads propping up this government. Such a coalition could have stretched from the Likud, through Yamina, the Religious Zionism Party, the Haredi parties, New Hope to even Blue and White, had these parties' leaders forgone the ego trip, personal vendettas, and lust for power.
The head of the Shin Bet security agency, who provided Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked with alarming statistics on the developing security situation the result of the absence of legislation, spurred her to pass the law as quickly as possible. But what really tipped the scales and showed the right-wing partners they could not relinquish the issue was their partners on the Left.
Between the lines of their sharp criticisms of the move, which they called "racist" and vile," critics of the legislation in fact gave the bill their approval when they made clear it would not lead any of them to topple the government. The greatest revenge they would exact is the rejection of legislation the coalition would be interested in passing, and that is something the government can handle, as long as it continues to govern as usual.
The most significant challenges to the balance of power between the right- and left-wing parties in the coalition may appear later on down the line. Potential challenges include the establishment of the Evyatar outpost or legislation to connect settlement homes to the national electrical grid. Although the way things have been going thus far, it seems Meretz head Nitzan Horowitz, Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid, and Labor leader Meirav Michaeli can rest at ease. To promote such moves, right-wing party members would have to muster up enough courage to stand up for their beliefs, something that has not happened thus far and is unlikely to happen once the citizenship law has passed.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
