The leaders of Blue and White insist on beating their heads against a brick wall. Every few days, the senior members of the party step up their tone against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but he refuses to be moved. By ignoring them, he is driving them crazy. On Monday evening, Benny Gantz and Gabi Ashkenazi threatened openly to take Israel into an election within two weeks if a state budget were not submitted.
Netanyahu's response – crickets. A political crisis that could have made headlines and taken over the agenda was left on the sidelines, mostly because of the prevailing belief that Blue and White is waving nothing more than a toy pistol. Netanyahu can keep ignoring them, and the ultimatum will die on its own.
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For months, the Likud and Blue and White have been fighting over every possible issue. But recent polls have shown Netanyahu that the party with which he is sharing power and to which he is supposed to hand over leadership of the country in a little over a year from now is simply not worth his attention. After supporting a bill to put restrictions on protests, Blue and White lost its base, the same base it begged to stay when it fully backed the ills of the legal system, the tricks of the attorney general, and the maneuvers of the State Attorney's Office.
Polls that delve deep indicate that Blue and White effectively no longer exists. It's single-digit projected electoral strength in media polls is mainly the result of inertia and the lack of viable alternatives on the Left, but there is no doubt whatsoever that the situation will be the same at the moment of truth when an election is finally announced. As of now, Netanyahu has no intention of doing what Gantz is demanding and submitting a budget for 2021, and according to his people, the only budget that will be put on the table in December will cover 2020. In March, if the ultimatum dries up and disappears, the prime minister will have another opportunity before the November 2021 rotation to call an election.
Netanyahu prefers to deal with Naftali Bennett and Yamina than Blue and White. The more Gantz and Ashkenazi attack him, the more Netanyahu attacks Bennett. In an election campaign, he might have to embrace the Yamina leader and promise that he will play a major role in his next government, and express his regret that Bennett didn't join the current one. He can then count the votes that will return to the Likud as voters seek to shore up the prime minister against those who oppose him.
Netanyahu also doesn't want to hold an election when the Likud and Yamina are close in their numbers of projected seats. He knows that if he does, it will lead the media to embrace Bennett and cause him major headaches in forming a government. Netanyahu is also doing a better job of handling attacks from the Left than from the Right, which is why Bennett is being pushed into a corner with the message of a new alliance between Yamina and Yesh Atid. It's not impossible that this is why Netanyahu suddenly decided to permit the weekly demonstrations outside the Prime Minister's Residence to continue, which only strengthen him in his own camp.
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