Senior government officials' ability to blur the enormous gaps in their worldviews is growing more and more difficult by the day. In every government, there are differences of opinion. Still, these are not the differences of opinion we are witness to in this coalition, which includes sworn ideological opponents who succeeded in working together to unite around one common point. Try as Bennett might on his trips overseas to present his government as ushering in a new Israeli era of dialogue and cooperation, a government is not a symposium or cultural panel but the operational arm of the state. The current government resembles something closer to a motley crew. The Knesset's winter session will further emphasize the rifts, although not necessarily enough to torpedo the government.
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To date, the government has conducted itself under routine conditions. Although this government has been leading the country in a pandemic, these conditions were nevertheless routine. As long as there is no significant external event, the likes of which will sharpen the impossible-to-bridge rifts between the Meretz and Yamina parties and Ra'am's religious conservatism and the liberal indulgences of Yesh Atid, the government can continue the act it has been putting on since being sworn-in to office three months ago.
The winter session poses quite a few challenges to the government and raises the possibility additional rickety stitches holding it together will come apart at the seams. A meeting between government ministers and the leader of the Arabs in Judea and Samaria, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, as another minister, Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, made clear she would never meet with a Holocaust denier, is just one example of how both sides are beginning to feel like they have had enough of one another. This does not, however, mean they won't do everything in their power to stick together.
Netanyahu's fate up in the air
The upcoming Knesset session will see renewed efforts toward legislation and initiatives that are certain to send the coalition into a frenzy. Still, as long as security and diplomatic routine is maintained, the desire to remain in power will remain the coalition's primary concern and the government will remain intact. This also, to some extent, depends on Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu, whose moves will also determine government stability. The more prominent he appears, the stronger the ties between coalition members will become. The less we hear from him, the more their bonds will loosen.
That is why the winter session that kicks off Monday is no less important to Netanyahu than it is to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister and Prime Minister-designate Yair Lapid. With some senior members of Netanyahu's party raising their heads and looking, whether publicly or behind the scenes, to run for Likud leadership, with questions as to his political future being raised in recent weeks, this session could prove to be just as decisive for the former premier himself as it is for the coalition.
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