Yamina MK Idit Silman, her fellow party members Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked and Nir Orbach, and perhaps a few lawmakers from the New Hope party genuinely hoped to have it both ways when they established the government. They thought they could join forces with a coalition that ceded the right-wing majority in the Knesset upfront and without having to pay the price of integrating radical leftists and Arabs into one coalition and appointing them to key positions.
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They really wanted their and their parties' standing to improve after a few months in power. They wanted Israelis to get used to the coalition, and Naftali Bennett's role as prime minister in particular, as Israelis have come to do with every individual who came to power before him. None of this happened.
The more time passes, the more various communities – including those who wanted to give the coalition and its false promises a chance – join the circle of disappointment. They are most bothered by the fact that has been a one-way street. A significant public has abandoned ship, but no one has joined the ranks in their place. The Left, which generally supports the coalition, does not support Bennett or intend to vote for Yamina, and the pool of right-wing voters who supported the government is running out.
The latest group to abandon the coalition is the Yesha Council, the umbrella organization of Jewish localities in Judea and Samaria. Prominent regional council and community leaders, including the chairman of the Yesha Council himself, David Elhayani, supported the government almost without reservation. It was difficult to convince Elhayani and his friends that they were being led astray and that there was no chance the coalition would be good for the settlements.
Once it turned out that the government's foreign policy is reliant on absolute subjugation to the Americans and the current administration, which is more hostile to the settlements even than former US Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, there was no longer any need to convince them. Instead of the hostile and suspicious reception former US Secretary of State John Kerry received from the former government, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is welcomed as if he were an old friend.
Yamina lawmakers have felt the political noose tightening around their necks of late. A few months ago, they could have offered up excuses and justified the move, but that is much more difficult to do today. Still, the path from here to resignation, whether by Silman or any of the others, is long.
This group has been invested in this government and spent too much time convincing themselves of the need for their actions for far too long to admit to failure. Nevertheless, the failure is so conspicuous that it remains unclear if they will be able to hang on for much longer.
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