The Speaker’s
Chair and the 67 Votes Behind It In a parliament, the hand that writes the order of business decides what the chamber spends its hours on. Israel’s new Knesset is sworn in on Tuesday. That gives opposition politicians their first chance to take control of some levers of power, even as they struggle to form a government to unseat Benjamin Netanyahu. The first lever is the speakership. The role is currently held by Amir Ohana, a Likud lawmaker and a close ally of the prime minister. It carries immense influence for one reason: the speaker controls the legislature’s agenda.
The opposition parties hold 67 seats in the 120-seat legislature. That is enough to install a consensus choice for speaker. It is not enough to produce a government. All of the opposition parties have described the current prime minister as a threat to the state, and all are keen to start moving against him. The divides that block a coalition are still standing.
The mandate to try to form a government went at the weekend to Gadi Eisenkot, the former Israeli military chief who leads the Yashar party. A mandate is a licence to negotiate and a deadline, not a government. President Isaac Herzog handed it over at his residence. If Eisenkot does not take the speaker role himself, the opposition parties have agreed that someone from his Yashar party will be the nominee.
The bloc itself is wider than its own promises. Yashar, B’Yachad, The Democrats and Yisrael Beitenu sit alongside the Arab-led Joint List and Ra’am, and together they control a majority of Knesset seats. Several of the Jewish-Israeli parties in that bloc have sworn not to sit with the Palestinian-led parties, which hold over a quarter of the bloc’s seats. They have also sworn not to join a minority government that has their backing. The same 67 votes that can choose a speaker run into those two oaths the moment a cabinet has to be formed. That is the difference between winning an afternoon and winning a term.
The Warning Letter and the Crowd Outside
On the day itself, the concern is physical. More than 160 top former security officials, including heads of the military, intelligence and police, warned that rightwing activists were planning to disrupt the swearing-in with violent attacks. The warning came in a letter from a forum of retired commanders called Democracy’s Protective Wall, addressed to serving security chiefs. It was specific about the plan: “Actors who oppose replacing the Knesset speaker intend to go to the Knesset on the day of the swearing-in ceremony and to prevent the MKs and their family members from entering the building.” [1] The letter, as quoted by the Ma’ariv newspaper, added that the same actors were encouraging tens of thousands of supporters to come and help them with their mission.
Palestinian citizens of Israel make up about 20 % of the population and voted in unprecedented numbers this year, giving them 19 seats. Without those seats the opposition bloc has fewer seats than Netanyahu’s diminished coalition. That is the trap: the majority that can unseat him depends on parties that several of its own members refuse to sit with.
Eisenkot has vowed to broker a national emergency government. He promised to achieve it with “creative and unconventional political acts”. He also warned, effectively, that some election promises would have to be broken to unseat Netanyahu: “No one will be able to fulfil all the [campaign] promises they made, and all of us will need to compromise. That is also leadership, to know when to decide and set priorities.” [1] A bloc assembled to remove one man still has to say what it will do with the office afterwards. The compromises he describes are the price of holding those 67 seats together.
A different road is being explored to his right. Avigdor Lieberman, the rightwing opposition leader, has been trying to seek an alternative path to government through an alliance with the ultra-Orthodox parties. Those parties have long been Netanyahu allies, but they have been frustrated by his failure to deliver on the promise to pass broad military draft exemptions for their community into law. Lieberman campaigned hard for universal conscription, and he now appears to prefer compromise on this issue to working with Palestinians. Arye Erlich, a leading Haredi journalist, asked in a column for Yedioth Ahronoth: “Has the End of Times arrived?” [1] He continued: “Has Avigdor Lieberman… the biggest persecutor of Haredim Israeli politics has seen in decades, suddenly come to believe that he can compromise on a military draft bill and sit in a coalition government alongside the Haredim?” The question is rhetorical, and it points at the price of that road: a compromise on the draft bill that Lieberman’s own campaign opposed.
A Week of Delay Is a Weapon
Even a deal, once reached, may not be announced at once. Eisenkot may delay announcing a coalition until Netanyahu’s speaker has been replaced. Ohana could delay signing in a new government for up to a week. Some of the opposition do not want to give Netanyahu that much time to attack the pressure points of any fragile deal. Netanyahu is a master of political survival and last-minute deals. He has fractured past coalitions by luring defectors into his own alliance.
Removing the speaker carries its own price. The coalition whip, Likud MK Ofir Katz, has ruled out a rotation agreement in a potential government. Herzog has publicly supported a unity government bringing together the opposition parties and Netanyahu.
The replacement candidate is not settled. Lieberman is demanding that MK Oded Forer be appointed speaker, a choice likely to face opposition from the Arab parties. On Sunday Lieberman declined to back Eisenkot for prime minister, while Naftali Bennet of B’Yachad and The Democrats leader Yair Golan endorsed Eisenkot. Lieberman was set to meet Golan on Monday. He has said his party will not enter a coalition that includes the two Arab-led parties, and he has ruled out joining a government with Netanyahu. The man demanding the speaker’s chair has ruled out both coalitions that chair would have to serve.
If Eisenkot cannot form a government, the mandate passes to other leaders. If they fail as well, Israel must hold elections again. In the meantime Netanyahu and his far-right allies would stay on as a caretaker government. Netanyahu is calling for his opponents to join him in a unity government. A long period of limbo followed by a new vote offers him a likelier path back to power. Herzog is scheduled to meet the party leaders on Wednesday to receive their nominations.
