Netanyahu set to take fifth term as Israeli Prime Minister with virus soaring

Whether by catalyst or by cause, the coronavirus crisis has created an astonishing turn-up for the books in Israeli politics. Due to go on the stand for three sets of charges of corruption, fraud and breach of trust, Benjamin Netanyahu is now poised to begin his fifth term as prime minister – by far a record in his country’s history.

This time he is set to lead a unity government for at least 18 months, helped into office by his erstwhile rival and leader of the Blue and White opposition alliance, Benny Gantz.

 After the third inconclusive general election in under a year, the latest held on March 2, Gantz and Netanyahu have struggled to put together a viable governing coalition that could command a majority in the 120 seat parliament, the Knesset.

 At the beginning of the week Gantz said he could make the magic number of 61 Members of the Knesset, MKs, supporting him. The speaker of the parliament, Yuli Edelstein, a long-time Netanyahu supporter, refused to take the vote. The Supreme Court under the steely Esther Hayut said his defiance was unconstitutional, and if he did not take the vote, he should be sacked. Edelstein resigned, and now is working to succeed Netanyahu as the leader of Likud and to be the future prime minister.

Gantz deliberately chose to break the deadlock,  breaking up the Blue and White alliance – the main opposition bloc. His first move was to become elected the new speaker, which he achieved with more than 70 MKs voting for him. This opens the way to forming the new unity government – details still to be decided – but with Netanyahu as PM for the first 18 months, with the plan that Gantz himself would then take over.

Gantz, and former chief of the IDF, the Israeli Defence Forces, explained in his first speech as Speaker that he was putting Israel first for three reasons – the virus crisis, the paralysis of governance, and with that the growing threat to Israel’s democracy. “This is not the time for rivalries,” he told the Knesset. “It is a time for responsible, statesmanlike, patriotic leadership.” 

In a future unity government, Gantz is expected to be either foreign minister or deputy prime minister, with his friend and ally Gabi Ashkenazy, also a former armed forces chief, taking the critical defence portfolio. 

Former supporters have accused Gantz of caving in to the machinations of Netanyahu, who they say has put his personal political emergency first, in evading the courts – all in the national interest, of course.

There are quite a few twists and turns ahead. Gantz still technically has the mandate from President Rivlin to form a government, for example. But it now seems that a stable government with a working majority will be put together this weekend.

And it will not be before time, in the view of most commentators. As the number of Covid cases mounts, so, too, do the criticisms of the way the authorities have reacted so far. But Netanyahu is praised for taking aboard early the implications of the news from Wuhan and Northern Italy, which his buddy and political soulmate, President Trump, did not. 

Earlier this month, a string of new regulations were introduced. Most novel was a mobile phone app to monitor whether the user had the virus and to give notice of any suspected sufferers were nearby. The app was run by the interior security service Shin Bet, which caused a huge argument and criticism from human and civil rights activists.

The app has been run only for a short time, and the results appear to have been limited. It did prevent anyone catching the virus, critics say, but Shin Bet claim that they identified 500 carriers and sufferers who might not have known otherwise.

This weekend the government in Jerusalem has brought in a series of new restrictions, amounting to a virtual lockdown in many areas. Some 500 armed soldiers have been put on the streets in major cities to back the police. They are split into eight infantry companies working out of police district headquarters. Altogether, just shy of 3,000 armed troops are on immediate readiness. 

As of Friday morning, Israel reported 3,035 confirmed cases. Twelve people have died, and 49 are in a serious condition.

There have been severe shortages of ventilators – with only 2,137 reported to be in the country as of this week, and only 10,000 beds available for intensive care. Troops are expected to build temporary clinics over the next days.

The biggest worry is the news from the Palestinian territories on the West Bank and in Gaza. One Palestinian woman has died from COVID-19 in Ramallah on the West Bank, with a further 82 cases reported. Numbers are on the rise, and there are concerns about the Palestinian Authority’s ability to cope. Test kits and 50,000 masks have been offered by international donors but huge doubt has been raised about such gifts, with reports in the Israeli press that some three quarters test kits and other equipment sent by Russia and China to Italy have not worked.

In Gaza, the numbers of cases have begun to climb.  So far nine cases have reported for treatment, seven of them had travelled from Pakistan. Sanitary conditions border on the desperate after years of war, and embargoes. The authorities in Gaza have appealed to Israel for any help it can bring. It is one of the most densely populated areas on earth. 

The Palestinian authority has ordered lockdown from this Sunday. In Israel, citizens are told not to go more than 100 metres from their homes, and only on essential errands. Worshippers are told they can only do so in the open and spaced apart. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a focus of Easter celebrations is now closed, dark robed figures of Armenian and Orthodox monks stand guard, their faces swathed in clinical masks. 

The onset of the epidemic is affecting the conflict in Syria and the peacekeeping operations across the region. Attacks by ISIS have diminished, but 21 US soldiers in Afghanistan have tested positive, with a further 1,500 international contractors and support staff  now under quarantine. The Afghan authorities have no means to test suspected carrier.

The World Health Authority has sent 1,200 test kits into the embattled enclave of Idlib, where the fighting has died down owing to the arrival of the virus and rumours of its arrival. Most concern is for the more than three million refugees now encamped on both sides of the north west Syrian border with Turkey. Ankara has sent 300 test kits to the camp. 

So far, the WHO representative in Damascus Dr Nima Saed has said no test kits have been sent to the areas held by the Kurdish militias, the YPG and YPJ in their enclave of Rojava. The Kurds say they have no cases so far, but fear they might be infected by Iranian forces and militias in Deir Al Zor on the Euphrates. 

In Israel there is growing informed criticism of the Netanyahu governments in various guises, and Western governments across the board, for not preparing against the possibility of pandemic. There had been clear warnings in national security documents generated in both the US and Britain in 2015, 2017 and 2018. Clearest is the paper “A World At Risk” from a WHO committee chaired by former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland in 2019. It concluded “There is a very real threat of a rapidly moving, highly lethal pandemic of a respiratory pathogen killing 50 to 80 million people and wiping out 5 per cent of the world economy.” 

A study by two epidemiological statisticians from the Racah Institute of Physics at the Hebrew University , Michael Assaf and Yinon Ashkenazy, suggest that Israel could face 40,000 dead if restrictive social measures are not enforced. The advisers to prime minister Netanyahu have been working from latest data from China and Italy. They warn that Italy could be facing 2 million dead, and on the present pattern of development, the United States could have 11 million deaths due to the coronavirus.