Coronavirus-infected Israel, on brink of anarchy

The response to Gamzu’s lockdown decision broke out three days later. On Sept. 6, mayors of ultra-Orthodox towns informed the prime minister that they were considering a halt to all cooperation with the coronavirus “czar” and the government guidelines. Some of them dubbed Gamzu as “anti-Semite” and mounted vicious attacks against him on social media and elsewhere. Arab mayors were also clearly dissatisfied with the decision and spoke of a lack of police enforcement of coronavirus rules in their communities.

After the mayors came the ultra-Orthodox Knesset members and government ministers to whom Netanyahu owes his political survival. They demanded an urgent meeting with Netanyahu, at which they hurled harsh accusations against him, not just over the planned lockdown but also in the wake of the farcical handling of the annual pilgrimage of Breslov Hasidim to Ukraine. Tens of thousands of Hasidic Jews from Israel and other countries congregate each year in the Ukrainian town of Uman on the eve of the Jewish New Year to worship at the grave of their revered Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. Israeli and Ukrainian authorities sought to prevent this year’s pilgrimage over coronavirus infection concerns. The Breslov Hasidim, considered hard-core Netanyahu voters, announced they would no longer vote for the prime minister — and Netanyahu was quick to fold. He distanced himself from the decision to close Ukraine off to the pilgrims and did what he does best in such cases: He formed a ministerial committee to examine the issue and draw up a “format” for the annual trip to Breslov. His attempts to evade the Uman affair were not entirely successful.

And so, Sept. 6 was particularly chaotic. The ultra-Orthodox turned on Netanyahu in full force, the public expressed disgust with the government’s performance and Netanyahu gave in, once again. The decision on a total lockdown in ultra-Orthodox and Arab towns was rescinded and replaced by a decision to impose a nightly curfew on 40 towns hard hit by COVID-19. That decision, too, was delayed at the last minute Sept. 7. On Sept. 8, the ministerial coronavirus committee convened and after much arm-twisting, voted in favor of a weeklong nighttime curfew from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. in dozens of towns and neighborhoods, starting immediately.

The vote notwithstanding, Israel is clearly on the brink of anarchy. In addition to Liberman’s call for civil disobedience, the head of the opposition Yamina party, Naftali Bennett, has also expressed particularly lethal criticism of Netanyahu in recent days. The prevailing sense is of a loss of government control given the inability to agree on solutions, implement them and mobilize the public’s support.

For now, none of this is having a significant destructive effect on Netanyahu. Although public satisfaction with his performance is at an almost record low, support for his Likud party remains firm and the party is still by far the biggest in the Knesset. Support for the party appears stagnant at about 30 Knesset seats (compared with the 36 it garnered in the March 2 election), while the politician benefiting most from the Likud decline is Bennett. His Yamina party, which garnered six Knesset seats in March, is polling at 21 seats, according to a Sept. 7 Channel 13 television poll.

Netanyahu is bleeding in the polls, but his disenchanted voters are moving to the right, not to the center or left. If elections were held now, Netanyahu would still manage to put together a coalition government with relative ease, without Liberman and the political center-left. Bennett is the only one who could try to blackmail Netanyahu politically after elections given his Yamina party’s surging support. Here, however, the crisis of trust between Netanyahu and the public could come into play. How will he talk Bennett into a deal of the type he forged in April with Blue and White party chief Benny Gantz, including a job switch arrangement, when everyone knows he has no intention of making good on his arrangement with Gantz? Netanyahu tells himself that all will be well, that he will cross that bridge when the time comes. Still, right now, the bridge seems to be coming apart.