TEL AVIV (Realist English). Since coming to power in June last year, the coalition government in Israel has been under enormous pressure from the opposition, which, with the help of resources loyal to the former head of state Benjamin Netanyahu, has conducted a campaign to delegitimize the Cabinet of Ministers. This was stated by Israeli analyst Ekran Etzion in a commentary for the Middle East Institute.
“The ousted prime minister marshaled his troops on multiple fronts and took unprecedented measures, such as boycotting all Knesset committees, refusing to address Bennett — his dully elected successor – as “Prime Minister Bennett,” and sending goon squads to ambush carefully targeted Knesset members and their families outside of their homes. They were bombarded throughout these 12 months with explicit and vulgar threats, and on at least one occasion actual physical violence. In parallel, they were offered guarantees for seats in the next Knesset, within Netanyahu’s party.” underlines the expert.
The Israeli analyst reminded that Bennett himself was labeled “a traitor” and “a crook,” in what for many was reminiscent of the 1995 Netanyahu-led campaign against Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, culminating in his assassination
“This time around, bullets were not (yet?) fired, but the gray area online and offline tactics were once again proven to be very effective… One after another, two out of the seven members of Bennett’s own party announced their defection to the other side, another one is hanging by a thread, and two more are rumored to be conspiring to split the party and join the defectors. This has left the coalition without a majority in the Knesset, and susceptible to political extortion by any conscience-free member”.
On June 13, 2021, Knesset deputies approved a new government, dismissing Netanyahu after 12 years in power and a political crisis that caused four rounds of parliamentary elections over the past two years. Naftali Bennett, the head of the small nationalist Yamina party, took over as prime minister.
