What weighed most on Bibi's mind wasn’t the fallout from his visits to Washington and Florida, but rather coalition maintenance
“We’ll get the job done without American boots on the ground” sums up Netanyahu’s message to Congress last week. The Israeli prime minister certainly wasn’t looking forward to getting his own boots back on the ground — not on the Gaza or Lebanon fronts, but in the ongoing civil war between members of the right-wing coalition.
Even from Wing of Zion’s communication room — the repurposed, decades-old plane’s most glamorous feature — Netanyahu was overseeing talks to start the Knesset’s summer recess the day of his return from America. What weighed most on his mind wasn’t the fallout from his visits to Washington and Florida, but rather coalition maintenance: the “rabbis’ law” submitted by Shas, the security forum Ben Gvir wants to join, and, of course, the draft law.
Shas chair Deri hasn’t dropped his veto on Ben Gvir entering a forum with decision-making powers on the war, while Defense Minister Gallant called Ben Gvir a “pyromaniac trying to set the Middle East ablaze,” after Ben Gvir, “as the political echelon,” announced that Jews can pray on the Temple Mount.
But it’s not only against Ben Gvir that Gallant is on the offensive. His directive to immediately issue draft orders to 3,000 chareidim, without consulting coalition partners and against the wishes of Yuli Edelstein, chair of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, shook the coalition’s foundations.
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