A Few Minutes with Dr. Gayil Talshir

Has Binyamin Netanyahu pulled the last rabbit out of his hat, or is he on the verge of staging his greatest escape yet? Dr. Gayil Talshir, head of the President’s Program for Academic Leadership at Hebrew University’s department of political science, crunches the odds

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit postponed the hearing, at which Netanyahu will try to convince Mandelblit not to indict him, from July to October. Does the September election grant him additional time, or does Mandelblit dig in his heels?

Mandelblit made it very clear a few weeks ago that the judicial process will continue unrelated to the political process. I can almost guarantee the hearing will be October 2 and will not be postponed again. If Netanyahu can’t get Mandelblit to change his mind, the next question becomes, when will Mandelblit put forward the indictment? Probably in late November or December, which means Netanyahu’s hearing will be held as the next coalition is being formed and the actual indictment, if forthcoming, will be filed shortly after the new government is established.

Avigdor Lieberman’s refusal to budge an inch on the draft law even after the chareidi parties compromised sank any chances to form a coalition. Is there anything more Netanyahu could have done?

Netanyahu did not come across as a good negotiator because he didn’t have any other options. Normally, he could have negotiated with the Blue and White party [Benny Gantz] to lower the demands of other coalition partners, but he was unable to because Blue and White’s whole campaign was against Netanyahu. Another thing, which was not mentioned at all in the media, is that Netanyahu wanted a bad deal for the Likud. He wanted to succumb to the very absurd demands of the other parties because he didn’t want to give high-profile ministries to the Likud’s top five, whom he sees as rivals.

Do those rivals gain or lose strength in this upcoming campaign?

This is a very central question. We saw the support that Gideon Saar got just a few weeks ago when he said passing the new law to give Knesset members automatic immunity from prosecution would be suicidal for the Likud party. Then we saw Netanyahu’s very fierce reaction to Saar, but the world has changed since then. Up until now, anyone raising a voice of dissent against Netanyahu would have immediately been declared a leftist, a traitor, or an outcast. Things have changed now because it’s clear that Netanyahu, the political magician, failed miserably. This failure is going to have an effect on the right wing, and we will begin to see Likud backbenchers who might start questioning the party’s unanimous support for Netanyahu.

So you see a process by which Netanyahu’s natural allies begin to desert ship?

Over the next three months, I think we are going to see some more fractures in this equation.