When Benjamin Netanyahu hits the campaign trail, he uses what’s been dubbed the Bibimobile – a converted truck turned into a travelling stage ensconced in bulletproof glass.
Elevated like a king above his subjects — who fawn over him as the one and only savior to lead Israel.
And with polls showing Netanyahu’s block of parties falling short of the needed 61-seat majority to form a government, the former prime minister has been taking the Bibi show around Israel to try and shore up every last one of his supporters ahead of the November 1 elections.
At a campaign stop last week in Kiryat Malachi, Netanyahu tells supporters from the Bibimobile: “Don’t be despondent, be turbocharged. Bring everybody at home and tell them this time don’t stay at home – go and vote.”
For the first time in more than 12 years, Netanyahu has been campaigning from the outside – as opposition leader. After four elections in three years failed to bring about a stable government, Netanyahu was toppled from his perch as the longest-serving prime minister by Naftali Bennett and current caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who formed an unlikely coalition of diverse parties.
Their coalition – made up of parties from the right wing to the left, and, for the first time, an Arab party – had consensus on few issues but all agreed Netanyahu needed to be out. But ultimately it was their diversity – and a few rebellious members – that brought about the coalition’s downfall and now, Israel’s fifth election in less than four years.
Netanyahu’s potential path back to power is a narrow one. The same political leaders who refused to work with him after the 2021 election – even if they fell into the same center-right ideological camp as Netanyahu – don’t seem any more likely to support him this year. That means Netanyahu will have to rely on parties further to the right in order to build a coalition, and the resulting government could reshape Israeli laws and society in a way no Israeli government has done before.
Polls suggest no bloc has a clear majority that could form a ruling government – but Netanyahu’s Likud party looks like it will be the biggest single party in the Knesset. Campaign advertisements on buses show Netanyahu pointing at the viewer, saying the path to the majority “is up to you!”
Netanyahu has been campaigning on the policies he championed when he was in power: safety and security, preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, supporting Jewish settlements in the West Bank, maintaining Israel’s military deterrence against enemies, and, in these tough economic times, reducing the cost of living.
But he himself may be the single biggest election issue.
His supporters – acting more like fans at a sporting event – eat it up.
One of them, jumping in front of the CNN camera, yells “Bibi is King of Israel! All people in the world is afraid of Bibi because the man is strong.”
And, it’s whether or not voters are afraid of what Netanyahu will do that will determine how they vote.
“We’re not talking about the future of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. We’re not really talking about cost of living, though Israel, like every other country is facing its own cost of living crisis,” said Anshel Pfeffer, The Economist and Haaretz correspondent who wrote a 2018 biography of Netanyahu called “Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu.”
“We’re not talking about any other policy issue really, beyond Netanyahu and what Netanyahu will do on the day after the election,” he said.
A chance to quash the trials
He’s also talking about reforming the judiciary.
Despite the ongoing campaign, Netanyahu is still in the midst of his corruption trial – where he faces one charge of bribery and three charges of fraud and breach of trust in three separate corruption investigations.
Netanyahu has pleaded not guilty and called his ongoing corruption trial a “witch hunt” and an “attempted coup” and has called for changes to Israel’s judiciary system.
Yohanan Plessner, a former member of the Israeli parliament and the president of the Israel Democracy Institute, said that if Netanyahu comes back to power, his first focus will be on using his majority to put a stop to the trial.
“His energy and focus will be on his trial, on eroding and undermining the independence, the independence of the judiciary, perhaps firing the Attorney General, those kinds of maneuvers that will allow him to free himself from the legal process that he’s facing,” Plessner said.
Plessner said the Israeli public’s debate about the future of Netanyahu is “entangled with a major debate about the features of Israeli democracy, how Israeli democracy should look like and the independence of the judiciary … the very nature and fundamental characteristics of our democracy.”
One of Netanyahu’s likely coalition allies, right-wing religious Zionist leader Bezalel Smotrich, has proposed a series of drastic legal reforms, seen by many critics as a clear way to undercut judicial independence, including dropping the ability to charge a public servant with fraud and breach of trust – a charge Netanyahu faces in his current trial.
Asked about the proposal by CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, Netanyahu demurred and said, “I wouldn’t do anything that affects me. I think my trial is unraveling as it is.”
Extremists with power
Much of Netanyahu’s support in a future government would need to come from the extreme right wing.
The coalition would include a new joint group led by Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, an extremist who has been convicted for supporting terrorism and inciting racism.
He was known for hanging in his home a portrait of the Israeli man who massacred 29 Palestinians in 1994 before being beaten to death himself.
In 2020, Ben Gvir tweeted he would take the portrait down, ahead of the elections, “…for the sake of unity and the victory of the right,” he said.
Earlier this month, Ben Gvir inflamed already sky-high tensions in the flashpoint Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah by pulling a gun during clashes between Israelis and Palestinians, yelling at police to shoot Arabs who were throwing stones.
But polls show Smotrich and Ben Gvir’s joint party on the rise and could garner more than a dozen seats in the 120-seat Knesset – a showing many Israelis thought unfathomable just a few years ago – becoming a key pillar of Netanyahu’s comeback attempt, and power.
Plessner said Netanyahu would once have “never dreamt of including such an extreme figure in his government,” but now he may need to appoint the once outcast Ben Gvir to a ministerial position.
“Now he has no choice. The more moderate Israeli politicians do not want anything to do with Mr. Netanyahu. And therefore he built partnerships [with] these really extreme right. We might expect to see Ben Gvir in the government. What kind of portfolio? What power will you have beyond a provocations and populism?” Plessner said.
Pfeffer told CNN that these extremists will extract a price from Netanyahu – that may include showing more favors towards West Bank settlers.
“The question is, what is the price that the far right is going to extricate from him? …. perhaps some settlements in the West Bank which were in the past abandoned by Israel, will be rebuilt, reoccupied?” Pfeffer said. “And perhaps further steps towards some type of annexation in the West Bank?”
All are moves that would likely inflame and escalate tensions with the Palestinians.
Just last year Netanyahu said Ben Gvir wasn’t fit to serve in the cabinet. But earlier this month, Netanyahu reversed himself, when asked if Ben Gvir would be a minister in his government. – CNN