Bibi: New King of the Israeli Left?

The left hates Bibi. It’s as true today as it was yesterday, but it may not be true tomorrow. 

There are stirrings of a new attitude towards Israel’s controversial Prime Minister. People who saw him as the greatest threat to Israel’s democracy now look to him as Israel’s only hope. People who labeled him an extremist now pray that he can prove to be a moderating force in Israeli politics. People who hated his corruption now have bigger worries on their minds.

This is all because there’s a new government in Jerusalem. It’s loaded up with ministers from the Kahanist Jewish Power party and the anti-LGBT Noam party. It wants to hamstring the Supreme Court, build more settlements, and bring immigration law into alignment with strict Jewish law. 

As a result, Bibi — the boogeyman of the left — suddenly doesn’t look so bad.

The Jerusalem Post writes, “Netanyahu must defend democracy from his coalition partners.” The Jewish Journal asks, “Will Bibi Be Israel’s Savior?” Countless articles suggest that Bibi will be the so-called “adult in the room,” keeping his coalition partners happy without actually letting them do too much damage. 

None of this makes much sense. Why should Bibi save Israel from a coalition he created? After all, he was the one who resurrected the far-right. Why would anyone think that he is any different from the rest of him?

And yet, here we are. And it’s not just a hallucination. We can see it in action. Bibi himself is trying to be the adult in the room — or at least trying to be seen as one. He is urging Ben-Gvir to stay off the Temple Mount. He is reassuring the press that gay rights are safe. He is distinguishing himself from his new coworkers — especially Ben-Gvir, Maoz, and Smotrich.

Looking at Netanyahu in comparison to this cast of characters, some on the left are wondering why we made such a fuss about him in the past. Something about a submarine deal, and ordering too much pistachio ice cream on the company credit card, or perhaps the scandal about the security detail for his bratty son. From where we currently stand, it all sounds like so much shtuyot — nonsense.

And now some of us are asking why we didn’t partner with him instead of trying to take him down. Why didn’t we do what the ultra-Orthodox parties have done — which is to do business with him, trading him job security in exchange for important ministries and good legislation? 

And now some of us are asking why we didn’t partner with him instead of trying to take him down. Why didn’t we do what the ultra-Orthodox parties have done — which is to do business with him, trading him job security in exchange for important ministries and good legislation?

Perhaps this is what will happen next time around. It’s possible that Bibi, exhausted from putting out PR fires from his new coalition partners, might prefer to join forces with centrists like Lapid and Gantz. The left, tired of Ben-Gvir’s inflammatory rhetoric and policies, may embrace Bibi with open arms. 

Of course, there will be those who will never stop hating him. There will be those who will remember that it wasn’t all shtuyot. He was guilty of incitement, of corruption, and of putting self before party and party before country. 

But there will also be those on the left who are happy to forgive and forget, just like we forgave and forgot with Bennett. If anyone can recall, Naftali Bennett was once treated by the foreign press like Ben-Gvir himself — a far-right extremist settler who would destroy Israel’s secular character and democracy. Less than a decade later he was heading up a center-left Jewish-Arab unity coalition. 

When the only important criteria on the table was “anyone but Bibi,” the left put aside its concerns about Bennett and Bennett put aside his concerns about the left. 

The next time around, the only important criteria on the table might be “anyone but Ben-Gvir.” If that’s the case, we might just find ourselves crowning Bibi “King of the Left.”

Matthew Schultz is the author of the essay collection “What Came Before” (2020). He is a rabbinical student at Hebrew College in Newton, Massachusetts.