Israel’s new government is a daring, possibly doomed but nonetheless fascinating experiment. Headed by tech millionaire turned nationalist figurehead Naftali Bennett and TV journalist turned voice of centrism Yair Lapid, Jerusalem’s 36th government is an ideological hydra.
Bennett’s right-wing national-religious Yamina party is joined by the secular liberals of Lapid’s Yesh Atid, along with Kahol Lavan moderates, Labor social democrats, Meretz socialists, and the Likud breakaway faction Tikva Hadasha, plus Yisrael Beiteinu’s secular right-wingers and Ra’am’s Islamic conservatives. This unwieldy rabble is held together by a coalition agreement to focus on areas of consensus — more investment in education, bumping up defence spending, cutting bureaucracy and regulation, tackling crime and unemployment in the Arab sector, getting more ultra-orthodox youth into work — and swerve thornier matters, especially religious affairs and IDF service.
They’re also held together by something even more binding than their governing pact: the desire to oust Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.
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