JERUSALEM For three nights this week, thousands of Israeli youths, sparked by what they see as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s response to the scourge of the coronavirus, shook a long political dream, blocked the streets outside his official residence, and demanded that he resign.
Many were not even old enough to vote when Mr. Netanyahu took office in Israel 11 years ago. But his anger indicated that his legendary political survival skills face a new risk. “We have woken up,” read a huge banner in a nearby building.
“We have learned that we must take care of ourselves,” said Maayan Shrem, 25, a youth counselor and former combat soldier who attended the Thursday night protest from his hometown of Karmiel, a two-hour bus ride from Jerusalem. Holding up a sign saying “We will not stop fighting for our country,” added his friend, Oren Gery, 26, “Change has to come from the bottom up.”
While the fury reflects a multitude of complaints, they have converged around one man: a prime minister accused in a corruption trial is now blamed for a colossal failure to deal with the health and economic crises caused by the virus pandemic, and it is by resorting to what critics call undemocratic measures to retain power.
The public revolt signals another surprising change for Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, who has managed to hold onto his seat through three tactile elections since April 2019.
Above all, a prevailing sense of chaos permeates the government’s handling of the recent resurgence of the virus, sparking growing criticism even from the heart of Netanyahu’s conservative Likud party.
“There is a disconnect between the government and the public and local authorities,” Haim Bibas, the mayor of the Likud of the central city of Modiin and the powerful president of the Federation of Local Authorities in Israel, said in an interview on Friday. Local authorities have been instrumental in combating the virus on the ground.
“It feels like there is no leadership or government,” said Mr. Bibas, who has conducted election campaigns for Mr. Netanyahu.
Just two months ago, Mr. Netanyahu appeared to have outwitted political opponents for what seemed like the umpteenth time. He formed a national unity government with his main rival, centrist Benny Gantz, neutralizing him as an opposition force.
Praised for his initial success in managing the pandemic and with the coronavirus wards closed for lack of patients, he abruptly opened the economy in late May to try to resuscitate jobs and commerce, telling Israelis in a victory speech televised to take a breath, have a coffee or a beer and, taking the necessary precautions, to “go out and have a good time”.
An international survey published on May 19 by the Israeli research group Keevoon and the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation found that 67 percent of Israelis are happy with their handling of the crisis, one of the highest scores. Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party was skyrocketing in opinion polls.
In a matter of weeks, everything went wrong.
Daily infections increased rapidly, from double-digit numbers in May to about 2,000 per day now. All the children were sent back to school to finish the semester before the summer break, which caused new outbreaks. The government zigzagged, sometimes in the space of a hot summer day, over policies related to opening and closing restaurants, pools, and beaches, leaving Israelis baffled. Almost a million people were already unemployed out of a population of nine million. Many self-employed Israelis whose businesses were wiped out had received penalties for state aid or nothing at all.
No clear plans had been made for a second wave of the virus. Now, some polls show that only about a third of Israelis are satisfied with Netanyahu’s handling of the crisis.
Rather than focus on financial problems, Mr. Netanyahu took the time to obtain government approval for nine years of retroactive tax refunds on his personal expenses, worth more than $ 250,000. (He later apologized for the callous moment.) And he invested great effort in plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, an issue that few Israelis worried about.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu turned all his energies and influence towards possible annexation at a time when millions of Israelis were concerned about the possible annexation of their own houses by owners and banks because they cannot pay their rents and mortgages ” said Mitchell Barak, an Israeli pollster and director of Keevoon, the research group, who worked as an assistant to Mr. Netanyahu in the 1990s.
In addition to the riot, a Jerusalem court this month decided that the next phase of Mr. Netanyahu’s trial will begin in January, with three hearings per week. He has been charged with bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.
Political analysts say fear of a possible future Supreme Court ruling requiring him to step down is leading Netanyahu to consider holding a fourth election in early November, hoping to win a sufficient majority. to grant him some immunity. of prosecution.
A budget dispute between Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gantz could offer a pretext. Gantz insists on a two-year budget, in line with his coalition agreement, while Netanyahu insists on a one-year budget. Without an agreement before the August 25 deadline, Parliament will automatically disperse, sending an election-weary population to the polls three months later.
“The question is who will blink first,” said Ayelet Frish, an Israeli political consultant.
Meanwhile, the government pushed through contentious legislation this week empowering itself to enact emergency regulations to combat the coronavirus, A measure that many critics have described as a perversion of the democratic process.
In a sign of mounting internal struggle and dysfunction, Israel Katz, the Likud finance minister, and Miki Zohar, the coalition president and the Likud whip, were publicly accused of advocating the opening of businesses owned by their relatives.
Even a plan hastily announced by Mr. Netanyahu in mid-July to give each Israeli an immediate and unique cash gift worth more than $ 200 failed. Financial officials considered him populist and useless. Gantz insisted that the richest receive less than the poorest. Thousands of Israelis pledged to give their money to charity, accusing Netanyahu of trying to bribe protesters into submission.
No payments have been made yet. The protests have increased.
Netanyahu blamed the Finance Ministry bureaucrats for the confusion in aid distribution and denounced the street protests as the work of leftists, a key word in right-wing circles for unpatriotic Israelis.
“The cat is out of the bag,” Netanyahu wrote on Twitter after a Palestinian flag was briefly raised in a protest outside his official residence.
Neighbors, including Mr. Netanyahu’s youngest son Avner, have complained about the noise. Police dispersed the protests after midnight with water cannons.
“I’m here because I’ve had enough,” said Tzlil Levi, 28, a law and social work student, at Thursday’s protest. She said she was not a leftist. But, she added, “There is no leadership. This is not about left or right. This is a political collapse. “
