An Underappreciated Wonder

Many people are expressing amazement at the extraordinary unity coalition that was just formed in Israel. It's truly an astonishing testimony to how people can work together when they are determined to do so. Of course, there is the benefit of ousting Bibi (who has accomplished amazing things for Israel, but was ruining the country by putting his political survival above the country's wellbeing). But that does not undermine the accomplishment of creating such a broad coalition.

At the same time, many people who voted for Bennett are absolutely furious with him and feel betrayed. As someone who voted for Bennett myself, I am aligned with many others who believe that he did exactly the right thing, which is to deal with the circumstances at hand in the best way. I would like to point out a few underappreciated ways in which his decision was correct.

First is that the Bennett-haters, even from their right-wing perspective, are making the same mistake that many of those who oppose the '67 conquest of Judea and Samaria make. With any given course of action, you can't pass absolute judgment on it; you have to evaluate it in light of the alternatives. Controlling the lives of millions of Palestinians might indeed be awful, but if the alternative is a terror state firing missiles at Tel Aviv, then it's preferable. Likewise, you might not want Bennett making any compromises with Lapid or Mansour Abbas, but the alternative is not a right-wing government; it's either endless elections (which is absolutely terrible for the country) or a government in which Lapid doesn't even need Bennett.

The second point to take into account is that last night, a terrible blow was struck to Hamas. Dr. Joshua Berman expresses this well:

The formation of the new government in Israel is a massive blow to Hamas and denies it two of its major achievements from the last round of fighting.

1. Hamas fired its first rockets the day before this very coalition was set to ink an agreement on May 11. When negotiations for this coalition were discontinued, Hamas scored a huge victory: it demonstrated that it had the power to make or break coalitions in Israel.

2. Hamas basked in its capacity to bring about unprecedented mutiny by Israeli Arabs and the threat of out and out civil war. Imagine how emboldened Hamas would have been to let loose its rockets again had those signature achievements remained. 

Instead, the formation of the new government--including for the first time the participation of an Arab party in spite of the pummeling of Gaza--demonstrates that Hamas is not the kingmaker in Israeli politics, and that the will of the Arab community to work towards coexistence is actually far stronger than many imagined.

Finally, here's something else to appreciate: the new coalition government in Israel will have one of the largest number of Zionist MKs of any government in the last few decades. 

This is, of course, because the non-Zionist charedi parties are not part of it. And this provides a unique opportunity to make necessary changes to help the charedi community, which has been greatly harmed by its elected representatives indulging their short-term needs at the cost of their long-term wellbeing. Radical change is needed to prevent the charedi community causing immense harm to itself and the country as a whole, and this government might possibly be able to make this happen.