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Less noise post-Netanyahu
Palestinians will continue enduring the mercilessness of their neighbor while their leaders fight each other, and Arab countries will be more interested in engaging with Israel’s new government.
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Israeli political veterans and a record number of female lawmakers, a motley coalition including two left, two center, one Arab Islamist and three right-wing parties came to power in an eight-party alliance united by animosity for outgoing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (AFP/Menahem Kahana)
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enjamin Netanyahu may have gone, but the legacy he built during his 15 year premiership will remain. It is reasonable to expect that Israel will be more moderate and less confrontational under its new leadership established on Sunday, but no more than that, as the Jewish nation will do what it takes to protect what it believes is a divine mandate.
This means it will be business as usual from the first day Naftali Bennet takes office as Israeli prime minister. The Palestinians will continue enduring the mercilessness of their neighbor while their leaders fight each other, and Arab countries will be more interested in engaging with Israel’s new government.
Netanyahu’s nemeses did not celebrate the end of his 12 years of consecutive rule. For them, Israel will remain the same regardless of who governs the country.
The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the change in government was an Israeli matter and that Palestine’s demands remained the same. “Our position has always been clear. What we want is a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital,” Abbas’s spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, said in a statement.
Similarly, Hamas, which was recently embroiled in a firefight with Israel, does not think much of the changing of the guard in the country. “Regardless of the shape of the government in Israel, it will not alter the way we look at the Zionist entity,” Hamas spokesman Fawi Barhoum told Reuters. “It is an occupation and a colonial entity, which we should resist by force to get our rights back.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said Iran would remain as it was despite the new government in Israel. “Iran’s enemies are gone, and powerful Iran is still here. I don’t think Israel’s policies will change with the new government,” Khatibzadeh said.
As the prime minister of Israel for 15 years, from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009 to 2021, Netanyahu was lauded by some as “King Bibi” and “Mr. Security” but was ridiculed by his opponents as “Mr. Crime” and by Arab nations as a “terrorist”.
The world may expect Israel to be quieter without Netanyahu because Bennet will likely prefer stability and peace. As described by prominent Israeli columnist, Ben Caspit, the country wants the government to work normally, to focus on economic development, better infrastructure, health and education.
"Netanyahu and Bibi-ism were not defeated by the left or by the right, but by sanity, or at least by the yearning for sanity. The wish of many Israelis to live in quiet, without incitement, without hatred – and mainly, without the endless lies that Netanyahu's legacy bequeathed to us," Caspit wrote in Maariv newspaper.
Palestine has always been at the center of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s foreign policy, for a number of reasons, including his aim to boost his domestic posture. He knows he cannot do much to broker peace between Palestine and Israel. Even if Indonesia opened diplomatic relations with Israel, it would likely make little difference given that the new Israeli leader has ruled out accepting a Palestinian state.
An end to the decades-long Palestine-Israel conflict is still a long way away.
