https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-726798
The contrast between the amount of time that the new Israeli government spent concluding its coalition negotiations and the speed at which it has hit the ground running is spectacular. During the nearly full two months of portfolio-haggling that followed the November 1 Knesset elections, some voters on the victorious side were biting their nails with anxiety, while others grumbled about the apparent pettiness of the politicians they’d put in office.
The sense among the faint-hearted was that the Right’s clear majority was being squandered on minor squabbles. Worse was the fear that the bickering was providing the heterogeneous “anybody but Bibi” bloc – conjoined solely by a shared aversion to Benjamin Netanyahu – with the hope that the coalition would crumble before it had the chance to come into being.
Imagine everyone’s surprise, then, when it finally coagulated minutes before the deadline with hardly any hitches. More astonishingly, the swearing-in ceremony on Thursday caused the previous weeks of worry to evaporate in one fell swoop – for supporters, at least. Those opposed to the most right-wing government in the country’s history channeled their mourning into combat mode.
This hasn’t had the effect they desired, however. On the contrary, warnings on the part of now-former prime minister Yair Lapid and his ilk about the imminent demise of Israeli democracy at the hands of extremists have only strengthened the resolve of the recently instated incumbents to fulfill their campaign promises.
AS A review of the past week alone reveals, they really mean to get down to business. Last Saturday, for instance, Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli ordered the halt of an agreement approved by his predecessor, Nachman Shai, to give millions of tax shekels to a left-wing organization associated with the progressive Zionist Berl Katznelson Foundation and the radical New Israel Fund.
