In light of the ongoing coalition crisis (which can fizz out just as easily and quickly as it can expand and intensify), here is what I think the various players should do, each from their perspective (as I understand it):
Itamar Ben Gvir: should resign and call for elections. Ben Gvir should declare himself as running for prime minister, no more being second fiddle to a party that is not as right wing as they claim to be.
Betzalel Smotritch: he has no hand to play, and he knows it. He has to just be as right wing extreme as he can and hope he doesnt get decimated in whatever happens next. He does not have the power to be proactive in this.
Moshe Gafni and Yitzchak Goldknopf: they don't have much of a hand. Quitting the coalition wont help them, but it also wont hurt them. If they have a serious enough crisis (eg yeshiva boys get drafted or arrested), they can quit. If not, they really have no reason to.
Aryeh Deri: he has a hand to play but has no real option. Bringing down the government won't really help them, but at some point, when they run out of complaints, they have to show they have some ideology behind them and not just looking for jobs. I dont think we are far off, if things keep not falling their way, but I dont think they are there just yet.
Benjamin Netanyahu: He should resign from politics, but he wont. Bring down the government, dissolve the Knesset, and call for elections, while stepping away from politics. If he does that now, his legacy is gone and destroyed and will only be remembered as having presided over the worst attack and massacre with all the failures involved, and having abandoned the hostages. So he can't do that, at least not now. He won't do that until he rebuilds his image a bit, and will need a big win for that to happen.Netanyahu should take advantage of this current crisis, along with the other recent coalition crises, and say he has had enough (he has done this before in previous governments). He should blame the heads of all the parties for their bickering, blackmail, irresponsible behavior, and unreasonable demands. he should blame them for the impossibility of coming to a hostage deal (while stressing most of the blame is on Hamas). Netanyahu should declare that after elections he will move to form a unity government, not an extreme Right government. He needs to get into discussions with Gantz and Lieberman and others from the other parties (specifically the more center leaning parties) to talk about forming a government together, maybe as a rotation, though it can only work if Netanyahu offers to go second in rotation rather than first. Nobody will trust him to follow through with rotating when the time comes. Obviously specifics will depend on results of elections and which comes out the bigger party, but in general that is what he should be doing.
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