Yesterday's drama with the budget vote was crazy. Good for PM Netanyahu for maneuvering and finding a way to make it work and overcome the opponents from within the coalition, especially while sick in the hospital recuperating from surgery. Impressive.
That being said, while Netanyahu is kind of stuck and is letting Ben Gvir make a fool of him. He should have fired Ben Gvir last time Ben Gvir voted against a budget vote a couple weeks back, but he didn't, and so far he hasn't after this vote yesterday that went down to the wire and required Netanyahu himself to leave his hospital bed and shlep down from the hospital to vote, and Netanyahu is too weak to fire him because he is afraid of losing his coalition.
The coalition is large enough now that he can technically afford to kick out Ben Gvir, but then he will barely have a majority again and will be at other people's whims without Ben Gvir to bail him out. Keeping Ben Gvir in the coalition makes Netanyahu look weak but it keeps his coalition alive, even if they arent voting in tune with the coalition.
UTJ is more complicated. They too should be fired but won't be. the politicians always quip that UTJ is one party but acts like 7 parties. Each MK represents a different community and each MK acts and behaves like he is his own party and nobody is beholden to any party decisions. When the coalition needs something, the head of the coalition needs to go to each MK from UTJ to make a separate deal rather than just talk it out and deal with the one head of the party. This played out precisely yesterday. The Degel faction voted with the coalition. Goldknopf voted against, and Netanyahu worked out a deal with Eichler and Porush and Tessler and Rot to have enough abstentions instead of votes against so the budget vote could succeed. Masterful on Netanyahu's part to work that all out, but dysfunctional of UTJ.
How can UTJ continue to function properly and efficiently and reliably when none of the MKs follow the instructions of the head of UTJ? How can the head of UTJ make decisions without working it out with the members factions and MKS - did he expect them to be beholden to the Gerrer Rebbe's decision, when the entire essence of the party is that it is made up of different factions each beholden only to his own rebbe? What good is being head of the party if he has no control over the MKs within? In any other party they would sanction the MKs who did not follow the decisions of the party (like Otzma might do for ALmog Cohen who voted with the coalition instead of with Otzma), but he cant punish Degel and he cant sanction the others either. At the same time, how can the head of the coalition work out anything with a party that can't be relied on?
Eichler and Porush were so proud yesterday of going behind Goldknopf's back and working out the deal with Netanyahu, in exchange for a promise of the Draft Law being presented next week. I don't know if the Draft Law will be presented next week or not, but Netanyahu has promised this in the past several times and has not delivered, so I am not sure why they are accepting this promise now, especially Eichler who is fairly militant on this issue.
That being said, if Netanyahu does not follow through with the presentation of the Draft Law next week, Eichler will have egg all over his face. I wonder what he will do then.
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