It will not be easy for Gantz to get to a parliamentary majority of 61 seats.; there are so many oaths sworn not to ally between this and that group. He speaks of a "unity government": I see a potential coalition of parties united only by a desire to get Netanyahu out of office; that may be enough. To specify in gory detail:
Kahol Lavan, 33 seats; Labor-Geshen and Democratic Union (allies to the center-left), 11 combined; Avigdor Liberman's Yisrael Beitanu 8, Yamina (led by right-wing former ministers now opposed to Netanyahu) 7.That gets you to 59; get the silent support of the Israeli Arab Joint List (13 seats) through abstention, and you have a working, if temporary, majority.
That allows Gantz to get past the first hurdle, getting Netanyahu to accept that he will no longer be Prime Minister. A sort of intervention.
After that, Gantz' team may have a lot more maneuverability, with the possibility of strengthening that bizarre initial formation. Lieberman's role I have explained in the past. He would hate having to depend on Arabs for his role in the new government, which I grant would be both malign and substantial, but this actually makes more sense for him than the thing he claimed to want: Kahol Lavan and Likud and him (preferably without Bibi). If those two parties came together, they wouldn't need him!
Gantz could possibly maneuver him into a lesser position later if he can get some Likud defections, post-Bibi. Or he could even let Likud into the government in a more complete way, with Bibi getting a role, if he doesn't get indicted. He could agree to a rotation with Likud coming in after a couple years. Any of these would relieve him of the stress of depending on the Arab Joint List for a government they planned to oppose. But the one thing that is non-negotiable for Gantz is that Netanyahu is not Prime Minister (or Justice Minister, or Interior) in the new government.
That one proviso could prevent any government from being formed, if Gantz and his team are not flexible and persuasive. Netanyahu will dig in, hard. He will deny it publicly, but his play is to try to prevent any government being formed, stay in as caretaker, all the way through a third round of elections early next year. He risks going to jail if he gives in, though I suspect any penalty would be fairly minor if he were convicted.
What impact will this have on Israel? Initially, not much; the group I described would produce a government which continues overtly Zionist policy through a strong and active military, though probably less willing to grant special favors to the Orthodox or illegal settlers, and which would not move aggressively on annexation of the West Bank. One that could be a partner for peace negotiations!
As for Netanyahu's old buddy Trump? Drumpf has already dumped him, cast him from his personal dumpsterfire. "Our loyalty is to the state of Israel", Chief Twit clarified, in lieu of the congratulations he woulda twit otherwise. He's working on the disclosure that he found Benjamin's wife, Sara, to be "nasty".
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Well, wrong again! This was not he final act, or at least the final scene has yet to be written on the Netanyahu tragicomedy. I got a lot of things wrong about the intervening months: Gantz did not successfully form a coalition to oust Bibi, and it does not appear one was to be had--yet.
I do think he tried everything, which was sort of the problem: the drive to take the PM job required insistent focus. The main problem was the unwillingness of any Knesset members on the right to break with Bibi, which gave him both the first (unsuccessful) shot at trying to form a government, but more importantly, made the math not work for Gantz.
I was correct, of course, in diagnosing Netanyahu's play for that round. It (pretend, but really work for delay and another election round) survived even the announcement that the indictment had been turned over to the Knesset (which apparently can't take it up without a government!--voila!)
I don't think it is going to survive the next round of elections, though, due in the late 1st quarter of 2020. People are really pissed at him, and his support is eroding around the edges--not much, if any, in the Likud itself, but in his constellation of right-wing supporting 3rd-magnitude stars. It won't take much erosion. I predict Gantz into "Balfour Street" (the Israeli equivalent of 10 Downing St.) in May, 2020.
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