How Netanyahu Took Back Power in Israel

Haaretz: “On the day he left office in June 2021, Netanyahu departed from tradition and refused to hold a public ceremony with his replacement, Naftali Bennett. Now that he’s coming back, he has again chosen not to have such an event. He will have a short handover meeting with Yair Lapid in private. As far as Netanyahu is concerned, the last 18 months were an aberration and not something to be dignified by a ceremony.”

“His greatest success in the period he was out of office was in creating an atmosphere of impermanence about the government. He often received help here from the governing coalition’s haphazard conduct – but it was above all his achievement. It was an atmosphere engineered firstly through his many proxies on social media and their incessant, toxic campaign against the members of the government. There were also noisy groups of activists gathering outside the homes of the weaker links in the coalition, until two of them – members of Bennett’s Yamina party – cracked.”

“More critically, despite not having any positions or public funding to allocate, Netanyahu managed to maintain an iron grip on the 52 lawmakers in his own camp. Not one of them was tempted to join the coalition for even a single vote.”

Associated Press: As Israel’s Netanyahu returns to office, troubles lie ahead.