I got divorced once myself. But I have never gained a full intellectual grasp of Israeli political divorces. They are quite a thing, aren’t they? Opinion.
I am an active rabbi and a retired attorney. I have been exposed to divorce in both professions, have practiced secular law indirectly regarding divorce (but always have refused to be a divorce lawyer, not for my kishkes), have advised on some aspects of law, have pastorally counseled on the theme as a rabbi, have mediated pending divorces to help both parties avoid bitter courtroom divorces, and — to get the best possible training in hands-on divorce counseling — I even got divorced myself. Barukh sheh-p’tarani.
But I have never gained a full intellectual grasp of Israeli political divorces. They are quite a thing, aren’t they?
Gideon Sa’ar hates Netanyahu so much that he forms his own party and divorces from the Likud after he loses a primary. The primary was fair. He got his chance. He lost. So he filed for a divorce. Then he brings in Ze’ev Elkin who divorces from the Likud because he thought he deserved a high-falutin’ cabinet ministry but got only a mix of high school kids and water. Here he is, one day the official Russian interpreter in meetings between the Israeli Prime Minister and Vladimir Putin, and the next day he is Minister of Teens and H2O. So he files for divorce, hooks up with Sa’ar, and they go to war against Netanyahu.
That always happens in a divorce: it usually ends only when both sides have been destroyed, at least enough to need therapy.
So Sa’ar links up with Naftali Bennett, a multiple divorcer. Remember: I got divorced only once, and only after 25 years. My next marriage was the love of my life, twenty years, until a terrible form of cancer struck. But Bennett is a multi-divorcer. Always has his eye on his next partner amid his current match. He was the Great White Hope of Modern Orthodoxy, a significant part of what Israelis call “Religious Zionism,” a super-rich guy who made bucks in high-tech and now could afford to rebuild the Religious Zionist movement to a standard even greater than the old Mafdal Days of Yosef Burg, who used to join any and all government coalitions that offered him a seat.
Here was Bennett, a no-nonsense, principled, religious Zionist, an unabashed nationalist. No compromises. Promises to build religious Zionism. Will never sit in a coalition with Yair Lapid. And — goes without saying — never with an Arab party that will refuse to fully support the IDF in a war like the Ariel Sharon War in Gaza. No retreats.
But the rabbinical authorities of Religious Zionism would not allow him to add a non-Shabbat-observant football (i.e., soccer) star to his election roster, so Bennett and his velcro’d bottle-cap yarmulka made for the egress. He formed a new party with a right-wing womn who really could have become a solid nationalist MK for many years to come, and he brought her down with him. She became a corporate executive. And he moved on.
So Sa’ar and Elkin, newly divorced from Likud, marry Bennett. One of their first orders of business is to appoint an “Attorney-General” who has one and only qualification that is non-negotiable: she hates Netanyahu, will torture him, will rule against him on anything and everything, and will go after his friends, his family, his everything. Did she go to law school? Presumably, but that was not the key requirement. Does she know Hebrew? Same thing.
The key qualification: “Liston, Honey. We all just went through a horrible divorce from the same bad guy. He makes promises, but he never keeps them. And we got cleaned out in the divorces. He got the Knesset and the government, cigars, champagne, and a Bugs Bunny doll, and all we got were Yair Lapid and the Other Abbas. So all we want is revenge. That’s all. Promise us: You will devote night and day, 24/7, to destroy that guy, and you can be our national Attorney-General. Deal of No Deal?”
So that was that divorce. Netanyahu got to be Prime Minister, and the people of Israel got Honey.
As in most Israeli political divorces, many of the characters later kiss and make up. There is no honor, no principle. Just opportunity. Sa’ar and Elkin ended up back with Likud and Netanyahu. How did that happen? Did he change his ways? Did he offer Elkin a Ministry of Kindergartens and a Ministry of Seltzer also? Did he also throw in a Ministry of Limonana and of Prigat?
Bennett is not back — yet. And they all now regret what they did when they hired Honey. Each of them now is thinking: “What was I thinking?” A true Las Vegas marriage-and-divorce. “What was I thinking?” They all wish they can get rid of her now. But the alimony is too high.
Meanwhile, Merav Michaeli decides she does not want to continue Labor’s marriage to Meretz. They both are extreme-left socialist Marxist. They both match well. They need each other to be sure they both get past the vote threshold. But she divorces Meretz, leaves them without the keys to the house or the credit cards. To this day, does anyone truly understand what she was thinking? Of course, same answer: She wasn’t.
So Meretz misses the minimum, and a religious-nationalist coalition of 64 seats takes control. Because of her flub, one year next is spent on Judicial Reform, which never happens. Then two years of War in Gaza, whose final success remains to be determined, and is almost there if Trump doesn’t ruin it. But up to now, the entire Hamas leadership did get destroyed. Half or more of Hamas Gaza lies in ruins, strafed and razed, which is good. Hezbollah’s entire leadership and most of its 150,000 rockets and precision missiles are destroyed. The country got a really cool “Nasrallah” song out of all of it. Beepers. Walkie Talkies.
And of course, because Michaeli’s divorce from Meretz made no sense, it ends up that, like Sa’ar and Elkin with Likud, they also are back together again. But something did change: Labor has disappeared from the map. That is of historic consequence and does not get enough attention. Few talk about it, but the party of Ben-Gurion, Rabin, Peres, Dayan, Golda, Yigal Alon, and all the others of that Marxist socialist ilk, a socialist combine that seemed eternal, will have disappeared from the face of the earth at the next election. In their stead, a bold new party has emerged with the catchy and original name: The Democrat Party. Cool. A great public relations coup! For their next trick, why not have Yair Golan change his name to Obama? Or add it to Ehud Barak?
Meanwhile, on the left, the media wait daily with bated breath for the grand divorce of the Haredi parties from the Likud. Here, 50 percent of the government is comprised of fully Orthodox Members of Knesset, Zionist and otherwise— unprecedented — and the Haredi parties threaten divorce because they otherwise might be forced to have some of their boys share in the national existential effort to defend the Land of Israel from the Enemy. So, if the Likud will not protect them from serving in the national enterprise, they will sue for divorce, break up the marriage, and go to a more worthy, loving suitor who they falsely hope can be relied up to protect UTJ and Haredi Jewry from serving and who will protect all their government benefits from housing allocations, employment subsidies, child allowances, and so much more.
Who in their mind will be more generous to Agudat Israel and Degel HaTorah than the Likud coalition? Why, Avigdor Liberman of course! And Yair Golan. And Yair Lapid. And the Right Reverend Gilad Kariv. Yeah, that’s the ticket to Haredi draft exemptions.
Divorce all around. How exciting it is for the Israeli hard-left media to contemplate the collapse of the Israeli religious-nationlist coalition. But the dust has not settled completely yet because it is “Divorce Season” in Israel. If the two magic words at every secular wedding are “I do,” then in Israel the refrain is “Me Too!” And so, now Gadi Eisenkot divorces Benny Gantz. And Matan Kahana does so next. Yoaz Hendel may as well come back in with so many suitors suddenly bereft of partners.
What is in the air? Why so many divorces? Proof positive that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back to Square One, so no one has to bear the burden that Netanyahu has had to bear these past twenty years facing a nuclear Iran, a Hezbollah with 150,000 rockets and missiles, and a Hamas at full strength ready to wreak disaster.
Now is the best time ever to run for Prime Minister of Israel. The Arabs are at bay. Washington is dreamy. Joe Biden is wherever he is. Kamala Harris is cackling somewhere, studying maps, and trying to figure out why she lost her sizable lead in the polls once the public got to know her. The President of the United States is on the cusp of a Nobel Peace Prize, as grateful to Israel for paving his way as Israel is grateful to him. It is a good time to be Israeli Prime Minister for two or three years, register great successes with little obstacle, and hold on until the next wave of divorces begins.
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