Israel's Rival Elites Haggle Over Who Gets the War Powers

Gadi Eisenkot would swear in a new government next Wednesday, or the following Monday at the latest, if it depended solely on him, according to Haaretz's Yossi Verter. The arithmetic: 48 lawmakers from the "bloc of change" plus eight from the United Arab List, 56 in total, against 53 for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's current coalition. The Joint List's 11 MKs would either abstain or skip the vote. Nobody in this story is asking the people who'll live under the result.

The Monopoly on War, Up for Auction

The fight isn't really about governing. It's about who holds the keys to the military. Eisenkot wrote to Netanyahu urging restraint and leaving potentially dangerous military decisions to the next government, expressing "grave concern." Avigdor Lieberman, opposition leader and soon-to-be head of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said Friday he'll prevent any "politically motivated" war with Iran. He takes the chair on Monday. Haaretz reported all this amid word that Netanyahu seeks to restart an Iran offensive.

Read that again. A war is being discussed in the vocabulary of coalition timing. Before the election, Netanyahu's opponents warned he might use a war to cancel the vote or sway the results, per the Jerusalem Post's Herb Keinon. He didn't attack Iran. The Knesset was sworn in without incident. The warnings, it turns out, were themselves a form of campaigning, and the fact that everyone found them plausible says plenty about what a state's war powers are understood to be for.

Thursday brought a two-hour security briefing between Netanyahu and Eisenkot, one day ago, after Eisenkot appealed for regular intelligence updates and the two clashed over his letter to the attorney general. Netanyahu's office accused Eisenkot of politicizing security. Liberman, meanwhile, called for parliamentary oversight and approval of the entire security establishment for any military engagement. Oversight, in other words, by the same apparatus.

The Haredi Draft Bazaar

While the generals' briefings run long, the question of who gets drafted is being traded like a commodity. UTJ's Meir Porush filed a bill letting yeshiva students defer service each year until age 26, when they'd be exempt. Another, by Porush and Elyakim Stark, would freeze arrests, investigations and enforcement for draft evasion while legislation is pending. Naftali Bennett's B'Yachad party filed its own bill expanding benefits for reservists and discharged soldiers, paid for by cutting support to households that neither serve nor work. Eisenkot has made service for all a condition of joining his government. Liberman says he's willing to compromise on haredi conscription.

Note what's on the table: not whether the state should conscript people, but which people, on what terms, at what price. Conscription itself is the one thing no bloc questions.

Everyone Warns Everyone

Likud sources are telling haredi parties not to trust Eisenkot. The message, as reported by Anna Barsky: "Even if the 'change bloc' promises you the conscription law you want, don't trust them. They will use you and throw you away, at the latest after the first budget is approved, because they have a safety net from Ra'am and the Joint List." Netanyahu, per a source familiar with the talks, is personally calling rabbis, dispatching emissaries to the haredi leadership, and reaching for rabbis outside the senior circle, including Rabbi Dov Lando's second tier.

On Tuesday, at the reception after the 26th Knesset was sworn in, Netanyahu called for a "unity" government in the same speech where he accused Ra'am and the Joint List of wanting to destroy the Jewish state. By evening, Eisenkot's party had cancelled talks with Likud. Keinon asked whether the unity call was sincere or a way to make Eisenkot look like the obstacle. Nobody answered. Nobody needed to.

Who Decides

Inside UTJ, decisions run through Lando, his associate David Shapira, Degel HaTorah chairman Yakov Asher, and senior figures of Agudat Yisrael and the Gerrer movement. Shas chairman Arye Deri hasn't decided. Eisenkot wants to move with UTJ first and bring Shas in later; Liberman prefers Shas from the start. The haredi parties are asking Netanyahu what alternative government he can offer without triggering another election.

That's the whole picture. Rabbinical councils, party chairs and a military secretary, Maj.-Gen. Guy Markizano, who sat in on Thursday's briefing, deciding the terms of a possible war and a possible draft. The word "rotation" hasn't passed Netanyahu's lips publicly, Keinon notes. Whether the people who'd fight or be drafted get a vote on any of it isn't a question anyone in the room is asking.