Effi Ben Avraham: So what do you say? Is there a chance that this will somehow tickle the integrity of the coalition, the breakdowns of the last 24 hours? Ben Gvir confronts Netanyahu, the 'rabbis' law' fails to pass, even on the draft law, Knesset members from the Likud tell Netanyahu 'so far'...
Tal Schneider: We really see a kind of bad atmosphere within the coalition, a kind of disintegration, because if there is no coalition discipline, then why is this incident actually happening? But it must be said that no one really has good options, and that includes Netanyahu, who has no good options. His polls are not impressive. Disbanding him is a danger. Where will Shas go? Where will Ben Gvir go?
Effie: Let's stop for a moment about Ben Gvir, and let's also include Sari Roth in our conversation. Sari, it seems that Ben Gvir's situation, I wouldn't put him in the same group as either the Haredi or the Likud, if he did have something to gain from flexing his muscles and running for election as a knight of the right.
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Shari: I don't think so, because Ben Gvir has nowhere to go, he has no options. Because the next government, apparently, will be a government composed of central elements, moving to the left, and Ben Gvir will have nothing to look for in such a government. This current government is the government of his dreams, even if he doesn't get everything he wants.
The Haredim, if anything, are more of a kind of plasticine that can be screwed into any future constellation. No one is boycotting them today, it's not like it used to be when Lieberman said: 'I don't want a government with Haredim.'.
Effie: That's all true, but do they really believe they will get more than they are getting now?
Shari: First of all, they are holding on to promises from the past. Today, MK Galit Distel revealed that Gafni told her that Lapid promised him 'everything' before the government was formed, but really 'everything'. He said it in such a rush, with nerves. Like, why didn't we go with him and get everything. Or why are they throwing things at us when they themselves actually promised us 'everything'.
I'm still one of those who believe that the center-left camp can give the Haredim more. With the backing of the media, by the way. If they just help the bloc take down Netanyahu, I think there will be a big sigh of relief on many streets in the State of Israel and for that they will perhaps be willing to pay the price to the Haredim. When all the Haredim ask for is 'His Torah and His Art' and things like that. Unlike Shas, they don't focus so much on the issue of jobs. When Shas today talked about jobs, Gafni made sure to freeze property tax prices. The Haredim in the smaller Ashkenazi party are also concerned with social issues, less with their own jobs.
Efi: Tell me, Tal, do you see a situation whereby Deri and Shas do a 'run away' to Netanyahu?
Tal Schneider: No, I don't see it happening, not of their own free will, I don't believe it's in the right direction, I think they're frustrated and looking for ways to vent their frustration. But, what's called, Welcome, the entire State of Israel is sitting around and frustrated. And while they're thinking about appointments, of city rabbis, neighborhood rabbis, village rabbis, I don't know, then there are people who are thinking about the lives of the soldiers, and the lives of the kidnapped, so sorry that I'm doing it in such a populist way, but it really poked the eye of this mess. Did you hear it from the mayors who cried, saying: 'Is this why we need to come to the Knesset to talk? To waste time?' It doesn't make sense at all!
Effi: And that's why I don't understand this insistence of Deri, such a veteran political fox. To do it now?
Tal: People are disconnected! They were promised this in the coalition agreement, so they supposedly deserve it, but in truth the coalition agreement was signed before there was a war in the State of Israel. Many things written in this agreement will never happen again, not even the Basic Law on Torah Study, these things will simply never happen again.
Sari: I've been asking myself for days: 'If Deri were smart, what would he see in this nonsense?' And I can't understand. Because I have no problem with Deri coming and saying: Listen, there is a spiritual thirst and a spiritual desert in the cities and we need to appoint city rabbis, maybe we'll expand the array of city rabbis... I can understand this as a Haredi woman, that there is a need for people, perhaps more traditional than Haredi, for a city rabbi in this difficult, psychological time, for people who are struggling.
Effie: But that's not the problem. The problem is the timing! Maybe at a different time it would have passed!
Shari: No, not just the timing. What bothered me was 'who will determine the identity of the city rabbis'. That's exactly what matters now, that the city rabbis will be pro-Shas or affiliated with Shas or close to Shas, or those that the Minister of Religious Affairs wants to appoint... This part that smelled like a job to me, it really bothered me, certainly in the background of these days, as Tal described it well.
Tal also has a son fighting, and we all have family on the battlefields, including me as an ultra-Orthodox. And it's hard, it's hard to deal with these things. Will this lead to desertion? I actually see a danger from Torah Judaism, that there are issues that hurt her, even though she is silent.
For example, there is a problem in the independent education network, which I know is very troubling to the rabbis. It's simply teachers who don't get paid, who have to bring bread home and won't get paid or will get paid very little. There is a situation where Shas will decide that it is a party, joins one opposition bloc or another, and Gur will go with it, as Gur and Wijnitz are together today, which means that there are already two Knesset members from the Ashkenazi faction. There is such a situation.
Effi: Shas said tonight that they will not bring down the government.
Sari: There's no way to know. I say there's no way to know, I'm not as adamant as Tal, I say that this is a very sensitive time, anyone who walks around the Haredi districts hears a lot of frustration, a lot of feeling that 'this government hasn't brought us anything,' 'it's not making any progress,' or as I like to say, 'it can't move a pencil from side to side on a table,' and it doesn't matter right now who's to blame, what the reasons are and why and how much... The feeling is very difficult, a feeling that in any other government, leftist, centerist, liberal rightist, state rightist - the Haredi would be able to receive more.
Effie: In nature, we see that a leader begins to lose his status when they begin to attack him, to challenge him, it's part of the game in nature. And I think that's a bit of what's happening to Netanyahu in recent days.
Sari: Remember the happy days of Yehuda Glick, I still remember how every vote they had to come and beg, and he didn't agree and he agreed... Netanyahu has gone through many, many ups and downs, somehow he survives. I don't know how, and if we're talking about nature, he's the world champion at surviving. I have no idea how he does it, I don't always manage to follow.
Tal: I'll tell you, Efi, that unlike in the past, when Netanyahu really had shocks, he himself was already taking the initiative and spreading rumors in order to get some kind of narrative ahead of the elections, this time, both his situation and the state of the war are not good, it's not the same as it was in the past, in that respect. There are also 64. I mean, when it was with Lieberman, he left him with 61 and he really didn't manage to square the circle. But now he supposedly has some kind of certain space, and of course he also has what he constantly conveys the messages, 'You don't hold elections during a war' and 'Those who talk politics during a war are all kinds of traitors, and protesters,' so he plays it all the time. And it's true, we really are at war.
