Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

After nearly two months of waiting, Israel officially has a new government, at whose head stands Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The press’s reaction to the cathartic moment of ratification of the new government is an epic sigh of relief that no more coalition-building rumors need be reported for another four years. Provided, of course, it doesn’t all fall apart before then.

With unhidden elation, Israel Hayom broadcasts a jubilant “Third Netanyahu government” as its main story, with photos of the prime minister and his clan (both familial and political) to boot. It notes that starting Tuesday morning, the government members set to work. The first task? “Approving the formation of the national security cabinet, better known as the political-security cabinet,” Israel Hayom reports. “The prime minister heads it, and in the illustrious forum are members Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Finance Minister Yair Lapid, Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Economics Minister Naftali Bennett, and Home Front Defense Minister Gilad Erdan.”

Dan Margalit writes in his Israel Hayom op-ed that “If Netanyahu had expressed [Tuesday] readiness for an historic, far-reaching compromise with the Palestinians without mentioning the mantra ‘two states for two nations,’ it is because he is saving this for his guest Obama.”

“[Foreign Minister] Avigdor Liberman painted a realistic picture, that there is no Palestinian partner with whom negotiations can be held,” says Margalit. “But it is unwise to cast desperation like sand in the eyes. The world believes that Israel must do it.”

Maariv expresses relief for all of us that “after long and exhausting elections, after public fights, disagreements, rivalries and exercises down to the wire,” there is now a 22-minister government.

“Last night, that [rivalry] was all forgotten,” it writes. “Now they are friends in the exclusive club called the government of Israel.”

The paper notes that after Tuesday’s swearing-in of the new ministers, deputy ministers and committee chairpeople, the only Likud-Beytenu member left without any position was former Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin. It quotes President Shimon Peres laying down some smack on Netanyahu for casting Rivlin by the wayside during the formation of his government.

“[Rivlin] ran the Knesset in a regal and professional manner,” Peres is quoted as saying to the now-ex-acting Knesset Speaker Binyamin Ben Eliezer. “You don’t do a thing like that. You must be aware of a man’s honor.”

The paper reports that Rivlin is still refusing to meet with Netanyahu, despite messages forwarded to him by the prime minister.

Nadav Eyal writes in Maariv that while the coalition is not as extreme right as some make it out to be, one thing is for certain: “The present government, unlike the previous one, is characterized principally by the fact that every one of its members can destroy it.”

“Even Tzipi Livni — with very concentrated power — can deal a death blow to the coalition’s stability if she leaves,” he writes. “Netanyahu is dependent” on Livni, Bennett, and Lapid, and so there was no great victory for Likud-Beytenu in forming this government.

Haaretz also predicts a precarious government, bringing together a coalition of rivals. It writes in its lead analysis piece that the government “is far from uniform and the partners are hardly in Netanyahu’s pocket,” calling it “dysfunctional” and captained by a “weak and weakened prime minister who took a beating at the polls.”

Perhaps as a result of the paper’s political leanings, its coverage of Tuesday’s Knesset swearing-in session reports that “Netanyahu’s speech in which he presented his government was short and to the point, devoid of passion or celebration. The speech by future opposition leader Shelly Yachimovich of the Labor Party was the exact opposite — sharp, sniping and biting.”

Haaretz’s editorial calls the new government “Israel’s settler government” and says that it was “the occupation policy that got support with the formation of the new government,” given the significant presence of West Bank settlers in Netanyahu’s team. It cites Jewish Home’s Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel, Israel Land Administration chief Bentzi Lieberman and Knesset Finance Committee head Nissan Slomiansky — not to mention maybe-foreign minister Avigdor Liberman — as examples. The editorial doesn’t make any particular point other than indicating which ministers are settlers or settler-friendly, giving the information as a res ipsa loquitur.

Yedioth Ahronoth leads off with not one, not two, but four (!) op-ed columns by its staff.

Star columnist Nahum Barnea writes that after the exhausting battle to hack out the coalition deal, Netanyahu is left only with scraps.

“He gave out everything, he also invented a few scraps from nothing, and satisfied the hunger of his peers for a title, for honor, for power,” Barnea writes. “Old politics swallowed new politics.”

He mocks the fact that Netanyahu appointed Yuval Steinitz, once the finance minister, as “international affairs minister” in the Prime Minister’s Office for lack of an acting foreign minister. “It’s not a joke — that’s a real title. In the end [Netanyahu] gave him the empty titles just as he gave them to [former strategic affairs minister Moshe] Ya’alon and [former minister for the intelligence services Dan] Meridor in the last government,” Barnea writes. Such titles can lead to all manner of subsequent developments, however: Meridor is now an irrelevant ex-MK. Ya’alon is the new minister of defense.