Netanyahu’s hospital sedation may be over, but Levin remains the real prime minister

At 3:04 p.m. on Monday in the Knesset plenum, it became easy to understand the essence of the current government’s web of influences.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received a phone call and hurried out of the plenum. Justice Minister Yariv Levin and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir tensed up. For the entire duration of the landmark final voting on the law to curb the judicial test of “reasonableness” for politicians’ decisions — the first judicial overhaul bill to pass — the pair had been watching Netanyahu like hawks, but now it seemed like he was slipping away from them.

It was the second time the prime minister had seemed on his way to moderating the legislation and reaching a last-minute compromise with the opposition, in defiance of the two de facto prime ministers who were sitting next to him.

The first time, Netanyahu had left the room after a note was handed to him, and Ben Gvir had quickly sent Levin after him to prevent him from doing anything out of line. “Go see what’s happening with him over there,” Ben Gvir had told Levin, adding a gentle nudge on the shoulder.

Levin had gone on the mission, returning quickly and reporting to Ben Gvir that all was okay and nothing had happened. Now, at 3:04 p.m., it was Ben Gvir’s turn to calm Levin down.

The prime minister, who had left following the phone call, returned to the plenum hall. Ben Gvir swiftly approached him and asked if anything had changed. “Nothing, don’t worry,” replied Netanyahu. Ben Gvir ran back to Levin with the good news, and the pair smiled in satisfaction. The premier was under their control.

Netanyahu had wanted to delay the legislation or reach some sort of compromise, but he was no longer able to. He is captive in the hands of Levin’s camp in the government and in the hands of the far-right Ben Gvir, who on Monday went as far as explicitly threatening to topple the government if the law didn’t pass and the “salad bar” he’d promised his voters wasn’t served on time, ahead of the entrées of his promised dictatorship.

The prime minister is in shackles. Everyone knows it. Likud MK Tally Gotliv is saying so openly. “The prime minister discovered that there is a very strong coalition here and that it wouldn’t be possible to simply make a decision to delay the legislation,” Gotliv told Zman Yisrael, The Times of Israel’s Hebrew-language sister site.

“We’re standing before a right-wing [electorate] that gave us its trust. This isn’t our private seat,” she continued. “I think that for the first time, the prime minister realized he couldn’t take some sort of step backward. There is a very, very strong group here that wants to fulfill its voters’ wishes. That is all.”

Levin, the hardline architect of the judicial overhaul, set out Monday for a public display of power — together with his good friend MK Simcha Rothman, chair of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee — and trampled all in his path, from the Supreme Court to the defense minister. Yoav Gallant, a defense minister who’s tasked with safeguarding the country yet seeing his reserve military dissolving before his eyes, tried to push for a moderated version of the bill, but he had no chance against Levin.

In the seven months that have passed since he took office, Levin has recruited eight of the ruling Likud party’s ministers who adhere to his orders, as well as a group of lawmakers. Facing this political army, it turns out, even the defense minister and the Israel Defense Forces didn’t stand a chance on Monday.

It was enough to see Gallant laying out his woes to his fellow military ex-general, MK Orna Barbivai of the opposition’s Yesh Atid party. Through circular hand motions, Gallant described the ministerial bind surrounding the prime minister. “I tried, but this is the situation,” said Gallant, putting his hands together in despair.

Netanyahu’s close aides promised Monday that the reform was now done, and  Netanyahu wouldn’t proceed further. Monday’s move in the Knesset, curbing the reasonableness test, was the minimal achievement Netanyahu could bring for the right, and that was what he had done.

Netanyahu himself said Monday that from now on, legislative moves will be made with broad agreement. However, opposition representatives will find it hard to sit down with him at the President’s Residence after all that happened Monday.

Everyone understands that Netanyahu is a captive prime minister. The hundreds of thousands of protesters who raged out to rally around the country Monday night had listened to what Levin said in his concluding speech, and ignored Netanyahu and his empty promises.

“We have taken the first step in a historic process,” Levin had vowed from the Knesset podium, before going down to take a celebratory selfie with Rothman and all their friends from the hardline Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit parties.

For around two hours early on Sunday morning, Levin was formally the acting prime minister while Netanyahu was under sedation to be fitted with a pacemaker. Judging by how it looked on Monday, Levin hasn’t yet handed the role back to Netanyahu.

This story was originally published in Hebrew on Zman Yisrael.