Somebody puts Bibi (or Benny) in a corner: 6 things to know for April 13

1. What a Netanyahu wants: Israel’s coalition crisis is rolling right along, for a change (that’s sarcasm). With hours to go before Blue and White head Benny Gantz is forced to give up his mandate, the question on everyone’s minds isn’t what’s Benny doing, but what Benjamin (Netanyahu) is, or rather wants.

• “People in both parties are finding it difficult to decipher where Netanyahu is heading: To a narrow government that will depend on the support of two or more deserters, a broader government under improved conditions — or a fourth election,” writes Yossi Verter in Haaretz.
• “What Gantz wants everyone knows, what Netanyahu wants is not clear at all,” writes Nahum Barnea in Yedioth Ahronoth. “Is he getting cold feet? Is he trying to improve his position to portray a sense of victory? Are the threats from Naftali Bennett and the right scaring him? Or maybe, as many in Blue and White believe, maybe he is not interested in an agreement and is just trying to buy time so he is assured caretaker status as prime minister until the next election or the next century.”
• Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, tells the AP that it is possible Netanyahu had tricked Gantz into dismantling the opposition, and now Netanyahu senses the new circumstances give him a chance to seek re-election from a position of strength.
• “It looks like Netanyahu backed off, or he never intended to go for that deal and it was just a trick in order to erode Gantz’s mandate,” Plesner is quoted saying.

2. What’s the big idea? The pundits can’t even agree on what the big argument is over, when the sides seemed close to inking a deal on more than one occasion, or at least pretended that was the case to the media.

• Army Radio’s Michael Hauser-Tov writes that Likud wants both a law to protect Netanyahu from the court’s being able to disqualify him, and continued right-wing control over how judges are appointed. But Blue and White is speculating that Netanyahu will bend on the judges’ appointments in exchange for a law to protect him from the courts.
• “The compromise is clear enough — Blue and White will oppose any law that will influence the [makeup] of the High Court judges, but is ready to bend on a political solution that will include an agreement between them regarding a case in which judges disqualify Netanyahu,” he tweets.
• Kan reports that it seems the sides may be coming together on an agreement by which Gantz would commit to calling new elections if the court disqualifies Netanyahu.
• In Walla, Tal Shalev writes that the issue of the judge appointments is just a “smokescreen” and the real thing Likud is after is a guarantee that judges cannot disqualify Netanyahu.
• “In the last several days, Likud has demanded to add into the agreement guarantees and assurances regarding a situation in which there is a legal block to Netanyahu serving as prime minister. Among other things, they suggested adding a clause saying that in case of a High Court disqualification or legal block, the sides will commit to passing an override clause on the matter. The significance, from Blue and White’s perspective, is an overt enshrining in the law of the ability of a prime minister under indictment to continue to serve, even if the High Court rules otherwise.”

3. All the president’s reasons: Haaretz’s Chemi Shalev writes that President Reuven Rivlin’s decision not to extend Gantz’s time to form a government and also not give Netanyahu a shot but rather pass the buck to the Knesset also befuddled some.

• “Rivlin’s move surprised Blue and White, which had viewed the extension of Gantz’s mandate as inevitable. It enraged Likud, which views Rivlin’s seeming refusal to transfer the mandate to Netanyahu as an abuse of presidential powers. And it flummoxed experts and analysts who found themselves navigating uncharted constitutional waters without so much as a compass to guide them,” he writes.
• Likud-backing Israel Hayom makes no bones about its unhappiness with Rivlin for seemingly passing over Netanyahu, running several large headlines about the calls for him to be given the mandate.
• “It’s not clear why Rivlin rushed to announced that once Gantz’s time was up, the Knesset – rather than any individual – would be charged with forming a government. It would have been better for the president to restrain himself and not act out of revenge, at least in cases in which he cannot find any other justification for his actions,” writes the paper’s Mati Tuchfeld.
• But others believe it’s pretty clear why Rivlin did what he did. ToI’s Haviv Rettig Gur writes that by hanging the threat of new elections over the country’s head and ensuring that Netanyahu can’t regain control of the Knesset — the PM-designate’s party must head the Arrangements Committee — he is putting pressure on the sides to reach a deal and giving Gantz extra leverage once he can’t continue to threaten the passage of a law barring an indicted prime minister from serving.
• “Rivlin made it painfully clear to Netanyahu that he believes it is Netanyahu, not Gantz, who is holding up the unity government, and decided to help Gantz increase his leverage over Netanyahu to force the Likud leader to seal a deal,” he writes.
• “Rivlin has forced a decision on a famously indecisive prime minister. Netanyahu may try to draw lone defectors from other parties on Monday, promising plum ministerial posts and policy influence. But even if he succeeds, the government he would be able to construct would be untenable,” he adds. “Gantz holds just enough leverage … to deny Netanyahu the kind of win Netanyahu actually wants over the next three weeks.”

4. Fourth time’s a charm? In Yedioth, Sima Kadmon writes that Gantz’s chance at passing any law to threaten Netanyahu passed long ago.

• “The spiral toward fourth elections will be fast and spread quickly, and Gantz’s position in such elections will be as a poor failure who loses out in every way possible,” she writes.
• Pushing the fear factor up, Israel Hayom quotes unnamed “senior people in the political system,” who say there is a real danger of fourth elections.
• The paper may also be laying the groundwork for Netanyahu’s explaining why he compromised, should a deal be reached in the end: “The right needs to wake up and understand that annexation is also in danger, since the Trump administration won’t okay it without a unity government,” it quotes all its sources saying.
• Channel 12’s Amit Segal intercalates the date for the upcoming election as Tuesday, July 28, which just happens to be the eve of the Fast of the Ninth of Av, which is fitting, but probably not an option. Thus he surmises elections will likely be held on July 27 instead.

5. Here comes our exit: Elections? How can a country of people that can’t even go 100 meters from their doors manage an election? One hopes that by late July, there will be some more movement, but there’s no guarantee.

• What there continues to be are a litany of ideas of how Israel may start to exit from the economic shutdown.
• Channel 13 news reports that as early as April 19, some shopping centers may be allowed to re-open, and the workforce will be able to ramp back up to 50 percent. A month later, some malls will be able to open, under certain guidelines.
• According to a report in the Haaretz daily Monday, the National Security Council is recommending easing lockdown measures in four stages over two months, allowing for two weeks between each stage to assess whether the virus is seeing a resurgence or not.
• The paper’s lead editorial says it is time to start rolling back restrictions to save the economy.
• “With all due caution, it’s reasonable to conclude based on the data that the peak of the pandemic’s spread is behind us. Moreover, trying to draw a distinction between health risks and economic risks is misleading, because an economic collapse can sometimes be a matter of life and death. We must begin a cautious, controlled return to normality, even if it’s a different normality than what we were accustomed to before the coronavirus outbreak,” it reads.
• Yedioth pushes out its own plans for how to get kids back in schools, claiming that there is a way to have some elementary kids meeting in small groups in as few as two weeks, and calls for summer break to be canceled in order to finish out the school year.
• “Everyone benefits from canceling summer break: kids, parents and the economy,” the paper’s Hen Arzi-Srour writes, though it’s unclear if her kids who should have been stuck inside the last month would agree.

6. Should we stay or should we… (we should stay): Meanwhile, there are questions about whether any lockdown is even possible, amid signs that current restrictions may be falling short.

• Home Front Command head Tamir Yadai is quoted in Walla telling the media that “we are talking about a long-term event that will be with us at least for the next year.”
• Ynet reports that ministers have been told to not publicly commit to opening anything at any time.
• According to Channel 12 news, the talk of a looming exit has led to infectious laxity regarding keeping to the rules, with traffic on intercity roads on Sunday just as heavy as any other day of the week before the crisis. By the end of the day the Health Ministry sent out a note telling people to stop getting together for Passover and on Monday, the news station reports that the cabinet is considering another full nationwide curfew like the one from the start of Passover.
• Yaron Avraham, writing on Channel 12’s website, compares a lockdown of part of Jerusalem to Swiss cheese, and says even the way the lockdown was announced, by noting the parts of the city not locked down instead of those that are, would “befuddle even the best geographers.”
• “It’s hard not to suspect that this was an attempt to keep from overtly delineating the Haredi neighborhoods, in a way that ended up confusing the public even more,” he writes.
• The Mynet local Jerusalem website publishes videos showing that while people in cars are being kept from leaving the Ramot neighborhood, buses are still continuing in and out of the neighborhood on their merry way.

• ToI editor David Horovitz notes that Israelis and especially the country’s leadership seems to be slipping, botching everything from incoming flights to lockdowns on ultra-Orthodox areas to testing to measures of transparency.
• “The growing concern now, however, is that while the big, sweeping policy imperatives were recognized early by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his team, and implemented quickly and relatively effectively, Israel risks slipping back in its battle as more specific and nuanced measures are being mishandled,” he writes.
• “We need transparent criteria for lockdowns, so that nobody need feel that this or that sector is being discriminated against. We need to reach the testing levels our leaders rightly deemed necessary to swiftly identify new areas of concern, and to efficiently assess where restrictions can be eased,” he adds. “We need action, rather than endless talk, when it comes to evacuating carriers, ensuring the ultra-Orthodox and Arab sectors are properly equipped, and tackling the outbreaks in elder care facilities.”