Once upon a time in Israeli politics, when the task of forming a coalition government was handed by the president to the person with most recommendations from their fellow Knesset members, there was a realistic expectation that the nominee would actually succeed in the task. Not any more.

Few believe Benny Gantz, leader of the Blue and White Party, will navigate the troubled waters of coalition negotiation. Instead, Israel is heading toward the perfect political storm. Not only did a third election in less than a year produce another inconclusive result, but the COVID-19 pandemic has been a game changer for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s desperate attempt to cling to power and avoid his trial for corruption that was scheduled to start last week.

Gantz’s almost impossible mission of cobbling together a government has become much more arduous with the coronavirus crisis, which plays into the hands of the master manipulator Netanyahu. With his highly developed political sense he understands that the pandemic could do for him what Israel’s voters have denied him in three consecutive elections, and what his legal team and political allies have failed to do — keep him in office and keep him out of court. However, what he, along with some of the allies he has installed in key government positions, has now done can only be described as usurpation of power.

It began with the move by Justice Minister Amir Ohana, who was handpicked by the Netanyahu family — not for his great legal mind but rather his undying loyalty to the family from Balfour Street — to freeze all court activities except urgent hearings, which means a postponement of Netanyahu’s trial and thus a reprieve at least until May.

It would of course be foolish to downplay the severity of the threat from coronavirus to people’s lives and health, to the world economy, and the well-being of societies as a whole. And love or loathe Netanyahu, he likes a good old crisis and thrives at the sniff of any emergency, let alone a global one, in the face of which he can present himself as a world leader — a men among boys, at least in the eyes of his blind followers. Even his harshest critics concede that he is in his element as he addresses the nation with a whiteboard behind him and a microphone in front of him, steering the country through the predicament of the COVID-19 pandemic with apparent competence. His cautious nature has led him to make some bold and timely decisions to contain the spread of the virus.

Few believe Benny Gantz, leader of the Blue and White Party, will navigate the troubled waters of coalition negotiation. Instead, Israel is heading toward the perfect political storm.

Yossi Mekelberg

But it is one thing to manage an unprecedented crisis, and another to exploit fear or even exaggerate risks for personal and political gain. Given Netanyahu’s squalid history of stopping at nothing to avoid facing justice or losing power, there is little doubt he has muddled up the national interest with his private interests, perhaps to the extent that he himself can no longer distinguish between the two.

If the postponement of his trial smacks of cynical opportunism in order to avert justice, then the decision by another of his cronies, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edlestein, to adjourn the parliament until Monday, has created the nasty stench of an attempted constitutional coup directed from the prime minister’s office. This has been done in the full knowledge that by Monday the country is likely to be under total shutdown, with the government granted almost unlimited powers under emergency laws.

Perhaps we should not be surprised by these anti-democratic moves, since the writing has been on the wall for years, and the prospects have worsened as it has become increasingly difficult for Israel’s right wing to win elections and form a government. The trajectory of the political system under the current government has been toward compromising and restricting the most basic democratic values of rule of law, freedom of speech, and now the freedom of assembly.

In the coming weeks the government will give itself the right, without Knesset approval, to track the mobile phones of those infected or suspected of being infected by the virus, and is contemplating further draconian measures; the absence of a functioning legislature capable of supervising the actions of an executive branch that has failed to win the confidence of either the electorate or the Knesset in the course of a year and three national elections is detrimental to the survival of Israel’s democracy.

Amid this chaos, Gantz’s main tasks must be to stop Netanyahu’s anti-democratic acts, to bring an end his tenure, and to avoid a fourth election. These objectives are interrelated and require a two-stage strategy, which will largely depend on the course of the pandemic. First, the Knesset should be convened, whether physically or virtually, to allow the bloc of members who have proposed that Gantz become prime minister to choose a new Speaker and ensure a functioning Knesset to oversee what is currently an interim government, and then to form a minority administration supported by the Joint Arab List.

Despite calls for a government of national unity to see through the pandemic, that would only play into the hands of Netanyahu, and might prolong his time in office and see off his court case. A minority government led by Gantz that restores the democratic processes and the rule of law would mean the end of the Netanyahu era, and would pave the way for a wider coalition that would embrace broader segments of Israel’s political landscape. This might  prove effective in dealing with the coronavirus crisis, and no less importantly begin the healing of the Israeli society.

Yossi Mekelberg is professor of international relations at Regent’s University London, where he is head of the International Relations and Social Sciences Program. He is also an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. He is a regular contributor to the international written and electronic media. Twitter: @YMekelberg