U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, arrived in Israel this week after visiting Saudi Arabia, as part of an effort to move forward on normalization between the two countries. "Normalization" is an interesting word. And it's no less interesting to note the preparations in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's circles for the possibility of becoming "normal".
As an initial, preliminary step, Netanyahu's son Yair – the public agent of the family madness – was banished to Miami. The second step is that the private agent of the family madness – Netanyahu's wife Sara – was distanced.
The third step is that the agent of political madness, Itamar Ben-Gvir, was led to resign from the government. And later, if Israel continues down the path of normalization – which necessarily runs through implementing the second stage of the hostage deal and ending the war – it's reasonable to assume that the agent of settler madness, Bezalel Smotrich, will also leave the government.
The message couldn't be more explicit – normalization is impossible as long as Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are part of the government. There's an inherent contradiction between normalcy and a government composed of Kahanists and messianic settlers.
As part of the effort to let the normalcy option take shape, the Haredi parties this week indicated that they are willing to be normal. After more than 15 months of moral abstention, they finally raised the standard of redeeming our captives.
Arye Deri, chairman of the Sephardic ultra-Orthodox Shas party, said Israel must implement the deal's second stage. "We know how important this issue was to our teacher, Rabbi Ovadia," he said, referring to the party's deceased founder and spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. He thereby pinned Shas' position to the tallest possible tree, adding, "We're commanded to do this, and we'll do everything in our power so that every last hostage, living and dead, comes back."
As for the Askenazi ultra-Orthodox partym United Torah chairman Yitzchak Goldknopf, he told Netanyahu that "any deal you go for, we'll be with you." Finally, the ultra-Orthodox potential for normalcy – and yes, I'm appropriating normalcy and tying it to a genuine commitment to redeeming our captives – has emerged. We needed it badly.
What this means is that if Netanyahu "chooses" to go for the normalcy option, the ultra-Orthodox will be with him. I put that word in quotes because Netanyahu won't actually decide anything, just as he has never decided anything in the past.
His process for making choices is always outsourced – rival political forces will wrestle before him and they'll decide; the world will decide; Trump will exert pressure for a comprehensive deal including normalization with Saudi Arabia (and parenthetically, so as not to undermine anyone's pleasure in the fantasy of relocating the Palestinians, I'll note its true corollary, as voiced by the Saudi ambassador to Britain this week: "We cannot have normalization with Israel without a solution for the Palestinians. And the solution for the Palestinians is a state").
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meeting with Italian Prime, on Tuesday.Credit: AFP/-
Here it's important to realize that, as always, Netanyahu will foist this dilemma onto the normal members of the opposition. They will have to choose between joining Netanyahu's government to free the hostages as part of Trump's Saudi move, or pushing Netanyahu back into the arms of the lunatics for whom normalization is the enemy.
And we would be wise to have no illusions. The opposition parties won't be able to get around this dilemma, because Netanyahu will deposit it on their doorstep. And if they stutter, then there will be elections, and the hostages will be forced to continue rotting in captivity for many more months.
Essentially, Netanyahu is concocting a hostage deal between himself and the opposition – all the hostages will come home in exchange for his remaining in power on the day after. Netanyahu won't pay the price of the hostages' release out of his own political pocket; he will demand that the opposition pay the political price, by joining his government. At his age, you can't expect him to start paying the bill.
Moreover, he will enjoy putting the opposition to the test: Are you really willing to pay "whatever price" for the hostages?