Time for blue and white smoke

The process to elect a new pope looks lively and quick compared to the coalition negotiations to form Israel's next government. The cardinals in the Vatican won't need 42 days to send out white smoke above the Sistine Chapel.

But despite long overnight meetings between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett and ongoing talks between the Likud-Beytenu, Yesh Atid and Habayit Hayehudi negotiating teams, we've nearly reached the end of the allotted legal time frame, and a new government has yet to be announced.

At this point, all of the involved parties can appear before their voters and claim they achieved the maximum possible. Lapid has cut the number of government ministers and kept the haredim out of the coalition. Bennett, who at first was ignored by Netanyahu, will enter the coalition as a senior partner. Lapid and Bennett have received a commitment that an equitable enlistment law will be passed and that core subjects (mathematics, English, geography, literature, and history) will be incorporated into the curriculum of all Israeli state-funded schools. Netanyahu can point to the fact that Likud-Beytenu will have a ministerial majority in the cabinet (by a ratio of 12:9) even though Likud-Beytenu MKs will comprise less than half the overall number of coalition MKs.

What else is needed? More arm wrestling at this point won't further the development of the good ties that will be needed between these parties when they are actual coalition partners in the same government.

A Netanyahu-Lapid-Bennett government will be committed to increasing the electoral threshold to four percent in order to prevent extortion by small parties. This government will have an agreed-upon formula to start the process of more equally distributing the enlistment burden. Incorporating core subjects into the curriculum of all schools could be a root canal that treats some of Israeli society's ills.

Who is willing to jeopardize all of this over whether Shai Piron or Gideon Sa'ar will be education minister-

While each party can feel that it won, each has also forgotten the need to be a gracious victor.

It is unclear whether the new government will push for a peace agreement with the Palestinians. This is largely because there is no serious Palestinian partner, but also perhaps because the government may itself be reluctant to establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel. But the truth is that even if Netanyahu declares support for two states for two peoples during U.S. President Barack Obama's upcoming trip to Israel, not only will Bennett remain in the coalition, but the more right-wing members of Habayit Hayehudi, such as Uri Ariel and Orit Struck, will stay as well. Did anyone leave the government over Netanyahu's Bar-Ilan University speech in 2009-

The ongoing coalition negotiations have reached the edge of the abyss, in terms of the timetable stipulated by law. They have also crossed the line of good taste and the general public's limit of patience. It is time for blue and white smoke to rise.

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