Next week Foreign Minister Yair Lapid will likely assume the role of interim premier following Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's announcement that he plans to dissolve the Knesset and thus, his ill-fated coalition. Under the circumstances, Lapid appears to have turned out to be the victor in this political debacle.
Lapid's term may not necessarily be the shortest in Israel's history, since there is a good chance the Right won't have a majority to form a coalition following the upcoming elections. What happens in that case? Another round of elections. And then another.
The "coalition of change" will also not be able to form a government, and Lapid will likely continue serving as prime minister. We've already seen this scenario play out during the last four rounds of elections, and we may see it play out once again this time.
Bennett's government was neither the best we've ever seen, nor was it the worst. The problem in today's politics is that there is no longer any correlation between a government's accomplishments and public discourse. Political parties have turned into soccer teams. Public support has no connection to success of a given political bloc, with the most important principle being the hatred for the rival team.
We've been slowly sinking in the same political swamp for years, knowing the truth won't be revealed to us through political propaganda.
But what has happened here in the last few years is much worse. The lies have taken over the discourse in both pro and anti-Benjamin Netanyahu camps.
The former premier was never a danger to the democracy, and Bennett was never the head of the Muslim Brotherhood government simply because he joined a coalition with Arab parties. This deceit has been dominating the political discourse for far too long.
National order? Equal sharing of the burden? Settlements? These kind of topics used to be on the political agenda. Not anymore. We're in a swamp of lies and throughout these past months, Netanyahu's supporters have admittedly had the upper hand here.
The second the news of snap elections broke, Lapid became the target of propaganda and lies from the Right. The same voices that managed to turn Bennett into a slave to the Left, will attempt to the same to our interim premier. Therefore, we must remember and remind ourselves - Lapid was, and still is, a centrist - maybe even leaning toward center-right.
In 2016, having served as Netanyahu's finance minister, Lapid published an article titled "The Lies of B'Tselem".
To remind you, B'Tselem is a Jerusalem-based non-profit that aims to document human rights violations in the Palestinian territories. While the political Right has made similar arguments for years, Lapid put them down on paper beautifully. He claimed that the organization's linkage to Hamas is unquestionable, and also admitted that despite his public disputes with Netanyahu, he admired his adherence to the international laws during the 2014 war in Gaza.
Between the Left that dealt with demonization of the Right and his arch political rival at the time - Lapid chose to side with Netanyahu. That shows character, and this seems to be the commodity we lack more than anything else in the political system these days.
It's impossible to build up expectations with the constant incitement in the background, even though expectations and optimism are in the national interest - which is in dire need of rehabilitation.
The announcement of upcoming elections exactly one year after this coalition began to govern is no reason to celebrate. We must remember that this happened because a select individual of MKs rebelled against their own parties.
It started with Amichai Chikli, followed by Idit Silman - both of whom are from Bennett's Yamina party. Then Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi hopped on the bandwagon, and Nir Orbach was the final straw. Out of all these rebels, Silman is the only one who managed to secure her seat in the Knesset ahead of the next elections.
But now the show is over, they took their bows. And we can't go on like this. Both blocs have the common interest of preventing rebel MKs, regardless of which political side they're on, from dragging the country into pointless elections when the thing the state needs most is stability.
Meanwhile, the madness has prevailed over the interests of the state once again.