Israel’s government collapses, setting up fifth election in three years (via nytimes)
In a show of unity Monday night, Bennett and Lapid gave consecutive speeches from the same stage, both hailing the successes of an unlikely government that many analysts did not expect to last even for a year.
The coalition was cohesive enough to pass a new budget, Israel’s first in more than three years, and to make key administrative appointments. It steadied Israel’s relationship with the Biden administration and deepened its emerging ties with key Arab states. Its members clashed regularly over the rights of Israel’s Arab minority, the relationship between religion and state, and settlement policy in the occupied West Bank — clashes that ultimately led two key members to defect, and others to vote against government bills.
This dynamic may lead to months of protracted coalition negotiations, returning Israel to the stasis it fell into before Netanyahu’s departure, when his government lacked the cohesion to enact a national budget or fill important positions in the civil service, and the country held four elections in two years.
In a video released on social media Monday, Netanyahu celebrated the government’s decision and criticized its record.“This government has ended its path,” he added. “A government that depended on terror supporters, which abandoned the personal security of the citizens of Israel, that raised the cost of living to unheard-of heights, that imposed unnecessary taxes, that endangered our Jewish entity. This government is going home.
Lapid, 58, heads Yesh Atid, the second-largest party after Netanyahu’s Likud. After Netanyahu failed to cobble together a majority in the previous election in March 2021, Lapid was given the opportunity to form a government.