Israeli Government Collapses, Forcing 4th Election in 2 Years

[Right_in_Virginia]

Israeli Government Collapses, Forcing 4th Election in 2 Years
NY Times, Dec 22, 2020

JERUSALEM — Israel’s government collapsed Tuesday, pushing the country into yet another early election — the fourth in two years.

The Israeli Parliament dissolved itself at midnight on Tuesday. The move forced a new election after weeks of infighting and paralysis in the so-called unity government, an uneasy coalition sworn in just seven months ago that paired Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conservative Likud party with his main rival-turned-partner, Benny Gantz of the centrist Blue and White party.

Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gantz blamed each other for the crisis.

“I think at the current time, we should have united forces to find a way to avert these needless elections,” Mr. Netanyahu said in Parliament early Tuesday as he tried, and failed, to seek a delay in its dissolution.

Parliament automatically dispersed at midnight after failing to meet the legal deadline for approving a budget for 2020. Mr. Netanyahu, whose party holds the finance portfolio, had refused to present a budget, in violation of his coalition agreement with Mr. Gantz — the ostensible reason for the government breakdown.

But at the heart of the crisis lies a deep, mutual distrust between the two men and a country fundamentally split over the fate of Mr. Netanyahu, whose corruption trial is scheduled to move into an intensive, evidentiary stage in early 2021, requiring his regular presence in court. He has been charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust. He denies any wrongdoing.


More: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/world/middleeast/israel-election-netanyahu.html

[Right_in_Virginia]

FTA

Analysts said that Mr. Netanyahu was gambling on another election in the hope of forming a right-wing, religious government that would grant him some kind of immunity from prosecution.

“It’s not the budget, stupid,” said Reuven Hazan, a professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Mr. Netanyahu “needs a government that will pass legislation either to delay his case for the foreseeable future or cancel it altogether,” he added.

But failing to present a budget and forcing the dispersal of Parliament provides him with an escape hatch from the coalition agreement stipulating that Mr. Gantz should take over as prime minister 11 months from now. From the inception of the unity government, few people, including Mr. Gantz, expected Mr. Netanyahu to honor that agreement.

Groundhog Day IV

[Right_in_Virginia]

The rivals on the right: Why the new election will be much tougher for Netanyahu
The PM managed to topple the government without handing Gantz his promised rotation, but Sa’ar and Bennett would never have trusted him, and their anti-Bibi camp is rising
Times of Israel, Dec 23, 2020

The Knesset dissolved at midnight, triggering automatic elections in exactly 90 days’ time, on March 23, 2021. It will be the fourth snap election in less than two years.

The general consensus is that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has won the day. By enticing rival Benny Gantz into a unity government after three indecisive elections, Netanyahu shattered his opponent’s broad center-left alliance and then spent the months since wriggling his way out of their rotation agreement.   

Gantz has emphatically lost. The once-powerful Blue and White alliance has dropped from 35 seats in April 2019 to scarcely six in this month’s polls. Once seen as the “most fitting” candidate for prime minister by some 40% of the country, Gantz couldn’t muster more than 4% in a Monday poll by Channel 12 that asked the same question.

But though Gantz has lost, that doesn’t mean Netanyahu has won. In a bitter irony for Netanyahu, his path to outright victory has only grown more difficult with Gantz’s collapse.

If one thinks of the four elections held between April 2019 and March 2021 not as four distinct political events but as a single, long-running contest, Netanyahu’s situation appears to have worsened this week.

Over the last three races, he led a Likud list that won between 32 and 36 seats at the ballot box. Likud now polls around 28.

Far more importantly, the diverse but vehemently anti-Netanyahu coalition once led by Gantz has struggled to clear the 61-seat threshold for a parliamentary majority. Over the past two weeks, by contrast, those parties that declare themselves opposed to Netanyahu’s continued rule are polling at close to 80 seats.

All the major news outlets conducted polls on Tuesday after it became clear that the 23rd Knesset would be dissolving by midnight. All found that an anti-Netanyahu majority, narrow but persistent, exists among centrist and rightist parties, without need for left-wing or Arab-majority factions.

That’s a dangerous seachange for Netanyahu.


More: https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-rivals-on-the-right-why-the-new-election-will-be-much-tougher-for-netanyahu/

[jafo2010]

Israel is about to lose its best ally, the USA.  Biden will continue with the anti Israel/pro Iran policies that Obama had for eight rotten years.  There goes peace in the Middle East, and that puts us right back in the middle again.   Oh joy!!

I have a friend that swears Trump will have his 2nd term.  I sure hope so.

[rustynail]

Tell me who's that writing, John the Revelator.....

[mountaineer]

Israel is about to lose its best ally, the USA.  Biden will continue with the anti Israel/pro Iran policies that Obama had for eight rotten years.  There goes peace in the Middle East, and that puts us right back in the middle again.   Oh joy!!

If any of Israel's enemies need weaponry of any type, you can bet Joe will be happy to provide it.

[PeteS in CA]

They'd better get their act together, as a Biden Administration would be at least as anti-Semitic as was OhBummer!'s!