Lieberman Just Snatched Away Netanyahu’s Election Victory Haaretz, May 27, 2019
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The first scenario is a last-minute reconciliation with Lieberman, who will get whatever he demands. This seems extremely unlikely with everything that has been said by Netanyahu’s proxies in recent days, but given their histories, it's also not out of the question. In this case, Netanyahu will have been exposed at his most vulnerable but still have his majority. With so much bad blood in the water, the fifth Netanyahu government will have an extremely short life-expectancy.
The second scenario, which seems most likely, is that Netanyahu’s plan, already in full motion, to dissolve the newly-elected 21st Knesset, works. By law, if Netanyahu fails to form a coalition by Wednesday night, the president can restart consultations and confer on another lawmaker the opportunity form a government; dissolving the Knesset and calling a new election is the only way to preempt this. Netanyahu is petrified by the prospect of someone else having the chance at the premiership, for the first time since Tzipi Livni in 2008. But he can’t just call an election. He needs a majority of the Knesset to vote to dissolve itself.
The third scenario is double-failure for Bibi. No majority for a government and no majority to dissolve the Knesset. What are the chances of this? The members of the right-wing and religious parties are still loath to challenge Netanyahu openly. Even Lieberman has said that Yisrael Beiteinu will vote in favor of dissolving the Knesset. But the opposition will probably all vote against (though the Arab parties are wavering) and some coalition Knesset members may not be that eager to jeopardize the seats they just won. If an election isn’t immediately called and the mandate does go back to President Reuven Rivlin, all bets are off and new coalition permutations are suddenly conceivable.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-lieberman-just-snatched-netanyahu-s-election-victory-1.7297726
