The people of Israel must go to the ballot box again!
In a joint statement on Monday, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett (50) and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid (58) announced that they would put a bill to dissolve the Knesset to the vote next Monday. This means that elections will probably take place in October.
Lapid is initially to become acting prime minister. Israel is now facing its fifth election in three and a half years.
Thin coalition
In the Knesset elections on March 23, 2021, there was again no clear majority among the parties in Israel. After the incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (72) failed to form a coalition, Bennett was appointed Prime Minister of Israel on June 13.
An agreement was reached between the parties or party alliances Yesh Atid, Chosen LeIsra’el, Jamina, Avoda, Jisra’el Beitenu, Tikva Chadasha, Meretz and Ra’am.
► Tight conditions: In the government led by Bennett, however, it was by no means a straightforward matter. 60 members of the Knesset voted for the government, 59 against it.
At that time, Bennett and Lapid decided on a rotation principle, according to which the two wanted to take turns at the head of government.
In the months directly after the government was formed in 2021, but especially in April and May 2022, the coalition crumbled further and further apart – also due to MPs leaving the coalition.
Most recently, in April, tensions between Israelis and Palestinians put the coalition to the test. After clashes around the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the Arab Ra’am party threatened to withdraw from the coalition if the government continued its crackdown on Palestinian demonstrators.
► On April 6, 2022, MP Idit Silman, previously coalition leader of the governing alliance, resigned from the Yamina faction and switched to the opposition Likud party of Benjamin Netanyahu.
The government thus lost its wafer-thin majority.
Government circles said on Monday about the government crisis that all “attempts to stabilize the coalition” had been “exhausted”.