Netanyahu Could Lose PM Seat as Rivals tried to join Forces
The longest-serving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s run may be coming to an end as Lapid may Oust him
The longest-serving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s run may be coming to an end. On Sunday evening, a former ally of Netanyahu and the leader of the small right-wing party Yamina, Naftali Bennett, announced that he is working toward an alliance contract with the leader of the centrist party Yesh Atid, Yair Lapid, to join a new government.
It is a seismic event in Israeli politics, and if the alliance is sworn in, it will become the source to end to the twelve years of Netanyahu as prime minister. During a prime-time address on Sunday, the Yamina leader told Israelis he is joining the new administration to prevent the 5th round of elections and rescue Israel from spin.
Bennett said that after four general elections and additional two months, it had been proved to everyone that there is simply no right-wing government possible that headed by the prime minister. It is either a 5th election or a unity government. Furthermore, Bennett dismissed suggestions that the alliance, which would include an extensive band of parties, would be a left-wing administration rather than paying tribute to the willingness of possible partners in the alliance to allow him to become the leader of Israel.
Additionally, he added that the left-wing is making tough compromises to allow him to become prime minister. Netanyahu government will not do disconnection, nor will it deliver over territories, nor will it afraid to launch a military operation if required. After the statement of Bennett, Netanyahu stated that he criticized the Yamina party leader as a man who only wants to become a prime minister.
Bennett Denied sitting in Government led by Lapid
Naftali Bennett announced he would not sit in a government led by Lapid; the prime minister said the principles of his right-wing opponents didn’t have the weight of a feather. Netanyahu said that Bennet was trying to succeed in the deception of the century. Mainly it expected that any unity pact would see the position of PM rotate with Bennett going first and Lapid second.
It is a rare plan, one made unique because the political party of Bennett won only 7 seats in the last election. However, his party has a great influence in kingmaking in Israeli politics, as the pro-change bloc and Netanyahu tried to encourage Bennett, wanting his seven seats to get them closer to the sixty-one-seat majority needed to make a government in the Knesset, the Israelian parliament.
Lapid Needs to Sign Formal Coalition Agreements with all Political Parties
Moreover, the change alliance will possibly made up of parties from the right-wing to the left-wing of Israeli politics. However, it would still almost surely need some type of outside support to reach the sixty-one-seat threshold. That support may approach from outside the government, most likely the Islamist United Arab List, run by Mansour Abbas.
Benjamin Netanyahu Could Lose PM Seat as Rivals tried to join Forces Source: Web
And there may not be much merging such a huge range of parties except their desire to overthrow Netanyahu. With demanding issues like how to keep the truce holding with Hamas in Gaza and mounting tensions in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, this could be a delicate government easily cracked apart by different ideological divisions.
Now Lapid requires to sign formal coalition pacts with all the stakeholder political parties before declaring his coalition, first to Netanyahu and then the speaker of the Knesset. Afterward, the parliament has seven days to vote on the arrangements of the coalition before the establishment of the new government and the oath of a new prime minister of the country.
Netanyahu Become a Polarizing Personality
Despite Netanyahu’s electoral dominance, he has become a polarizing personality after he faced fraud charges, accepted bribes in late 2019, and breached national trust. All the last four general elections in Israel faced a referendum on the fitness of Netanyahu to rule, and all of them ended in deadlock.
Netanyahu is currently on trial for bribery, and the only thing saving him from a potential prison sentence is the office that he holds. If the agreement between opposition parties holds, Netanyahu will be ousted from power, and there will be nothing stopping him being charged
Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, is despite holding his seat while he is on trial. He used his designation as a stage to rally his base and criticize media, prosecutors, and police. In order to make a government in Israel, the party head needs to must secure the support of a sixty-one-seat majority in the one hundred and twenty-seat parliament.
There are now Thirteen Parties of Various Sizes in Parliament
Because not any single party has a majority, governments usually made by coalition with smaller partners. At present, there are 13 political parties of different sizes in the Israeli parliament. As the head of the largest party of the country, Netanyahu got the first opportunity from Israel’s president to form a coalition government. However, he could not secure a majority in the parliament with his nationalist and traditional religious allies.
Netanyahu even tried to court a small Islamist Arab party but upset by another small ultranationalist party with a biased anti-Arab agenda. Even though Arabs make up some twenty percent of the population of Israel, previously, any Arab party never sat in an Israeli coalition government. Furthermore, after the failure of Netanyahu to make a government, the authority gave one month to Lapid to form a government with a coalition. Lapid has a deadline till Wednesday to complete the task.
