In Israel, Newly-formed Fragile Coalition Could Unseat Netanyahu

An ideologically broad group of Israeli political parties struck a fragile deal late Wednesday that could unseat longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Less than an hour before a midnight deadline, Yair Lapid, the head of the Yesh Atid party, announced that he had secured the support of the majority of the 120-seat Knesset.  Naftali Bennett, who leads the hardline nationalist Yamina party, announced his support for Lapid’s coalition on Sunday. The agreement between the two would see Bennett serve the first two years as prime minister before Lapid rotates into the role. But Lapid’s fragile eight-party coalition has a thin majority in the Knesset. Labor Party leader Merav Michaeli, whose party is a member of Lapid’s coalition, expressed hope that their shared animosity toward Netanyahu will provide enough incentive to find some common ground.“Throughout the last campaign and also for the last two months, I reiterated and promised that the Labor party would make every effort to form a government that would replace the Netanyahu regime,” he said. “There were days that were very, very uneasy. Today, we succeeded, we made history, we held our promise. As we always promised you to tell the truth and to do what we said we will do, tonight, we’ve succeeded.”President Reuven Rivlin gave Lapid the opportunity to bring together a coalition of parties after Netanyahu failed to do so in early May. The Knesset is now required to hold a vote of confidence in the new government, a procedure that cannot be approved until the next plenum session, which is scheduled for Monday. FILE – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gestures as he speaks at a military base in Tel Aviv, Israel, May 19, 2021.Israel has been in a period of political turmoil for two years, during which the country has held four elections.  After two 2019 elections, Netanyahu failed to form a coalition but stayed on as caretaker prime minister. A year ago, he formed a coalition government with rival Benny Gantz, but that fell apart in December as parliament failed to pass a budget.  The 71-year-old Netanyahu has been prime minister since 2009 after holding the same office for three years in the 1990s. He is on trial facing criminal corruption charges but has denied any wrongdoing.   
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