Skip to main content

Vote on New Israeli Government to Be Held in Coming Week

 

Israel's parliament speaker said Monday that a vote to approve a new government that would end Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's 12-year rule will be held in the coming week, without setting a precise date.


The announcement by Yariv Levin, a close Netanyahu ally, leaves time for the prime minister's efforts to try to peel away supporters from the fragile coalition arrayed against him, which consists of eight parties and has only a narrow majority in Israel's 120-member Knesset, or parliament.


Netanyahu's supporters have launched a blistering campaign against his opponents, including death threats and raucous protests outside their homes that has forced the Knesset to beef up their security details.


Netanyahu has accused his erstwhile right-wing allies of betrayal for allying with leftists and a small Arab party that he had also courted.


The so-called change coalition appears to be holding together despite the attacks and its ideological differences.


Naftali Bennett, an ultranationalist former Netanyahu ally, would serve as prime minister for two years, followed by the centrist Yair Lapid.


“This government is being formed because it’s the majority,” Lapid said Monday, insisting that it would serve all Israelis and be based on “trust, on decency, on goodwill.”


“These past few days proved how much we need change. If the leadership uses violence and incitement against Knesset members, against their children, against the very essence of the democratic process, then we need change,” Lapid said.


Israel held four elections in less than two years, the most recent in March.


Each time, voters were deeply polarized over whether Netanyahu should remain in office while on trial for corruption. An emergency government formed last year to address the coronavirus pandemic was mired in political infighting and collapsed in December. Netanyahu tried and failed to form a government after the March elections before the mandate was given to Lapid.


The political transition, which could yet be derailed, comes amid heightened tensions following weeks of clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police in Jerusalem that ignited a wave of ethnic violence in Israeli cities and triggered an 11-day Gaza war.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

NATO Chief: No New Cold War With China

Flags of NATO member countries flutter at alliance headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, February 28, 2020. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir/File Photo NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday there is no new Cold War with China but the western allies will have to adapt to the challenge of Beijing's rise. "We're not entering a new Cold War and China is not our adversary, not our enemy," Stoltenberg told reporters after a NATO leaders' summit. "But we need to address together, as the alliance, the challenges that the rise of China poses to our security." NATO leaders are expected on Monday to brand China as a security risk to the Western alliance for the first time, a day after the Group of Seven issued a statement on human rights and Taiwan that Beijing said slandered its reputation. G7 leaders, meeting in Britain over the weekend, scolded China over human rights in its Xinjiang region, called for Hong Kong to keep a high degree of autonomy and demanded a...

Can Biden-Erdogan meeting break the diplomatic impasse on key issues?

Turkey is a US ally and a NATO member, but under President Erdogan’s assertive foreign policy, Ankara has shown the capacity to go its own way if necessary. American and Turkish leaders, Joe Biden and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will meet on June 14 at the NATO summit amid a backdrop of serious disagreements on various issues, ranging from Ankara’s purchase of Russian S-400s to Washington’s ongoing support of the YPG, the Syrian wing of the PKK, a terror group in northern Syria. There are also other issues like Biden’s recent acceptance of the 1915 incidents concerning armed fighting between Armenians and Turks during WWI as a genocide, and Washington’s previous criticism of Turkey’s assertive eastern Mediterranean policy. Despite those differences, Turkey and the US continue to have close commercial relations and across Central Asia and the Caucasus, both countries have similar political stances. Ankara, like Washington, has been also opposing Russian intervention in both the Ukrainian and ...

EU Advises Against Astrazeneca Shot in People With Rare Blood Condition

A vial of AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine is seen at a vaccination center in Westfield Stratford City shopping center, amid the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in London, Britain, February 18, 2021. (REUTERS/Henry Nicholls) Europe's drug regulator on Friday advised against using AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine in people with a history of a rare bleeding condition and said it was looking into heart inflammation cases after inoculation with all coronavirus shots. The European Medicines Agency's (EMA) safety committee in its evaluation said that capillary leak syndrome must be added as a new side effect to labelling on AstraZeneca's vaccine, Reuters reported. It is a condition in which blood leaks from the smallest of vessels into muscles and body cavities and is characterized by swelling and a drop in blood pressure. The regulator first began looking into these cases in April and the recommendation adds to AstraZeneca's woes after its vaccine has been dogge...