The leader of a small hard-line party says he will try to form a unity government with Prime Mininster Benjamin Netanyahu’s opponents.
Dozens of office-seekers have been killed in run-up to June 6 elections. Hundreds more have been threatened. Israel has gone through four consecutive elections over the past two years. Each election was seen as a referendum on Netanyahu — who has become a polarizing figure in Israeli politics due to his ongoing corruption trial — with each ending in deadlock.
Netanyahu is desperate to stay in power while he is on trial. He has used his office as a stage to rally support and lash out against police, prosecutors and the media. If his opponents fail to form a government and new elections are triggered, it would give him another chance at seeing the election of a parliament that is in favor of granting him immunity from prosecution. But if they succeed, he would find himself in the much weaker position of opposition leader and potentially find himself facing unrest in his Likud party. In a statement Sunday, Netanyahu issued a desperate appeal for Bennett to avoid the temptation of joining his opponents. He accused Bennett of deceiving his voters and abandoning his nationalistic principles “all in order to be prime minister at any price.”To form a government, a party leader must secure the support of a 61-seat majority in parliament. Because no single party controls a majority on its own, coalitions are usually built with smaller partners. As leader of the largest party, Netanyahu was given the first opportunity by the country’s figurehead president to form a coalition. But he was unable to secure a majority with his traditional religious and nationalist allies. Netanyahu even attempted to court a small Islamist Arab party but was thwarted by a small ultranationalist party with a. Although Arabs make up some 20% of Israel’s population, an Arab party has never before sat in an Israeli coalition government. After Netanyahu’s failure to form a government, Lapid was then given four weeks to cobble together a coalition. He has until Wednesday to complete the task.Lapid already faced a difficult challenge, given the broad range of parties in the anti-Netanyahu bloc that have little in common. They include dovish left-wing parties, a pair of right-wing nationalist parties, including Bennett’s Yamina, and most likely the Islamist United Arab List. Lapid’s task was made even more difficult after war broke out with Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip on May 10. His coalition talks
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