https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israel-poised-to-dissolve-government/2020/12/02/fd1197de-3404-11eb-9699-00d311f13d2d_story.htmlIsrael faced the prospect of political chaos once again Wednesday when lawmakers approved a preliminary measure that would dissolve the turbulent coalition government, putting the country on a path to its fourth election in two years.
The vote of 61 to 54 to advance the proposal marked another escalation of a political crisis that has left the country with only a caretaker government for more than a year and a largely dysfunctional unity coalition during the mounting coronavirus pandemic and accompanying economic collapse.
Wednesday’s bill does not take immediate effect. Negotiations among the feuding factions could still head off final action on the proposal as it moves to a parliamentary committee before coming back for three more votes by the full Knesset, Israel’s parliament. Among the issues to be negotiated will be the timing of elections.
If the Knesset is ultimately dissolved, the coalition partners would keep their positions during the transition period before a new election. The government — frozen by dysfunction, unable to make senior agency appointments and squabbling over pandemic policy — will be even more hobbled as a caretaker body.
“We are expecting to enter a period of even greater paralysis,” said Yohanan Plesner, a former Knesset member who is now president of the Israel Democracy Institute.
He predicted that the country’s cycle of failing governments and indecisive elections will endure as long as the embattled Netanyahu, who maintains a fiercely loyal following, remains at the center of the action.
“Israel’s two-year-long political crisis will continue as long as Benjamin Netanyahu remains in power and a government cannot be formed without him,” Plesner said.
