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Israel Enters Fourth Election in Two Years
Posted
December 23, 2020
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December 23, 2020
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6:45Now PlayingIsrael’s brittle governing coalition collapsed after just seven months, sending the election-fatigued country to its fourth vote in two years.
The campaign will feature a new challenger who might win enough support to dethrone the long-serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, polls suggest. The ballot is to take place on March 23 after parliament failed to approve a national budget for the second year in a row.
The grudging alliance between Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz had been formed expressly to avoid another vote after three inconclusive matchups, and to combine forces to contain the coronavirus outbreak. A fourth race, after long months of policy paralysis, will be especially bruising as the virus defies efforts to tame it, talk of a third national lockdown is percolating, and unemployment is a steep 15%.
“I didn’t want elections,” Netanyahu said late Tuesday, shortly before parliament disbanded. “But if elections are forced upon us, I promise you we will win.”
The budget crisis was the ostensible reason the alliance between Netanyahu’s Likud party and Gantz’s Blue and White unraveled. Parliament automatically broke up as the midnight Tuesday deadline to approve a spending plan expired.
But while the partnership gave Israel its first permanent government since December 2018, it seemed destined to fail from the start. Distrust bled through their coalition agreement, while squabbling extended to issues as granular as gay conversion therapy and as sweeping as annexing West Bank land the Palestinians want for a state.
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