JERUSALEM—Israel moved closer to snap elections as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahustruggled to form a government from a fractious group of secular and religious parties after April’s elections.
Lawmakers late Monday took a first step toward dissolving the parliament, voting 66-44 to do so and prompting a new election tentatively scheduled for Sept. 17. The bill to dissolve parliament must go through two more votes, which if passed would make it law. A final vote isn’t scheduled yet.
Mr. Netanyahu has so far failed to convince the head of a secular party to abandon a demand for legislation that puts him at odds with religious parties who would be part of the government, leading to the impasse.
In Israel’s parliamentary system, no modern party has won the 61 seats necessary to form a majority government and dozens of smaller parties vie for spots in the government.
Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party submitted the bill Monday to dissolve parliament, as the premier faces a Wednesday night deadline to form government.
Wrangling over cabinet posts and core issues often goes until the last minute in Israel, and the bill calling for new elections appears to be a tactic to push the parties to agree on government formation. It could also help Mr. Netanyahu avoid a scenario where he fails to form a government and Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin taps another member of parliament to do so. Analysts say Mr. Netanyahu forming a government remains the most likely outcome, though elections are closer as the deadline looms.
Mr. Netanyahu’s party recently introduced a bill that would grant him immunity from criminal prosecution as he faces bribery and fraud charges related to three corruption probes. He faces a pretrial hearing in September and fresh elections could delay the legislation, which has received harsh criticism from some of Mr. Netanyahu’s party as well as members of the opposition and Israel’s legal community.
Mr. Netanyahu made a prime-time address Monday vowing he would fight until the end to form a government after winning the mandate in April.
“I’m making all efforts to prevent unnecessary and wasteful elections that will cost billions of shekels. There’s no reason to do so and paralyze the country for another half a year,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “There are excellent solutions, and if there’s a will [the crisis] can be solved within two minutes.”
Mr. Netanyahu has commitments from enough right-wing and religious parties to form a government with 60 seats in the 120-member parliament, or Knesset, which isn’t enough to pass a 61-seat threshold to form a stable majority ruling coalition.
Former defense minister Avigdor Lieberman, whose secular Yisrael Beiteinu party has five seats, backed Mr. Netanyahu for prime minister but has said he would only sit in a coalition that legislates to force the ultraorthodox to serve in the military alongside most Israelis.
Mr. Lieberman backs a version of the bill written by the Defense Ministry that sets a minimum number of ultraorthodox men who must be drafted into the military. Other members of Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition, the ultraorthodox United Torah Judaism and Shas parties, want to see the law watered down.
“The draft law is symptomatic of the radicalness of the ultraorthodox,” Mr. Lieberman said Tuesday morning.
He said negotiations haven’t convinced him to change his position. “We are not trying to topple Netanyahu, and aren’t looking for an alternative, but we won’t give up on our principles we promised the citizens of Israel.”
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Blue and White, the main opposition party with 35 seats in the Knesset, has called for a unity government between Likud and Blue and White, to be headed by anyone but Mr. Netanyahu.
“Netanyahu’s insistence to keep his seat at any cost—it is the single barrier to the forming of a national unity government that can truly work for Israel’s citizens, every Israeli citizen,” Blue and White leader Benny Gantz said in a press conference Monday. “If there was one other leader in the Likud, we could form this government.”
U.S. officials are eager to see Mr. Netanyahu form the next government, and President Trump took the unusual step of weighing in on the deliberations on Twitter Monday.
“Hoping things will work out with Israel’s coalition formation and Bibi and I can continue to make the alliance between America and Israel stronger than ever. A lot more to do!” Mr. Trump said.
If Israel does go to fresh elections, the Trump administration’s Bahrain conference, in which officials and business leaders from the region, Europe and Asia are due to discuss the U.S.’s Middle East peace plan would likely go ahead. However, it could delay the effort to put forward a political plan, which it said they would present after the economic plan in the summer. President Trump’s son-in-law is expected in Israel on Thursday to discuss the peace effort.
A poll published Monday night by Israel’s Channel 13 television station found that 41% of the Israeli public would blame Mr. Netanyahu for fresh elections, 27% would blame Mr. Lieberman, 16% the ultraorthodox and 16% said they didn’t know. Some early polls show Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party would win the same number of seats and his right-wing bloc would again be best suited to form a coalition.
—Dov Lieber in Tel Aviv contributed to this article.
Write to Felicia Schwartz at Felicia.Schwartz@wsj.com
https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-edges-toward-snap-elections-as-netanyahu-struggles-to-form-government-11559044852
2019-05-28 12:00:00Z
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