Israeli PM's govt limps into new Parl session

JERUSALEM: The government of Israel's embattled prime minister was limping on Monday into the opening of parliament's summer session on the verge of collapse.

Less than a year after taking office, Naftali Bennett has lost his parliamentary majority, his own party is crumbling and a key governing partner has suspended cooperation with the coalition. That has set the stage for a possible attempt by the opposition, led by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to topple the government later this week.

While Bennett appears to be poised to fend off this immediate challenge, his longerterm prospects are uncertain at a time when the government is deeply divided over major issues, Israel is facing an ongoing wave of stabbings and shootings by lone-wolf Palestinian attackers and a confrontation with the United States over West Bank settlement construction is looming.

Boaz Toporovsky, the acting coalition chairman, acknowledged the coalition is in the midst of a serious crisis but said he was optimistic it would survive. Everyone understands that we're at a crossroads that can bring about, heaven forbid, elections in Israel," he told the Israeli public broadcaster Kan.

The new government made history when it took office last June, ending prolonged deadlock in which the country went through four rounds of inconclusive elections in just two years. Racing to head off what would have been another election, Bennett cobbled together a diverse coalition of eight parties with little in common beyond their shared animosity toward Netanyahu.

The new coalition, including hard-line religious nationalists that oppose Palestinian statehood, dovish left-wingers and for the first time in an Israeli coalition, an Islamist Arab party, agreed to sideline the country's most divisive issues and focus on areas of broad consensus.