Knesset calls third election in a year
Vote set for March 2 • NIS 62m. MK campaign budget rise passes in hours
The Knesset dispersed itself late Wednesday night, sending Israelis to the polls for a third Knesset election in less than a year.
An election would have been called automatically at midnight if the Knesset did not find a candidate for prime minister with support from most of its members, as the 21-day period came to a close Wednesday night, but MKs submitted a bill so that they could hold the vote on an earlier date, March 2, because the automatic date, March 10, is the Jewish holiday of Purim.
Almost no negotiations took place during the day, with last-ditch efforts to form a government abandoned earlier in the week, but MKs took the time to blame one another for the situation.
Despite the constant laments from across the political spectrum that the lack of a government has prevented essential services from being funded, MKs managed to add NIS 62 million to the budget funding their parties’ election campaigns within a few hours on Wednesday.
The only MK to vote against the increase was Oded Forer of Yisrael Beytenu.
“I don’t understand how the people sitting here can look the public in the eye,” he said.
MKs from Shas, which said earlier in the week that they would oppose the increase, voted in favor.
Reactions to the apparent deadlock were quick to arrive. In a video posted online in the evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Blue and White “wants to hide the fact that they did everything to avoid establishing a broad national-unity government that would annex the Jordan Valley, apply Israeli sovereignty on the settlements in Judea and Samaria.
“They tried to do everything to establish a minority government with the terror supporters [Joint List MKs] Ayman Odeh and Ahmed Tibi, and they failed at that, too,” he said. “They forced new elections on us. It is unnecessary; and in order to avoid it happening again, there is one thing to do, and that is to win, and win big – and that is what we’ll do.”
Blue and White cochairman Yair Lapid said from the plenum’s stage that the reasons for this election are bribery, fraud and breach of trust – the
when the Knesset dispersed itself last time on May 30.
And they were close last time, too. That was when then-Labor leader Avi Gabbay spent the night at the Prime Minister’s Residence on Jerusalem’s Balfour Street hammering out a deal to take his party’s six MKs – or at least two of them – into the coalition.
Gabbay gave in to pressure when the deal was revealed prematurely, and he has since regretted not signing on the dotted line and becoming finance minister.
This time, an agreement between the Likud and Blue and White on a unity government was written in great detail. Lawyers from both sides hammered out arrangements to facilitate a coalition to the smallest details.
They worked hardest on the most complicated issue: how to enable Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to leave his post – as soon as possible for Blue and White, and as respectfully as possible for him.
Maariv’s Ben Caspit reported it in great detail on Tuesday, and since then sources in both parties have confirmed the report.
Netanyahu was to leave office on May 4, 2020, right after Independence Day celebrations. Both Netanyahu and Gantz would have been sworn in as prime minister this month – Netanyahu as prime minister and Gantz as the prime minister-designate in a rotation.
A law would have been passed to create Gantz’s post and ensure that Netanyahu left his on time. The bill would have even prevented the Knesset’s dispersal before the end of the term, ensuring long-awaited stability.
Shas leader Arye Deri and New Right head Ayelet Shaked told Gantz they would join him and leave Netanyahu if the Likud leader tried to get out of the deal.
Why did Gantz ultimately reject the offer? Was it because he still does not trust Netanyahu, because he feels Netanyahu treated him disrespectfully, or because his No. 2, MK Yair Lapid, finally offered to give up their own rotation if a third election would be initiated? Apparently all three. There was also the Avigdor Liberman factor.
The Yisrael Beytenu leader hinting he would join both right- and left-wing narrow governments at strategic times when a unity deal was close led both sides falsely astray and made it harder for them to compromise.
Now, Liberman says he accepts “zero percent blame” for the election. But it is possible a deal could have been reached had the supposed kingmaker disappeared.
The two sides were close. So close, yet so far away. •