Centrist wins chance at Israeli government
JERUSALEM — Benny Gantz, the centrist former army chief battling to depose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, on Sunday won the endorsements of a narrow majority of lawmakers, earning him a fresh chance to form a government and break Israel’s yearlong political deadlock.
The surprise majority for Gantz, 60, who earned the backing both of Arab lawmakers often accused of sympathizing with terrorists and from ultranationalist lawmakers often called rabidly anti-Arab, puts him in a stronger-than-expected position to try to pry loose Netanyahu’s 11-year grip on power.
Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, said he would formally assign Gantz, of the Blue and White party, the mandate to form a government at midday Monday.
But Rivlin also summoned Gantz and Netanyahu, 70, to his residence Sunday night for an “urgent conversation” about the possibility of bringing their parties together in a national unity government to contend with the emergency posed by the coronavirus pandemic. After about 90 minutes, Gantz and Netanyahu emerged and promised that their aides would continue the talks.
The momentous goingson came on an extraordinarily tumultuous day. With much of the country grinding to a halt or stuck at home, Israeli citizens were still absorbing news of draconian measures that Netanyahu’s caretaker government was considering to fight the virus, including an idea to deploy secret surveillance tools now used to hunt terrorists to identify people who should be quarantined.
Then, early Sunday, came word that the court system had been effectively shut down in a middle-ofthe-night decree by Netanyahu’s hand-picked justice minister, and that, a few hours later, Netanyahu’s criminal trial on bribery and other corruption charges, which was set to open Tuesday, had been pushed off until late May.
The unexpected postponement set off a wave of criticism from Netanyahu’s opponents.
“Courts and parliamentary operations must not be suspended, even in emergencies,” said Nitzan Horowitz, leader of the left-wing Meretz party.