Thursday’s 92-0 vote puts an end to Bennett’s presidency – one of the shortest in Israel’s history – and gives former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a chance to return to power.
New elections will be held on November 1 – the fifth round of voting for Israelis in less than four years. Recent polls suggest former Netanyahu’s Likud party well on track to win the most seats, but opinion polls suggest its right-wing bloc will not necessarily have enough seats to win a parliamentary majority. government.
Bennett said Wednesday he would not run for re-election, saying it was “time to step back” and “look at things from the outside.”
The coalition government has been in power for weeks. But the announcement by Bennett and Lapid last week that they wanted to disband their own government came as a complete surprise.
“In recent weeks, we have done everything we can to save this government. In our eyes, the continuation of its existence was in the national interest,” Bennett said earlier this month, standing by Lapid.
“Believe me, we looked under every rock. We did not do this for ourselves, but for our beautiful country, for you, the people of Israel,” Bennett added.
The Bennett-Lapid government was sworn in in June last year, ending Netanyahu’s more than 12-year presidency.
Consisting of no less than eight political parties, the coalition spans the entire political spectrum, including for the first time an Arab party led by Mansour Abbas.
United in a bid to prevent Netanyahu – whose corruption trial had already begun in May 2020 – from remaining in power, the coalition’s motley partners have agreed to put their substantive differences aside.
Although it achieved significant domestic and diplomatic achievements, it was domestic policy that ultimately ended the coalition.
In recent weeks we have seen some members of the coalition either resign or threaten to resign, leaving the government without a majority in parliament to pass legislation.
The political stalemate came earlier this month when a Knesset vote failed to support the application of Israeli criminal and civil law to Israelis in the occupied West Bank.
Among other things, the regulation, which is renewed every five years, gives Israeli settlers in the Palestinian territories the same rights as they have within Israel’s borders and is a loyalty article for right-wing members of the coalition, including Prime Minister Bennett.
However, two members of the coalition refused to support the bill, which means it did not pass.
Because parliament was dissolved before the law expired on July 1st, the regulation will remain in force until a new government is formed, at which point it will be put to the vote again.
Andrew Carey contributed to this report.
