Right after our local elections ended, over a month ago, I warned that the hard business of forming a coalition was still ahead for Benyamin Netanyahu. Well. here we are now, and he still hasn’t managed to do it. There’s a good chance that he will not succeed in the next two days. The next step will be another election. The current impasse is stand off between the religious parties, who want to change the draft law to give more of their constituents exemptions from military service, and the Israel Beyteynu party of former defense minister Avigdor Liberman who is adamantly opposed to making any such change. Without a dramatic concession by one or the other we will be going to the polls again soon.
As a side issue (or two) it means the legal moves by Netanyahu to avoid criminal prosecution might fail. Before the last election, just a few weeks ago, he seemed to have promised he would never seek to make any law that would grant him immunity while in office. Once the elections were over, his party started drafting new legislation to do exactly what he promised would not be done. There was also the back room maneuvers by several smaller parties making deals to ensure they would either make the minimum vote count to get into the Knesset, or enlarge their representation. It will be interesting to see what happens now that those items have been overtaken by events.
Oh. yes, there is also the ever-present problem of what to do about the various Palestinian factions. We do live in interesting times here.
Wetherhorn 