Israel moves to dissolve parliament

TEL AVIV: Israel’s parliament was set to be dissolved yesterday, ending Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s yearlong tenure and triggering a fifth election in less than four years that could see ex-premier Benjamin Netanyahu reclaim power.

Barring an 11th hour shock agreement to save the coalition or form a new government within the existing parliament, Mr Bennett’s eight-party alliance was due to end by midnight yesterday, installing Foreign Minister Yair Lapid as prime minister.

The former television anchor looked set to head a caretaker government, ahead of polls due in late October or early November.

Mr Bennett’s motley alliance formed in 2021 offered a reprieve from an unprecedented era of political gridlock, ending Mr Netanyahu’s record 12 consecutive years in power and passing Israel’s first state budget since 2018.

Mr Netanyahu — a divisive hawk aligned with far-right nationalists and Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties — has promised victory in new elections but may again struggle to rally a parliamentary majority, multiple polls have shown.

He is currently on trial over corruption charges, which he denies.

The anti-Netanyahu camp will likely be led by Mr Lapid, a centrist former TV celebrity. Dismissed as a lightweight when he entered politics a decade ago, he has surprised many with his political skills.

As he and Mr Bennett announced last week that their coalition was no longer tenable, Mr Lapid sought to cast Mr Netanyahu’s potential return to office as a national threat.

“What we need to do today is go back to the concept of Israeli unity. Not to let dark forces tear us apart from within,” Mr Lapid said.

While parliament’s collapse appeared a near certainty, last-minute surprises remained possible given Israel’s volatile political climate.

Factions across the political spectrum fear fresh polls will see them lose seats or end up out of parliament entirely by falling below the minimum support threshold, which is 3.25% of all votes cast.

But options to avoid another election were growing increasingly remote, according to Israeli reports.

That meant Mr Lapid was expected to take office at midnight yesterday after parliament gives final approval to a dissolution bill, in accordance with the power-sharing deal he agreed with Mr Bennett last June.

Mr Bennett, a religious nationalist, has led a coalition of right-wingers, centrists, doves and Islamists from the Raam faction, which made history by becoming the first Arab party to support an Israeli government in the Jewish state’s 74-year history.

But Mr Bennett said the final straw was a failure to renew a measure that ensures the roughly 475,000 Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank live under Israeli law, with Arab lawmakers refusing to back the bill.