T. Belman. Both options are long shots. What is needed is for Likud to cut a deal with Yamina and New Hope or Israel Beitenu giving them another 13 seats at least. This has a chance of success. This is doable particularly if Bibi agrees to Bennett remaining PM for another year at least.
The opposition has 2 main potential paths to unseat Bennett’s eight-party government. Neither is straightforward, but Idit Silman’s bombshell resignation makes them more plausible
Wednesday’s resignation of Yamina MK Idit Silman, the coalition whip, from Naftali Bennett’s eight-party government has thrown Israeli politics back into chaos, depriving the coalition of its parliamentary majority and opening up the possibility of a Likud-led government.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s party has two main potential paths for a return to power, neither of them straightforward. Silman’s resignation bombshell, however, has caused chaos in the coalition, less than 10 months after it took office, and with an invigorated Likud pushing for further defections, the opposition is showing optimism about its prospects for forcing Bennett’s right-center-left-Arab alliance out of office.
The first option for a Likud-led return to power would be for it to pass a law to dissolve the Knesset and hold new elections. To pass, this law would require the support of at least 61 of the 120 members of Knesset. (A simple majority is not sufficient.)
The bill would therefore likely necessitate the widespread backing of the current opposition, including members of the six-strong Joint List of Arab lawmakers, and the support of some lawmakers not currently in the opposition, for example Silman and rebel Yamina MK Amichai Shikli.
With the Knesset in recess, scheduling a vote on such a bill is thought to be unlikely before the weeklong Passover festival which starts at the end of next week, but could be arranged soon after that.
(If such a bill were to pass, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid would be automatically appointed prime minister for the transition period through new elections and the establishment and swearing-in of a new government.)
The second option would be for Likud to form an alternate government in the current 24th Knesset, without a resort to elections, although it appears it would struggle to do so: Likud has 29 seats, while its natural allies have another 23 — Religious Zionism has seven, Shas has nine and United Torah Judaism has seven — for a total of 52.
Even if Bennett’s Yamina party were to split apart, and Silman and Shikli were able to convince other defectors to join them, such as Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked and MK Nir Orbach, that would still only take a Likud-led bloc to 56 seats out of the Knesset’s 120. It would still need further support from within the current coalition ranks, such as, potentially, disaffected members of Benny Gantz’s eight-strong Blue and White party.
Building a new, right-wing coalition without elections is the option declaredly favored by Silman. “I will continue to try to persuade my friends to return home and form a right-wing government,” she said in her resignation letter. “I know I am not the only one who feels this way. Another government can be formed in this Knesset.”
A third and final path Likud could take is currently irrelevant: It could prevent the passing of a budget, thus causing the coalition to fall; however, that option would only be possible next year.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/325597
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/325448
I am clearly with Edgar as I understand him. What’s the delay? The situation is urgent since there’s an Arab pogrom in situ. REMOVE Bennett now!
The basic problem lies in Israeli opportunist policies as a whole and in its reliance on the United States of America both parties of which moving into Fascism. Jews must make Israel independent.
Without that nothing is possible. But can they do that? I think no!
No Peloni I know you weren’t. I’m sorry I may have sounded irked but was not. Nothing you’ve ever said to me has been anything but good.
I was not going by PRESENT LIKUD numbers but, extrapolating from the report, from all accounts, they would substantially increase to anywhere from 35 seats to 38. I’ve seen both, almost side by side in Arutz. Just different polls.
It is the defection of the Chairwoman which is the Big Kahuna here. Others will follow suit. and polls have been holding steady for a while at 60 for Right Wing. That is, without any defections. Just the potential voted of the public.
But, as I say, polls are only polls, yet can’t see this govt holding together after the Chair’s positive defection and the Chikli de facto statement.
@Edgar
Sorry, I guess it confused me when you added the two Yamina defections to the recent polls, and the article was not referencing any poll numbers, so it seems I came to misunderstand you question. FYI, I was not suggesting you were stupid, what a fools errand that would be.
@!PELONI-
Yes I know all that, of course. I am not stupid. I distinctly wrote that “recent polls” give the RIGHT WING, a majority. This was from polling the VOTERS. Now we hear that the Coalition chair has bolted to LIKUD, and that other Yamina MK also will vote with the Right Wing.
So the Right Wing could have a majority if an ELECTION was called.
I specifically mentioned the latest polls all rolling in the RIGHT direction.
I know well that it depends on results not polls, but the signs of this Govt’s disintegration are evident. And the Arabs don’t even come into it.
@Edgar
Israeli law requires an absolute majority of the Knesset to either replace the PM or to call new elections – it changed in 2001 and again in ~2013. So they need 61 votes to throw Bennett/Lapid out, one way or the other. Ted says the Right has 55 in the opposition, so this means they would need 6 more converts from Yamina, New Hope or Yisrael Beiteinu to form a Right wing govt. The Arab Joinit List has 6 votes so they could potentially pass a dissolution of hte govt.
If they could gain the defections from the Right, it would be better to make a govt from the current Knesset and prevent this current govt from spending one more day in office, as well as saving the expense and time and distraction that another election would cause. Also, as we have seen over the past several years, there is a real potential that a new election might not produce a new govt.
@TED-
Perhaps I don’t see under my nose. I understand that if there were elections today according to the latest polls, there would be a LIKUD led Govt , especially with the 2 defections.
“Without the Arabs” ..I don’t see the significance of this remark. If the Right Wing has 61 votes the Arabs are irrelevant, Without the Arabs the Bennett govt has lost its majority, and with the 2 defections, it gives the LUKUD led Right Wing that over-all majority.
Do you perhaps mean that without the Arans the LEFT WING jhas lost its majority.???
If more Yemina ,New Hope and Lieberman cronies follow suit, even one or two, the Right wing would be unassailable.
As pointed out I am not a political guru and don’t understand the math of the article the way it’s put.
@EDGAR
The current 60 to 61 opposition includes the Arab list.
Without it there are only 55 right wing seats.
This report seems to mmme a bit, more than abit , garbled. Of course I don’t understand “politicspeak”/
The writer says that a simple majority will not be enough. I take that to mean that a majority of the present 52 right wingers, will not be enough , unless the 14-15 Right wing opposition members abstain. I don’t see how the Arabs come into it.
Then he says that 61 MKs are needed . Well is not 61 a simple majority of the Knesset. And according to new polls combined with the 2 defections, gives the simple majority of 61-2.
So is the guy just trying to stretch out a comment into an article or does he have something.
2 defections, gives LIKUD the “simple majority”
MK Nir Orbach, emboldened by Silman’s example, has now stated he will not sit in “a government that freezes construction in Judea and Samaria.” Very good, finally, for him. Perhaps he and Silman can bring enough of a fractured Yamina and perhaps some from New Hope to create the Right wing govt that should always have been chosen over the Leftist-Arab coalition that was unfortunately chosen and which has caused so much damage.
The Right have always had the votes to form a govt, and they only lacked the will to do so. Hence, creating an up-from-the-ashes govt is easily not impossible, but still highly unlikely, given the fact that it was never based on principles but personalities, who are all still present. The vital interest of the state could not be more tenuous at the moment and I find it possibly quite relevant that MK Silman chose this moment to potentially scuttle the govt of spare parts. I also found her parting statement to be most telling:
So, I hope for a rapprochement between the Rignt wing parties, but I find it remotely likely without the input of the electorate to hopefully reward the nation with a Right wing Knessett composed of actual statesmen whose egos are such that they can actually produce a functioning Right wing govt to represent the public in this very perilous time.
How would any coalition that needed Abbas to stay in power do things differently?