After lengthy deliberations, the White House announced June 14 that President Joe Biden would visit Israel in a month. The details had been ironed out with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and his people. However, when Biden disembarks from Air Force One at Ben-Gurion Airport July 13, a different prime minister will be waiting to greet him. His name is Yair Lapid, currently foreign minister and alternate prime minister to Bennett.

Such are the vagaries of Israel’s political system, one of the most convoluted in the world. Were Biden to return for another visit in the fall, he could well be meeting with still another prime minister, perhaps someone he has met before, such as Bennett’s predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu, or wannabe Prime Minister and current Defense Minister Benny Gantz. Israelis always want to be world leaders in every field, and their ridiculously complex political system fits the bill.

Around noon on June 20, Bennett made his surprise dramatic decision to disband parliament and thus force new elections. His longtime political partner — Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked — was at the time flying to Morocco for an official visit. He did not consult her in advance, but updated her as soon as she landed in Rabat.

Bennett also made a last-ditch effort to appeal to his renegade Yamina party Knesset member Nir Orbach, to wrest from him a promise not to vote with the Likud-led opposition in favor of bringing down the government prior to the Biden visit. Orbach refused, indicating his mind was already made up and he would be willing to delay the vote by a week, at most. Had the vote gone ahead, Orbach’s support could have tipped the scales in the opposition’s favor. Thus, instead of new elections in the fall, Bennett’s coalition government could have perhaps been replaced at once by a Netanyahu-led coalition.