Both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz failed to muster a new government. Following this double failure, the mandate for composing a new government passed Nov. 21 to the Knesset for a period of three weeks. If no Knesset member succeeds in assembling a majority, Israel will head to new elections.

This has never happened in Israel’s history. While the clause in the Basic Law that enables Kennet members to crown a prime minister with the support of a majority of 61 has never been applied, there is a municipal precedent of sorts from 1965 in Nazareth, when the mayor was not elected directly by city residents but by the city council. Thus the winning candidate had to form a coalition to be selected. In Nazareth that year, the election results were as follows: seven representatives for Mapai (Workers Party of the Land of Israel, which later merged into Labor), seven representatives for the Communist Party and one representative for Mapam (the United Workers Party, which was a leftist Zionist party). All of the representatives were Arab citizens of Israel. The Communists made an effort to win over the Mapam representative in order to gain a majority, and offered him important roles in city management. Mapai did so as well, to no effect; the Mapam representative refused all of the offers. In the end, after everyone had given up, and talked of a repeat election, a solution was found: The single elected representative from Mapam on the council was chosen as mayor.

Back to 2019. This could be the moment for one of those Knesset members who don’t belong to a big party or for one of the backbenchers, known for their good relations with the whole chamber despite holding political positions that are not accepted by all. This is how presidents were once chosen in Israel, and this is precisely how the next prime minister could be chosen, someone who draws little hostility and is not seen by their colleagues as a rival in the long run. 

In this situation, when no party head has a mandate to form the next government, a sense of anarchy could take hold, in which members of Knesset would be willing to break down party lines in order to avoid standing for a third election within so short a time, and to find themselves outside of the Knesset after just a few months of service.