The headlines used words like "delusional," "surreal" and "sad" for the March 16 swearing-in ceremony of Israel’s 23rd Knesset amid coronavirus precautions and political deadlock. Israel faces two major crises at once with the spread of the coronavirus and its leaders' inability to form a government after three rounds of elections in the span of a single year.
The outbreak is clearly taking a toll on the worst political crises Israel has known since its founding. Anyone at the Knesset could see the breakdown in the country’s parliamentary system up close. Two weeks after a very impassioned and stormy election campaign came to a close, there is still no clear decision. It is as though the campaigning rages unabated.
On Tuesday at noon, a few hours before the ceremony took place, President Reuven Rivlin tasked the chairman of the Blue and White Party, Benny Gantz, with forming a new government. The chances he will be able to cobble together a minority government are slim. Gantz received the mandate to form a government after 61 Knesset members rallied around him with the ultimate purpose of replacing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It was a bizarre coalition, unlike anything ever seen before in the Knesset. Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu, which spent years waging racist campaigns against Israel’s Arab population and its leaders, joined forces with the Joint List, including its most radical faction Balad, which rejects the notion of Israel as a Jewish state.
Gantz could form a minority government, at least on paper, but within his own party there are at least two Knesset members — Yoaz Hendel and Zvi Hauser — who are vehemently opposed to it. In contrast, Netanyahu’s bloc remains stable and cohesive. When Gantz called the leaders of the ultra-Orthodox parties to ask for a meeting, they refused. So did Defense Minister Naftali Bennett, who demanded that Gantz first renounce the support that he just received from Balad. Meanwhile, negotiations are underway behind the scenes to form a unity government, with the position of prime minister rotating between Netanyahu and Gantz.
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