Israeli govt loses Parliament majority, raising prospect of election

CAIRO • A second lawmaker has quit Israel's governing coalition, giving the opposition a narrow two-seat majority in Parliament and raising the possibility of a fifth election in three years.

Although the move will not necessarily bring down the current government, a fractious coalition of parties with clashing agendas, the loss of its majority underscores its instability and the risk that any divisive issue could topple it.

The government has come under intense pressure with the recent escalation of tensions between the Israeli authorities and Palestinians - including clashes at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, terrorist attacks in Israel and a heavy military response in the occupied West Bank.

The lawmaker who resigned from the coalition on Thursday, Ms Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi, a member of Israel's Palestinian minority from the left-wing Meretz party, said she disagreed with the government's treatment of the Arab community in Israel. She specifically cited recent police interventions at Al-Aqsa Mosque and a police assault on mourners at the funeral of a Palestinian journalist last week.

Last month, a right-wing member of the coalition quit. That lawmaker, Ms Idit Silman, said the government no longer reflected her right-wing and religious values.

The government coalition, the most diverse in Israel's history, coalesced a year ago over one issue: a shared desire to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and to break a political deadlock that had forced Israel into four elections in a row.

But the ideological incompatibility of the coalition's eight constituent parties - an alliance of right-wing, left-wing, secular, religious and Arab groups - left it fragile from the start. The defections could offer a political lifeline to Mr Netanyahu, who now leads the opposition in Parliament.

Ms Rinawie Zoabi's defection means that opposition lawmakers now control 61 of the 120 seats in Parliament, enough to vote to dissolve the body and call for another election, the fifth since April 2019.

Opposition parties have enough seats to create their own new coalition government without going to elections. But they are divided and may not be able to agree on a candidate for prime minister, making new elections more probable.

As a left-winger, Ms Rinawie Zoabi is not expected to support a Netanyahu-led government. But she could join the opposition in voting for new elections as early as next week.

A new election would give Mr Netanyahu another chance to win more seats for his right-wing alliance and a majority in Parliament.

Ms Rinawie Zoabi said she had not decided whether to support a vote to dissolve Parliament but that her decision to leave the coalition was "definite".

"What happened during the last month in Ramadan at Al-Aqsa and mainly what happened regarding the awful pictures that we saw with the funeral of Shireen Abu Akleh, the Palestinian correspondent of Al-Jazeera - this is something that just broke my heart, and I can't be part of this coalition," she said.

But she left open the possibility of voting with the government from the outside.

Even without her, the government could still survive with a minority in Parliament until March next year, when it will need a majority to pass a new budget.

NYTIMES