After three stalemate elections in a year, Israel finally has a government. Incumbent prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Benny Gantz signed a pact on Monday which will see them take turns at being premier. It’s nice when people share.
The most immediate concerns for Israelis are how the new administration will handle the coronavirus outbreak and how much more this latest reshuffle will end up costing them. For the rest of the world, what matters most is paragraph 29 of Netanyahu and Gantz’s coalition agreement.
Paragraph 29 says Netanyahu can bring forward a bill to apply sovereignty to Israeli settlements in the West Bank (which make up 30 per cent of the Judea and Samaria regions) as early as July 1. Although Gantz personally opposes this approach, and would prefer to make yet another attempt to coax the Palestinians back to the negotiating table, he will not stand in the way of the bill.
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