Netanyahu’s coalition fiasco leads to early elections

On Wednesday night, as observant Jews continued to count the Omer, the 49 days between the festivals of Passover and Shavout, observers of the rituals of Israeli politics began counting the days until the next Israeli election. Six weeks’ ago, Benjamin Netanyahu won his biggest electoral victory yet after a characteristically close and unscrupulous campaign. Bibi the ‘magician’ looked set for a record-breaking fifth term, and to surpass David Ben Gurion as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. Netanyahu also looked likely to thwart corruption charges by demanding an indemnity law as the price of entry into his Likud-led coalition. Instead, Netanyahu failed to form the coalition he wanted by the deadline of midnight on Wednesday, and now sets another record by making the 21st Knesset the shortest in Israeli history.

The magician managed to produce more than one rabbi from his hat by striking coalition terms with the right-wing Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties. But Netanyahu failed to persuade Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the nationalist and secularist Yisrael Beitenu, to grant him the five seats that would have pushed the coalition past a 60-seat majority.