Where do we go from here? All the options for a ruling coalition
Although the final results of Tuesday’s elections have yet to come in, enough has been published to establish that no candidate or party has a straightforward path to forming a governing coalition with at least 61 lawmakers in the 120-member Knesset.
According to the official results on Wednersday afternoon, counting some 90 percent of the votes, the next Knesset will look like this: The Blue and White centrist alliance has 32 seats, just ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud with 31. Next is the Joint List alliance of Arab-majority parties with 13 seats. Then come the ultra-Orthodox Shas and secular right-wing Yisrael Beytenu with nine seats each, followed by United Torah Judaism with eight. Bringing up the rear are Yamina with seven, Labor-Gesher with six and the Democratic Camp with five. (Read more at https://www.timesofisrael.com/where-do-we-go-from-here-all-the-options-for-a-ruling-coalition/)
Muddy results clearly show Israelis unfazed by prospect of life after Netanyahu
Sep. 18, 2019
By early in the morning of April 10, in the predawn hours after the polls had closed in our previous elections, both Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz had delivered victory speeches to their ecstatic supporters. Both, it turned out, had jumped the gun. Israel’s voters, the actual results would soon show, had not given Gantz a realistic shot at forming a coalition. And Netanyahu, who for weeks after polling day credibly believed he would muster a majority, wound up short when his longtime ally-turned-nemesis Avigdor Liberman abandoned him. (Read more at https://www.timesofisrael.com/muddy-results-clearly-show-israelis-unfazed-by-prospect-of-life-after-netanyahu)
Netanyahu to Likud: ‘We will do everything to prevent a dangerous government’
Sep. 18, 2019
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened members of the Likud faction at the Orient Hotel in Jerusalem, addressing the election results.
“I come here after a meeting with the leaders of the National Camp parties,” said Netanyahu. We unanimously decided that we will go together into negotiations for the establishment of a government headed by me.
We will conduct the negotiations with one delegation, Yariv Levin will be at the head.
Netanyahu added: “Now that we have established the bloc of right-wing parties, there will be either a government headed by me, or a dangerous government that relies on the Arab parties. We will make every effort to prevent this dangerous government.” (Read more at http://www.virtualjerusalem.com/news.php?Itemid=29388)
A Gantz-led government will keep alive the peace process charade
18 September 2019
With almost all votes counted at the time of writing, Israel is facing another hung parliament.
This could lead to a third election in a year. Or we could see the advent of a grand coalition of three secular parties.
Whether such a government would include Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu, the incumbent four-time prime minister, is not clear.
For some 6.7 million Jewish Israelis, the possibility that far too many years of Netanyahu rule may come to an ignoble end with charges brought for corruption is significant. (Read more at https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/omar-karmi/gantz-led-government-will-keep-alive-peace-process-charade)
