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TEL AVIV – Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid announced on Monday that they plan to dissolve the Knesset next week, setting the stage for a fifth round of general elections in less of four years.
If the vote to dissolve parliament passes, Lapid will become the caretaker prime minister, although Bennett will continue to run for Iran’s portfolio, as described in his power-sharing deal. Elections are likely to take place on October 25, according to Israeli media.
“We have a country that needs to function,” Bennett said in a joint televised statement with Lapid just as the lights in the newsroom were momentarily turned off. “How symbolic,” Lapid said.
Bennett and Lapid had said yes before “options exhausted to stabilize” his coalition, made up of an ideological party kaleidoscope, which includes left-wing pacifists, right-wing supporters of Jewish settlers and, for the first time in Israeli history, an Arab Islamist party. The coalition joined a year ago in a bid to oust former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Bennett listed the government’s achievements, including its success in “preventing the signing” of a new nuclear deal between Iran and world powers “without ruining relations with the United States.”
Since nuclear talks froze in March, Iran has struggled to get a “significant amount of enriched uranium,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said earlier this month. Under the original agreement, Iran had accepted sharp limits on the quantity and quality of enriched uranium it possessed.
For weeks, the ruling Israeli coalition has been faltering on the brink of collapse as three members, including two from Bennett’s own right-wing party Yamina, deserted, depriving the government of its majority and capacity. to pass legislation.
To hasten the demise of the coalition earlier this month, Netanyahu, the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history, rallied his party and other opposition lawmakers, usually pro-settlers, to vote in against a generally uncontroversial measure that allows for the application of civil law. to Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.
Bennett said in a televised statement that the expiration of the West Bank law would have caused “damage to Israel’s security and the consequent chaos that I cannot allow.” The planned dissolution of the Knesset next week means an automatic renewal of the law.
“This is good news for millions of Israeli citizens,” Netanyahu said in a video on Twitter. “A government that will return national pride to the people of Israel, so that you can walk the streets with your head held high.”
“What we need to do today is return to the concept of Israeli unity. Not allow the dark forces to separate us from within,” Lapid said in a televised statement, referring to the division that intensified over the past 12 years. of Netanyahu as Prime Minister.
The development comes a week after President Biden announced plans for a July 14 visit to Israel, the West Bank and Saudi Arabia. His visit will take place as planned, according to Israeli media, who said he will meet with Lapid.