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      Netanyahu Ousted as Israeli Parliament Votes in New Government

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      An unlikely coalition prevailed against the country’s longest-serving leader. Now it must get its disparate factions to work together.JERUSALEM — The long and divisive reign of Benjamin Netanyahu, the dominant Israeli politician of the past generation, officially ended on Sunday night, at least for the time being, as the country’s Parliament gave its vote of confidence to a precarious coalition government stitched together by widely disparate anti-Netanyahu forces.Naftali Bennett, a 49-year-old former aide to Mr. Netanyahu who opposes a Palestinian state and is considered to the right of his old ally, replaced him as prime minister after winning by just a single vote. Yair Lapid, a centrist leader and the new foreign minister, is set to take Mr. Bennett’s place after two years, if their government can hold together that long.They lead a fragile eight-party alliance ranging from far left to hard right, from secular to religious, that few expect to last a full term and many consider both the embodiment of the rich diversity of Israeli society but also the epitome of its political disarray.Members of the bloc agree on little but a desire to oust Mr. Netanyahu, the longest-serving leader in the country’s history, and the need to end a lengthy political gridlock that produced four elections in two years; left Israel without a stable government or a state budget; and formed the backdrop to a surge in interethnic mob violence between Jewish and Arab citizens during the recent 11-day conflict with Hamas.“We stopped the train before the abyss,” Mr. Bennett said in a speech to Parliament on Sunday. “The time has come for different leaders, from all parts of the people, to stop — to stop this madness.”Mr. Netanyahu’s departure marks the end of a tenure in which he shaped 21st-century Israel more than any other figure, and largely turned Israeli politics into a referendum on a single issue — his own character.During 15 years in power, the last 12 of them uninterrupted, Mr. Netanyahu helped shift Israel further to the right and presided over the dwindling of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, collapsing hopes of a two-state resolution to the conflict. He was also accused of undermining the rule of law by staying in office while standing trial for corruption. It was a decision that divided the Israeli right and contributed to Mr. Bennett’s decision to side with Mr. Netanyahu’s opponents.Mr. Netanyahu, 71, simultaneously scored several diplomatic triumphs, including agreements with four Arab countries that upended assumptions that Israel would only normalize relations with the Arab world after it sealed peace with the Palestinians.In a combative speech on Sunday to Parliament, Mr. Netanyahu vowed to stay at the helm of his party, Likud, leading opposition to a new government that he portrayed as a leftist threat to Israeli security.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking before the vote on Sunday.Dan Balilty for The New York Times“I say today: Do not let your spirits fall,” Mr. Netanyahu told his allies in Parliament. “I will lead you in a daily battle against this bad and dangerous left-wing government, and bring it down. And with the help of God, this will happen faster than you think.”Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset, approved the new government by the slimmest of margins — the vote was 60 to 59. In a sign of challenges to come, one lawmaker who had originally agreed to support the coalition balked at the 11th hour, deciding to abstain instead of voting in its favor. To ensure the coalition’s victory, a second lawmaker left a hospital to vote — and then returned to her hospital bed.Analysts predict that the new Israeli government will focus on restoring Israel’s traditional approach of seeking bipartisan American support, after years of tension with American Democrats.In a statement, Mr. Biden said: “I look forward to working with Prime Minister Bennett to strengthen all aspects of the close and enduring relationship between our two nations.”“Thank you Mr. President!” Mr. Bennett replied on Twitter. “I look forward to working with you to strengthen the ties between our two nations.”In his earlier speech to Parliament, however, Mr. Bennett hinted at disagreements to come, promising to continue Israel’s opposition to forging a new nuclear deal with Iran. But he also thanked Mr. Biden for his support for Israel. The pair later spoke by phone, Mr. Bennett’s office said, while Mr. Lapid spoke with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken.The new government was installed following a rancorous parliamentary debate that embodied the bitterness that came to define political discourse in the Netanyahu era.During his speech, Mr. Bennett was frequently interrupted and heckled by right-wing opponents. They view Mr. Bennett, a hard-right former settler leader, as a traitor for breaking with Mr. Netanyahu and allying with a coalition that includes leftists, centrists and, for the first time ever, an independent party run by Palestinian citizens of Israel.Mansour Abbas of the Raam Party at the Knesset before the vote.Dan Balilty for The New York TimesAt least four allies of Mr. Netanyahu were thrown out of the session by the speaker, Yariv Levin, while a fifth walked out voluntarily.“You should be embarrassed!” shouted David Amsalem, a Likud lawmaker, during Mr. Bennett’s speech.Mr. Bennett attempted to turn those interjections into an illustration of why he had decided to part ways with Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc in the first place.“There are points in Jewish history where disagreements got out of control,” Mr. Bennett said. “Twice in history we lost our national home exactly because the leaders of that generation were unable to sit together and compromise.”But amid the acrimony, there were also moments of unity and empathy across party lines.After Mr. Levin, the speaker, was replaced in a separate vote by Mickey Levy, an ally of Mr. Lapid, the two embraced for several seconds. Earlier, ultra-Orthodox lawmakers laughed amiably along with jokes by Merav Michaeli, a staunch secularist and critic of Mr. Netanyahu — barely an hour after they had hurled insults at Mr. Bennett, her new coalition partner.Until the day of the vote, and even on it, Mr. Netanyahu and his right-wing allies labored hard to break the alliance before it could take office. They applied intense pressure on right-wing opposition lawmakers, urging them to peel away from their leaders and refuse to support a coalition that they claimed would ruin the country. For most of this month, supporters of Mr. Netanyahu picketed the homes of Mr. Bennett and his lawmakers, screaming abuse as they came past.Mr. Netanyahu’s departure was a watershed moment for politics in Israel. He had been in power for so long that he was the only prime minister that many young adults could remember. For many, he had grown synonymous not only with the Israeli state, but also with the concept of Israeli security — and an Israel without him seemed almost inconceivable to some.In Tel Aviv, ecstatic Netanayhu opponents descended onto Rabin Square for an impromptu celebration. As music blasted, Israelis of all ages crowded in carrying the national flag, rainbow flags and pink flags, the color adopted by members of the movement to oust the prime minister..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}One celebrant, Shoval Sadde, expressed relief that the coalition had come together after weeks of uncertainty.“Today is final,” she said. “There are no secret magics anymore that Bibi can pull out of a hat. It’s final.”For supporters of Bibi, as Mr. Netanyahu is universally known in Israel, his exit was devastating and unsettling.“We are here in pain,” said Ronni Shabtai, a right-wing activist who joined a rally outside Mr. Netanyahu’s official residence after the vote. “Bibi is a prime minister born once in a generation, and a king in our time.”Likud Party supporters demonstrating outside Mr. Netanyahu’s home on Sunday night.Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesGiven Mr. Netanyahu’s record as a shrewd political operator who has defied many previous predictions of his political demise, few Israelis are writing off his career.Even out of government and standing trial on corruption charges, he remains a formidable force who will probably try to drive wedges between the coalition parties. He remains the leader of the parliamentary opposition and a cagey tactician, with a sizable following and powerful allies.Mr. Netanyahu’s current predicament stems largely from his decision to remain in office even after being investigated for corruption in 2017, and later put on trial. That led to a rift among his supporters — and, more generally, divided voters less by their political views than by their attitudes to Mr. Netanyahu himself. The result was four early elections over two years, each of which failed to return a clear winner.Through it all, Mr. Netanyahu remained in office, for much of it only as a caretaker, stoking divisions and demonizing his opponents.The new coalition proposes to set aside some of the toughest issues and focus on rebuilding the economy and infrastructure. Many supporters hope to see movement away from the social policies promoted by the ultra-Orthodox minority, whose parties were allied with Mr. Netanyahu. But it remains to be seen whether the new government will avoid another gridlock or crumble under its own contradictions.Mr. Bennett’s religious Zionist party, Yamina, supports annexation of large parts of the West Bank and vehemently opposes Palestinian statehood, positions antithetical to some of its governing partners. In the March 23 election, it won just seven of the Knesset’s 120 seats, making it the smallest faction ever to hold the premiership.Mr. Bennett, right, with Mr. Lapid and the defense minister, Benny Gantz, in the Knesset on Sunday.Dan Balilty for The New York TimesIt was Mr. Lapid who brought the coalition together, working with an array of vastly differing parties, and promising to make way for Mr. Bennett even though his own party had won more seats.The coalition will face threats to its cohesion as soon as Monday, when it must decide whether to allow a far-right march through Palestinian areas of East Jerusalem. The march is a rescheduled version of an aborted event that was cited by Hamas as one of several reasons for firing rockets last month toward Jerusalem, setting off the recent conflict in Gaza.“The coalition is such an ideological patchwork it might even be a jigsaw puzzle,” said Dahlia Scheindlin, a Tel Aviv-based political analyst. “And it’s not clear whether the pieces actually fit together.”Patrick Kingsley reported from Jerusalem and Richard Pérez-Peña from New York. Reporting was contributed by Irit Pazner Garshowitz, Myra Noveck, Adam Rasgon and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem, and Gabby Sobelman from Rehovot, Israel. More

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      in Elections

      Netanyahu Outfoxed His Rivals For Years. Here's What Changed.

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      Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel failed to win a majority in the past three elections — but still held onto power. The ground has shifted.JERUSALEM — Naftali Bennett, the leader of a hard-right political party, stood before television cameras and pledged never to share power with Yair Lapid, a centrist, and Mansour Abbas, an Islamist. It was March 22, the day before Israel’s fourth election in two years.Yet late Wednesday night, just 72 days later, there was Mr. Bennett, sitting down beside both Mr. Abbas and Mr. Lapid and signing a deal that, pending a confidence vote in Parliament later this month, would see all three unite in the first government since 2009 that won’t be led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Through three consecutive elections between April 2019 and March 2020, Mr. Netanyahu had kept them all at bay. He may have failed to win an overall majority himself, but he clung to power by exacerbating divisions within Israel’s ideologically diffuse opposition, ensuring that they, too, would fail to build a majority coalition.The question of what changed since a fourth inconclusive election in March — and why — has several answers, both systemic and circumstantial.Mr. Lapid’s dexterity in constructing a somewhat gravity defying coalition has certainly been a factor. But Mr. Netanyahu himself played a crucial role, alienating former far-right allies and causing concern with his refusal to step down while facing trial on corruption charges. Yair Lapid, the centrist architect of the deal, in Tel Aviv last month.Oded Balilty/Associated PressThe reasons are also rooted in a combination of personal and political judgments by nationalist power brokers like Mr. Bennett. Even if Mr. Bennett had stuck by Mr. Netanyahu, his support would not have been enough to give Mr. Netanyahu a majority. That meant that Mr. Bennett was left with either joining the opposition or sending Israel to a fifth election in little more than two years — a vote that some analysts predict would deal a serious blow to his party.Hard-right parties have also been tempted by the prospect of senior positions within a new government; Mr. Bennett will be the prime minister, despite leading a party with only seven seats in the 120-seat Parliament.“There is a mix of national duty, and also political and sometimes personal considerations,” said Dani Dayan, a former Israeli ambassador who ran unsuccessfully in the election for New Hope, a hard-right party led by former allies of Mr. Netanyahu, that is part of the new coalition. “You know, politics is not always free of cynical considerations.”But right-wing leaders have also made patriotic arguments for finally replacing Mr. Netanyahu. In the face of sustained intimidation and anger from their base, they have said that they have a responsibility to work with their ideological opposites in order to wrest Israel from a cycle of endless elections and entropy. The country has suffered in a limbo that has left Israelis without a state budget for almost two years, and with several crucial civil service positions unfilled.Sitting in her office in Parliament this week, Idit Silman, a lawmaker from Mr. Bennett’s party, flicked through hundreds of recent text messages from unknown numbers.Some were laced with abusive language. Some warned she was going to hell. All of them demanded that her party abandon the coalition, accusing her of giving up her ideals by allying with leftists, centrists and Islamists to oust Mr. Netanyahu.And it has not just come by phone.When Ms. Silman turned up at her local synagogue recently, she found several professionally designed posters outside, each with her portrait overlaid with the slogan: “Idit Silman stitched together a government with terror supporters.”For days, protesters have also picketed her home, shouted abuse at her children and trailed her by car in a menacing fashion, she said.Right-wing protesters rallying in Tel Aviv on Thursday against the formation of a new government. A sign reads: “Don’t give your hand to a left-wing government.”Sebastian Scheiner/Associated PressOn a personal level, it would be easier to pull out of the coalition, Ms. Silman said. But she felt it was patriotic to remain within it.“I’m sure that we are doing something that is very important for our country,” she said.The level of aggression directed at Ms. Silman and her allies on the right highlighted how Mr. Netanyahu has very much not given up hope of remaining in office, and could still ward off this challenge to his leadership.Part of the anger is organic. But part of it has been encouraged by Mr. Netanyahu and members of the Likud party themselves. On Thursday, Likud tweeted the home address of Ayelet Shaked, a leading member of Mr. Bennett’s party, Yamina, and encouraged its supporters to protest outside.Likud members themselves acknowledge that the aim is to persuade enough members of the coalition to abandon it before the confidence vote in Parliament.“Behind the scenes,” said a senior Likud official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, “the Likud party is ramping up the pressure, particularly on the weakest links.”The pressure was already taking hold on Thursday, as an official from the Yamina party said that one of its seven lawmakers, Nir Orbach, had asked for his signature to be removed from the list of those seeking to replace the speaker of Parliament, a Likud member, with a member of the new coalition. That decision could allow the speaker, Yariv Levin, to remain in his position, which will allow Likud to control parliamentary proceedings throughout the crucial next week, and potentially delay the confidence vote on the new government until Monday, June 14.Once the opposition’s full agreements are disclosed publicly, Likud will also create another obstacle by subjecting them to legal scrutiny and potentially to legal challenge, said Miki Zohar, chairman of the Likud parliamentary faction.Yariv Levin, Israel’s parliament speaker, remains in office for now.Pool photo by Alex KolomoiskyFew in the hard-right might have countenanced working with leftist, centrist and Islamist lawmakers without the diplomacy of Mr. Lapid, the linchpin of the coalition negotiations.While Mr. Bennett will be the formal leader of the coalition, it could not have been formed without Mr. Lapid, who has spent months cajoling its various incompatible components toward an alliance..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media 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ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s 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#e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}To secure Mr. Bennett’s involvement, Mr. Lapid even gave him first go at the premiership, even though Mr. Lapid’s party won 10 more seats than Mr. Bennett’s.“Lapid gets the most credit here out of everyone,” said Mitchell Barak, a political analyst and pollster. “He’s really pulling all the strings here, and he’s the one who’s compromised, personally, many times.”But for some, the real architect of Mr. Netanyahu’s potential downfall is Mr. Netanyahu himself.Three of the eight parties in the new coalition are led by hard-right lawmakers who were once key allies of the prime minister. Two of them — Mr. Bennett and Avigdor Liberman — were even chiefs of staff to Mr. Netanyahu.A third, Gideon Saar, is a former senior Likud member who left the party following prolonged disagreements with Mr. Netanyahu last year. Mr. Saar took with him a small but pivotal number of Likud voters — winning just six seats in the recent election, but enough to prevent Mr. Netanyahu’s bloc from winning a majority.Mr. Bennett and Mr. Liberman fell out with Mr. Netanyahu for personal reasons, but Mr. Saar left in protest at the prime minister’s refusal to step down despite standing trial on corruption charges.“If you look at Netanyahu’s greatest nemeses in this whole thing, they are people that worked for him,” one former aide said.Alex Wong/Getty Images“If you look at Netanyahu’s greatest nemeses in this whole thing, they are people that worked for him,” said Mr. Barak, himself a former aide to Mr. Netanyahu who parted ways in the 1990s. “It’s not just the public who are tired,” he said. “It’s people that worked for him who are tired.”And it was Mr. Netanyahu who made other political factions feel it was acceptable to work with Arab politicians like Mansour Abbas, the Islamist leader, without whom the coalition could not have been formed.For years, parties run by Palestinian citizens of Israel, and their constituents, were seen as unworthy and untrustworthy partners by the Jewish political establishment.In 2015, Mr. Netanyahu cited the threat of relatively high Arab turnout to scare his base into voting. And in 2020, he goaded a centrist rival, Benny Gantz, into refusing to form a government based on the support of Arab parties, painting them as extremists.But desperate for votes during the election campaign in March, Mr. Netanyahu changed course, vigorously campaigning in Arab towns.That has given hard-right politicians like Mr. Bennett, who never previously considered allying with Arab lawmakers, the political cover to join forces with them, said Ofer Zalzberg, director of the Middle East Program at the Herbert C. Kelman Institute, a Jerusalem-based research group.“A certain taboo is broken” that will have long-term consequences, Mr. Zalzberg said. “It will be very difficult to backpedal from that. And it opens the door for new scenarios of Israeli coalition building in the future.”Irit Pazner Garshowitz and Isabel Kershner contributed reporting. More

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      in Elections

      If Netanyahu Goes, Israel's New Prime Minister Faces a Big Mess

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      After four election cycles, two years and one man in power since 2009, Israel appears to be on the brink of change. On Wednesday evening, eight wildly ideologically different political parties announced that they would establish a coalition, aligning behind Yair Lapid of the centrist party Yesh Atid (“There Is a Future”) and Naftali Bennett — a former leader of a council of West Bank settlers — of the nationalist party Yamina (“Rightward”) to remove longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.But the new government is not yet a reality. The coalition still faces procedural and political hurdles. Ideological differences nearly killed the coalition in the negotiation stage. Mr. Netanyahu reportedly has no plans to resign and has big plans to sabotage his opponents.Despite all these vulnerabilities, Israel has the first chance in 12 years at a transition of power. And even if the new government has a short life expectancy, it must not settle for limited policies. New leadership means bold vision on the toughest issues in Israel. If it doesn’t provide a substantive vision behind the “anti-Bibi” brand, voters in the next elections, sooner or later, might decide there truly is no alternative.Three guiding values would lead Israel toward genuine change — not only a break from Netanyahu’s leadership, which Mr. Bennett recently described as being “dictated by personal and political considerations” while “creating a smoke screen of personality worship,” but also a new path for the future. To get there, this government must shun a nationalist, illiberal governing style, re-embrace democratic norms and articulate a policy to end the occupation.Setting out these values at the start is the new coalition’s most urgent task. The precarious government will struggle against time and tension to carry out policy — at the very least, it needs a vision.Most immediately, the new government must make a clean break from the divisive rhetoric that Mr. Netanyahu used to poison Israeli society. It won’t be easy. Mr. Bennett, who is designated to serve as the first prime minister in a rotation agreement with Mr. Lapid, and Ayelet Shaked, No. 2 in Mr. Bennett’s party, have been key actors in Israel’s far-right nationalist politics, as was Avigdor Lieberman, another coalition partner.But when Mr. Bennett announced his intentions to join Mr. Lapid’s government on Sunday, he spoke of unity and friendship, team spirit and compromises. For his part, Mr. Lapid has consistently projected calm and conciliation since receiving the mandate to form a government.Reconstituting Israeli leadership is not just about words, but also about Israel’s global orientation. Which leaders does Israel cultivate? Mr. Netanyahu courted the world’s authoritarians and ultranationalists, like Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Viktor Orban of Hungary, Donald Trump and Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan. A “change” government should ally with leaders who favor pragmatism and reason — like Joe Biden, Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and Jacinda Ardern.Reversing the illiberal nationalism that thrived under Netanyahu is merely the first step to stanch the bleeding of Israeli democracy. The new government must also embrace democratic values and institutions. But that requires this hodgepodge of ideological bedfellows to actually agree on what those democratic values are.Israel’s democratic erosion has involved numerous aspects, including the passage of undemocratic legislation such as the nation-state law, a law legitimizing de facto housing discrimination, as well as a law to curtail public calls for boycott and one restricting free speech. Even the right-wing parties in the new government can, and must, refrain from this type of legislation. Ending incitement against Palestinian citizens in Israel, such as Mr. Netanyahu’s 2019 accusations that Arab Knesset members are terror supporters who want to destroy Israel, would be one step toward healing democracy.More complex for this government will be defending democratic checks and balances, particularly the independence of the Israeli judiciary. The farthest-right coalition leaders — mainly Ms. Shaked and Mr. Bennett — have made attacks on the Israeli judiciary central to their political mission in recent years. Gideon Saar, now slated to be justice minister, has demanded judicial reforms in line with their views.But Israel’s democracy is ailing not because the judiciary has overstepped its bounds, as the right wing argues. The problem with Israeli democracy is its refusal to define what Israel is: a theocracy, an aspiring democracy or an occupying power. All of which means nothing can be clarified if the government fails to address a third core issue: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Israel’s identity and democracy have been ambiguous since the birth of the state. But from 1967, the fog of Israel’s intentions regarding the occupied Palestinian territories became a scourge.Gershom Gorenberg’s classic book “The Accidental Empire” documents Prime Minister Levi Eshkol’s striking ambiguity about how much he would tolerate, or support, the settlement project at first. (He eventually did.) The country developed a long tradition of obfuscating its ultimate aim for the fate of those territories. Mr. Netanyahu was no different; in 2009 he announced support for a muddled vision for two states, then worked for years against such a solution, ultimately campaigning for West Bank annexation from 2019 to 2020, only to drop the plan when it no longer served him politically. Meanwhile the occupation deepens, Palestinian independence disintegrates, and the consequences accelerate: In March, the International Criminal Court announced it would be investigating Israel and Palestinian militant groups for possible war crimes; foreign and domestic human rights groups have charged the country with apartheid. A fresh conflict exploded just weeks ago, sparking shocking ethnic violence among Israel’s own citizens.Neither of the first two aims — ending illiberal nationalism, nor strengthening democracy — can happen without a vision of how to end occupation. And there are only two real routes.One option is to revive the commitment toward a two-state solution — preferably in the updated, more humane form of a two-state confederation based on open borders and cooperation rather than hard ethnic partition. The other is to acknowledge the reality of permanent Israeli control and begin handing out full rights to all people under Israel’s control, equally, by law.Here the future coalition can easily run aground, with two right-wing parties — Yamina and New Hope — that broadly reject either approach. But these two parties hold just 13 seats out of 61 in the coalition. Yair Lapid heads the largest party in the new government, which he created. He needs to push this new government to set a new course on ending the conflicts.Without a permanent government, budget or substantive lawmaking on large-scale policy for two years, the country is at a standstill. The escalation with Hamas may flare again. Israel’s election nightmare has been a manifestation of the country’s deepest disagreements. If the new leaders are serious about their promised “change coalition,” they need to start with a vision even if they don’t complete the job.After all, Moses didn’t enter the promised land either, but at least he showed the way.Dahlia Scheindlin is a political analyst living in Tel Aviv and a policy fellow at the Century Foundation.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Netanyahu Rivals Agree on Israeli Coalition to Oust Him

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      Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader, is on the verge of losing power as his opponents strike a deal that would replace him with an ultranationalist, Naftali Bennett.JERUSALEM — Israeli opposition parties announced on Wednesday that they had reached a coalition agreement to form a government and oust Benjamin Netanyahu, the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history and a dominant figure who has pushed his nation’s politics to the right.The announcement could lead to the easing of a political impasse that has produced four elections in two years and left Israel without a stable government or a state budget. If Parliament ratifies the fragile agreement in a confidence vote in the coming days, it will also bring down the curtain, if only for an intermission, on the premiership of a leader who has defined contemporary Israel more than any other.The new coalition is an unusual and awkward alliance between eight political parties from a diverse array of ideologies, from the left to the far right. While some analysts have hailed it as a reflection of the breadth and complexity of contemporary society, others say its members are too incompatible for their compact to last, and consider it the embodiment of Israel’s political dysfunction.The alliance would be led until 2023 by Naftali Bennett, a former settler leader and standard-bearer for religious nationalists, who opposes a Palestinian state and wants Israel to annex the majority of the occupied West Bank. He is a former ally of Mr. Netanyahu often described as more right wing than the prime minister.If the government lasts a whole term, it would then be led between 2023 and 2025 by Yair Lapid, a centrist former television host considered a standard-bearer for secular Israelis.It was Mr. Lapid who was picked by the president, Reuven Rivlin, four weeks ago to try to form a new government. And it was Mr. Lapid who called Mr. Rivlin at 11:22 p.m. on Wednesday night, with just 38 minutes left before his mandate expired, to inform him that he had assembled a fragile coalition.Mr. Lapid, the Yesh Atid Party leader, speaking to reporters in Tel Aviv, last month.Amir Levy/Getty Images“I commit to you, Mr. President, that this government will work to serve all the citizens of Israel, including those who aren’t members of it, will respect those who oppose it, and do everything in its power to unite all parts of Israeli society,” Mr. Lapid said, according to a readout provided by his office.Mr. Bennett, 49, is the son of American immigrants, and a former software entrepreneur, army commando and chief of staff to Mr. Netanyahu. His home is in central Israel, but he was once chief executive of an umbrella group, the Yesha Council, that represents Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. Until the most recent election cycle, Mr. Bennett was part of a political alliance with Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right leader.Though Mr. Bennett’s party, Yamina, won just seven of the 120 seats in Parliament, Mr. Netanyahu could not be ousted without his support, allowing him to set the terms of his involvement in the coalition.Mr. Lapid, 57, is a former news anchor and journalist who became a politician nine years ago and later served as finance minister in a Netanyahu-led coalition. His party placed second in the general election in March, winning 17 seats. But Mr. Lapid considered the ouster of Mr. Netanyahu more important than demanding to go first as prime minister.To avoid exacerbating their differences, Mr. Lapid and Mr. Bennett have promised to focus on largely technocratic issues like the economy and infrastructure, and to stay away from more contentious topics such as trying to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Mr. Bennett, left, speaking with Mr. Lapid during a special session of the Knesset.Pool photo by Ronen ZvulunBut some commentators say Mr. Bennett’s party will be under pressure to prove to their supporters that their right-wing instincts have not been dimmed by their coalition partners.In a harbinger of potential tensions to come, talks almost collapsed on Wednesday after a disagreement over whether a key lieutenant to Mr. Bennett, Ayelet Shaked, a proponent of major judicial reform, would be allowed to join a committee that appoints new judges.And some leftist and centrist ministers are expected to rile their right-wing partners by promoting police reform or advocating curbs on settlement expansion.The alliance will also include an Arab Islamist party, Raam, which would become the first independent Arab group to join a governing political alliance in Israeli history. The agreement “secures the position of the Arab parties as an influential and legitimate player in the political arena,” the party said in a statement.But its participation is also expected to become a point of friction. Mr. Bennett briefly pulled out of coalition talks during the recent war in Gaza, wary of participating in an alliance with a party run by Palestinian citizens of Israel.Mr. Bennett speaking with reporters  on Sunday.Pool photo by Yonatan SindelRaam joined the coalition on the promise of greater rights and resources for Israel’s Arab minority — but some of its demands, including the repeal of a controversial housing law that disproportionately hinders the Arab minority, are deemed unacceptable to some of the coalition’s hard-right members.In the meantime, Mr. Netanyahu, who remains caretaker prime minister, is doing all he can to upend the agreement. The speaker of the Israeli Parliament, Yariv Levin, is a member of Mr. Netanyahu’s party, Likud, and can use parliamentary procedure to delay the confidence vote until Monday, June 14, constitutional experts said.In that time, his party has promised to pile pressure on right-wing members of the alliance to jump ship, telling them that they have sold out by aligning themselves with leftist and Arab lawmakers.If Mr. Netanyahu fails to persuade enough opponents, it will spell the end — at least for now — of his run at the pinnacle of Israeli politics, the longest tenure of any Israeli prime minister. Either way, he leaves a lasting imprint on Israeli life, and will likely seek to retain significant influence as leader of the opposition.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arriving at the Knesset on Sunday.Pool photo by Yonatan SindelThe presence of Mr. Bennett at the threshold of power is testament to how Mr. Netanyahu has helped shift the pendulum of Israeli politics firmly to the right..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times 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a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Under Mr. Netanyahu’s watch, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process collapsed, and tensions between Jews and Arabs inside Israel peaked in May when unrest swept across mixed Jewish-Arab cities during the latest Gaza war.By forging an electoral pact between far-right parties, which later helped them win elected office, Mr. Netanyahu also helped accelerate the impact of the far right on Israeli society and media debates.Against this backdrop, he nevertheless defied expectations and convention by negotiating diplomatic agreements with four Arab countries, subverting assumptions that Israel could make peace with Middle Eastern states only once a final deal with the Palestinians had been made.Israeli right-wing supporters  demonstrated against the formation of new government on Sunday.Sebastian Scheiner/Associated PressHe fostered a strong bond with former President Donald J. Trump, who gave Israel several diplomatic victories, shifting the American Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, shuttering an American consulate that dealt with Palestinian issues, closing the Palestinian mission in Washington and ripping up an Obama-era deal with Iran.The recent impasse in Israeli politics is also a result of Mr. Netanyahu’s divisive decision to remain in office despite being on trial for corruption.By doing so, his critics argued, he undermined democratic norms, and by attacking the judges in his case, he risked undercutting the rule of law.Mr. Netanyahu denied the charges, and said he had the right to remain in office to defend himself against what he presented as a backdoor coup attempt.But many even in his own base disagreed, leading to a political deadlock in which Mr. Netanyahu retained just enough support to remain in power but not enough to form a stable government — leading to the four inconclusive elections in the past two years, most recently in March.A desire to avoid a fifth election was what ultimately prompted Mr. Bennett to abandon Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing camp and ally with rivals who, like Mr. Lapid, do not share most of his long-term political vision.If Parliament confirms his government, Mr. Bennett will start his term just as a new president, Isaac Herzog, begins his. Mr. Herzog, a former leader of the centrist Labor party, was elected president by lawmakers on Wednesday. He will assume office in July, and perform the largely ceremonial role for the next seven years. Isaac Herzog with Yariv Levin, speaker of the Knesset.Pool photo by Ronen ZvulunMr. Bennett’s government, if it passes the confidence vote in Parliament, may fall far earlier.Should it collapse, some analysts believe Mr. Lapid may emerge with more credit than Mr. Bennett. While Mr. Bennett gets the first go at the premiership, his decision to work with centrists and leftists has angered his already small following.“Lapid has made a very strong set of decisions, conveyed an amazing level of maturity and really made a big statement about a different kind of leadership,” said Dahlia Scheindlin, an Israeli political analyst and pollster at the Century Foundation, a New York-based research group. “That will not be lost on the Israeli public.”Adam Rasgon, Isabel Kershner, Gabby Sobelman and Carol Sutherland contributed reporting. More

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      How Naftali Bennett, Head of a Small Right-Wing Party in Israel, Rose to the Top

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      The energetic leader of the small, right-wing Yamina party has managed to leverage his modest electoral gain for a shot at the top job.JERUSALEM — The morning after Donald J. Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election, Naftali Bennett, the energetic leader of a relatively small, Israeli pro-settlement party, exulted before an audience of foreign reporters in Jerusalem, “The era of a Palestinian state is over!”Now, Mr. Bennett, 49, a former high-tech entrepreneur who insists that there must never be a full-fledged Palestinian state and that Israel should annex much of the occupied West Bank, is poised to become Israel’s next prime minister, replacing Benjamin Netanyahu.Mr. Bennett, a former ally of Mr. Netanyahu often described as more right wing than the prime minister, is the independently wealthy son of American immigrants. He first entered the Israeli Parliament eight years ago and is relatively unknown and inexperienced on the international stage, leaving much of the world — not to mention many Israelis — wondering what kind of leader he might be.Shifting between seemingly contradictory alliances, he has been called a right-wing extremist, a pragmatist and an opportunist.But in a measure of his talents, he has now pulled off a feat that is extraordinary even by the perplexing standards of Israeli politics: He has maneuvered himself into the top office even though his party, Yamina, won just seven of the 120 seats in the Parliament.A canny and ambitious beneficiary of Israel’s prolonged political morass, Mr. Bennett leveraged his modest but pivotal electoral weight after the inconclusive March election, Israel’s fourth in two years. He entered coalition talks as a kingmaker, and emerged as the one wearing the crown.In a career full of paradoxes, Mr. Bennett, once a top aide to Mr. Netanyahu, 71, played a crucial role in toppling his former boss, Israel’s longest-serving leader. As a result, Mr. Netanyahu was brought down — for now, at least — not only by his longtime rivals on the center and left of the political spectrum but also by someone considered even more hard-line.Naftali Bennett, left, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2020.  Sebastian Scheiner/Associated PressMr. Bennett has long championed West Bank settlers and once led the council representing them, but he has never been a settler, himself, and lives in Ra’anana, an affluent town in central Israel, with his wife and four children. He is religiously observant — he would be the first prime minister to wear a kipa — but he will head a governing coalition that is largely secular.He is best known for views on settlements, annexation and Palestinian statehood that many on Israel’s left and center — not to mention much of the world — consider not just wrong but dangerous. Yet his coalition spans Israel’s fractious political spectrum from left to right, and relies on the support of a small Arab, Islamist party.That coalition proposes to paper over its differences on Israeli-Palestinian relations by focusing on domestic matters.Mr. Bennett has explained his motives for teaming up with such ideological opposites as an act of last resort to end the political impasse that has paralyzed Israel.“The political crisis in Israel is unprecedented on a global level,” he said in a televised speech on Sunday. “We could end up with fifth, sixth, even 10th elections, dismantling the walls of the country, brick by brick, until our house falls in on us. Or we can stop the madness and take responsibility.”Now Mr. Bennett faces the greatest challenge of his political career, trying to hold that unlikely coalition together, to vault from being a second-tier figure to a national leader, and to maintain relations with Israel’s most important ally, the United States. President Biden has been cooler toward Mr. Netanyahu than Mr. Trump was.“There will be, I think, a collective sigh of relief within the Biden administration that they have new, young Israeli blood to deal with,” said Martin S. Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and a former special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.Mr. Bennett will be pressured by the settler right to deliver for them, Mr. Indyk said, but it appears that “he has already accepted that he won’t be able to pursue that agenda.”He campaigned as the right-wing alternative to Mr. Netanyahu, who has held power for 12 years consecutively and 15 years overall, and is now standing trial on corruption charges. They have often differed more in tone than substance, as Mr. Bennett avoided the inflammatory language and long-running legal drama of his predecessor.Aida Touma-Sliman, a lawmaker from the Joint List of predominantly Arab parties, wrote on Twitter that Mr. Bennett would lead “a dangerous right-wing government,” one that would “remove Netanyahu and preserve his path.”After Mr. Bennett described Mr. Netanyahu on Sunday as a divisive and polarizing force, Mr. Netanyahu accused his former aide of using “the same hollow slogans about hate and division,” and of “committing the fraud of the century.”People who know him describe Mr. Bennett as likable and tolerant behind closed doors, a pragmatist at heart, though how that private person would translate to governing remains to be seen.Mr. Bennett, then serving as the economy minister and head of the Jewish Home Party, posing with high school students in 2015.Uriel Sinai for The New York Times“People think he’s a fanatic. He’s not,” said Ayelet Frish, an Israeli political consultant. She said Mr. Bennett once told her that he had grown up in a home of “Woodstock parents,” surrounded by mostly secular culture, and noted his time in the largely secular high-tech business world.Orit Galili-Zucker, a former strategic communications adviser to Mr. Netanyahu, said Mr. Bennett aimed “to present an alternative to Netanyahu’s toxic discourse.”In Mr. Bennett’s first campaign, in 2013, Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party branded him as “a dangerous, messianic right-winger,” she said. Now Likud was calling him a “dangerous leftist,” she noted, for joining forces with the opposition leader Yair Lapid to unseat Mr. Netanyahu.Now Likud and its staunch ultra-Orthodox allies will be heading into the opposition.Under the new coalition’s government, Mr. Bennett will serve as prime minister for the first part of a four-year term, to be followed by the secular, centrist Mr. Lapid. By conceding the first turn in the rotation, Mr. Lapid smoothed the way for other right-wing politicians to join the anti-Netanyahu alliance..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Mr. Bennett represents a new generation in Israeli politics and would be the second-youngest prime minister in the country’s history; only Mr. Netanyahu, when he first came into the office a generation ago, was younger.Born in Israel, Mr. Bennett spent parts of his childhood living in the United States and Canada. He served in the same Israeli Army commando unit Mr. Netanyahu had. He then moved to New York and founded a software company that he later sold for $145 million, and served as chief executive of another company.He has had a fraught relationship with Mr. Netanyahu since a stint as his chief of staff ended in acrimony in 2008. A sharp critic of some of Mr. Netanyahu’s policies, he nevertheless sat in several Netanyahu-led governments as a minister, as well as in the opposition. In late 2019, Mr. Netanyahu appointed him as defense minister to keep Mr. Bennett on his side at a time of political turmoil, and he served in that role for about six months.Mr. Bennett at the Western Wall in Jerusalem ahead of parliamentary elections in 2013.Ammar Awad/ReutersOver the past decade, Mr. Bennett and his senior partner in Yamina, Ayelet Shaked, have run for office in an array of right-wing, pro-settlement parties with a dizzying series of name changes and allies. In 2013, when they were a pair of political newcomers, he formed what was seen as a surprising alliance with Mr. Lapid.Mr. Bennett has often punched above his weight on security issues. On the eve of the 2014 Gaza war, he presciently raised the threat arising from tunnels dug by Hamas beneath the Gaza-Israel border and pressed for a plan of action to neutralize them.Later that year, he wrote an uncompromising op-ed in The New York Times explaining his view that Israel could not allow the creation of a Palestinian state. He has proposed granting the Palestinians “a sort of autonomy on steroids” in about 40 percent of the West Bank, and gradually applying Israeli sovereignty in the rest of the territory — a move much of the world would consider illegal.The next year he wrote another op-ed forcefully condemning Jewish extremists who had stabbed participants at a gay pride parade in Jerusalem and burned three members of a Palestinian family to death in a West Bank village, denouncing the perpetrators as “terrorists.”At times, Mr. Bennett and Ms. Shaked joined forces with more radical political factions in the religious Zionist camp who are heavily influenced by their rabbis. Running as the New Right party in the April 2019 election, without their more extreme partners, they failed to gain enough votes to enter Parliament.In the run-up to this year’s election, the pair tried to broaden their appeal to more mainstream Israelis, and had more success, gathering some support from disaffected former Netanyahu voters. Mr. Bennett has been pushing a program for economic reform that he calls his “Singapore Plan,” supports curbing the powers of the judiciary and has criticized the present government’s handling of the pandemic.After the election, neither the pro-Netanyahu bloc of parties nor the anti-Netanyahu group could form a parliamentary majority without his party. Both sides courted him, offering him a chance to serve as prime minister in a rotation agreement. Mr. Bennett made it clear he would have preferred to join a right-wing government, but Mr. Netanyahu proved unable to form one. More

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      Israel on Edge as Politicians Wrangle Over Coalition to Oust Netanyahu

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      Opposition politicians spent Monday locked in last-minute negotiations to form a bloc to force out Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader.JERUSALEM — Israel’s political class was locked in frenzied horse trading on Monday, as opposition politicians struggled to strike a coalition deal to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in turn was waging a last-ditch effort to cling to power.The bartering put a spotlight on the fragmentation of the Israeli political system, in which the short-term fate of the Israeli state — nearly paralyzed after four elections in two years, unsettled by a recent war and civil unrest, bruised by the pandemic and constrained by the lack of a state budget — was in the hands of a panoply of small political parties haggling over control of minor government offices like the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.The granular nature of the discussions belied their dramatic implication: Mr. Netanyahu — Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, and the man who has shaped contemporary Israel more than any other citizen — has never been so close to losing office. And yet, with just two days remaining for the opposition to secure a deal, his departure is still far from a foregone conclusion.“It’s not over till it’s over,” said Rachel Azaria, a centrist former lawmaker and author of a recent book about social change in Israel. “There’s a joke now on WhatsApp and Twitter and Facebook: The rest of the world is still stuck in Covid. We’re four tragedies later.”“We had the war and we had the riots, and we don’t have a budget,” Ms. Azaria added. “And people are kind of like: ‘Just find a way to make it work.’”The door was opened on Sunday, when Naftali Bennett, an ultranationalist power broker, made an 11th-hour decision to join forces with an anti-Netanyahu bloc of parties, significantly raising the chances of ousting Mr. Netanyahu by a Wednesday night deadline.Mr. Bennett leads a small hard-right party with just seven seats in Parliament. But he holds the balance of power, since Mr. Netanyahu, whom he once served as chief of staff, cannot be replaced without his support.Since an inconclusive general election in March, the fourth since April 2019, Mr. Bennett had avoided throwing in his lot with the opposition, whose ideologies range from the far-right to the left — largely because he was wary of joining a government of such ideological diversity.Naftali Bennett leads the hard-right Yemina party and would become prime minister of the new government coalition if it succeeds in finalizing a deal.Pool photo by Yonatan SindelBut on Sunday, he announced his willingness to thrash out a coalition deal with the leader of the opposition, Yair Lapid, declaring that the danger of prolonging the political stasis outweighed the ideological cost of joining a unity government. If they reach an agreement, Mr. Bennett would become prime minister until 2023, at which point Mr. Lapid, a centrist former television host, would take over.But the deal was not yet done by Monday night.Three parties, including Mr. Bennett’s, had not formally signed an agreement. Among other last-minute disputes, two parties were wrangling over who would run the agriculture ministry, while a third was still pushing for a place on a pivotal committee that decides judicial appointments, according to a person involved in the negotiations.And a small Arab Islamist party, Raam, had still yet to declare whether it would support the new coalition — either informally by voting for it during the confirmation vote in Parliament, or by formally joining the government itself — and in the process become the first party run by Palestinian citizens of Israel to back a right-leaning Israeli government.And Mr. Netanyahu’s party, Likud, was still piling pressure onto wavering right-wing opposition lawmakers, calling on them to abandon the anti-Netanyahu bloc and likely force the country to yet another election that might end more favorably for Mr. Netanyahu.An official of New Hope, a small right-wing party that had yet to formally join the coalition bloc, said that its six lawmakers had received a constant barrage of phone calls and messages throughout Monday from Likud members, who were pushing them to abandon negotiations.Pro-Netanyahu protesters gathered outside the homes of Mr. Bennett and his ally Ayelet Shaked, urging them to reverse course. Both were assigned security details by the police amid concerns they might become the target of political violence. And on the airwaves, Likud lawmakers heightened their criticisms of Mr. Bennett and Ms. Shaked, in a last-gasp effort to jolt them away from Mr. Lapid.Miri Regev, a Likud minister, told a broadcaster on Monday night: “I still hope we will manage to form a right-wing government and that Bennett, who is the Madoff of Israeli politics, who deceived and lied to his voters, his clients, will come to his senses and come back home.”The protracted nature of the negotiations is partly rooted in the nature of the Israeli electoral system, which allocates parliamentary seats according to each party’s share of the vote, making it easier for smaller parties to enter Parliament, and harder for larger parties to form majority governments.But it is also down to the divisiveness of Mr. Netanyahu himself.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Parliament on Sunday.Pool photo by Yonatan SindelHis decision to remain in office while standing trial for corruption split his supporters. In turn, that division exacerbated the political stalemate that has seen Israel crash through four inconclusive general elections in two years. Neither Mr. Netanyahu’s bloc nor his opponents had enough votes to win office outright, allowing Mr. Netanyahu to stay in office, mostly as caretaker prime minister, but not completely in power.Three of the parties likely to form part of the new coalition are led by former allies of Mr. Netanyahu, including Mr. Bennett.“It’s almost like a Greek tragedy,” said Ms. Azaria, the centrist former lawmaker. “There’s the king, and he loses the faith of everyone that was loyal. He backstabs them, they backstab him.”Because of the protracted nature of the coalition negotiations, and the ideological differences between its constituent parties, the coalition is not expected to pursue contentious issues such as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or judicial reform. Instead it will likely focus on more straight-ahead policies, such as creating a new state budget, restoring the post-pandemic economy and improving infrastructure.If the new government is formed, it would be led by a former settler leader, Mr. Bennett, who opposes Palestinian statehood and wants to annex large parts of the occupied West Bank. But it would likely contain more supporters of a two-state resolution to the conflict than Mr. Netanyahu’s current government.To remain in office, the government might also need to retain the parliamentary support of Raam, the Arab Islamist party, which is seeking greater rights and resources for Palestinian citizens of Israel, who form about 20 percent of the population.For some, the leftist, centrist and Arab constituents of the putative new alliance would have only a limited effect on Mr. Bennett and other right-wing members.“They’re all fig leaves,” said Diana Buttu, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and a former legal adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization. “We may see a softer, gentler outward face. But I’m fairly certain that the policies are going to remain the same, if not worse, under Bennett.”Others were more hopeful that an equilibrium would be maintained. Some said the likely appointment of a center-left minister to oversee the police force might encourage officers to exercise more restraint, following several controversial police actions in recent months that contributed to rising unrest in Jerusalem.For ultra-Orthodox Israelis, or Haredim, the putative new coalition is troublesome because it would be formed without the involvement of either of the two main Haredi parties, which have participated in most coalition governments this century.But for others, that was cause for qualified celebration.Anat Hoffman, a campaigner for a more pluralistic approach to Judaism in Israel, did not expect the coalition to last its full term, nor for it to significantly weaken the control over religious affairs currently exerted by Orthodox rabbis. But she hoped it might create a more tolerant atmosphere that would show “there is more than one way to be Jewish, and more than one way to be an Israeli, and more than one way to be an Israeli patriot.”“This is a huge thing for us,” said Ms. Hoffman, the executive director of the Israel Religious Action Center, a group that advocates religious pluralism. “To have a normal government without, every day, one of the government members coming up with a more extreme sweeping initiative that rocks our whole country.”Others argued that the new heterogenous political leadership might allow for warmer ties with parts of the Jewish diaspora, and for a reset with the Democratic Party in the United States — two relationships that became strained under Mr. Netanyahu.And the diverse nature of the coalition, though problematic and unworkable in many respects, might also make the government a better reflection of Israeli society, said Ofer Zalzberg, director of the Middle East Program at the Herbert C. Kelman Institute, a Jerusalem-based research group.“It’s a very unique combination of interests and identities,” Mr. Zalzberg said. “There have been many places where Israeli society has been perhaps more advanced than Israeli politics has allowed Israel to be. This coalition will allow pre-existing societal trends to come to the fore politically.”Adam Rasgon and Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting. More

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      Israel Moves Toward Coalition Deal That Could Sideline Netanyahu

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      Naftali Bennett, an ultranationalist, and Yair Lapid, a centrist, have moved closer to forming a fragile coalition government that would oust the longtime prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.JERUSALEM — The longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history, Benjamin Netanyahu, faced the most potent threat yet to his grip on power Sunday after an ultranationalist power-broker, Naftali Bennett, said his party would work with opposition leaders to build an alternative government to force Mr. Netanyahu from office.If the maneuvering leads to a formal coalition agreement, it would be an uneasy alliance between eight relatively small parties with a diffuse range of ideologies. The prime minister’s post would rotate between two unlikely partners: Mr. Bennett, a former settler leader who rejects the concept of a sovereign Palestinian state and champions the religious right — and Yair Lapid, a former television host who is considered a voice of secular centrists.“I will work with all my power to form a national unity government together with my friend Yair Lapid,” Mr. Bennett said in a speech Sunday night.He added, “If we succeed, we will be doing something huge for the state of Israel.”Mr. Bennett’s announcement came shortly after an armed conflict with Palestinians in Gaza that many thought had improved Mr. Netanyahu’s chances of hanging on to his post.Because of the profound ideological differences within the emerging coalition, which would include both leftist and far-right members, its leaders have indicated their government would initially avoid pursuing initiatives that could exacerbate their political incompatibility, such as those related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and focus instead on infrastructure and economic policy.If forced from office, Mr. Netanyahu is unlikely to leave politics. Either way, however, he has left a lasting legacy. He shifted the fulcrum of Israeli politics firmly to the right — Mr. Bennett’s prominence being a prime example — and presided over the dismantling of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, all while scoring groundbreaking diplomatic agreements with four Arab states, subverting conventional wisdom about Israeli-Arab relations.By frequently attacking the judiciary and remaining in office while on trial for corruption, Mr. Netanyahu also stands accused of undermining central tenets of liberal democracy.And he is not going without a fight: Immediately after Mr. Bennett’s announcement, Mr. Netanyahu responded with a speech of his own, calling on right-wing lawmakers within the opposition alliance to abandon Mr. Bennett for his own right-wing bloc.“This is not unity, healing or democracy,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “This is an opportunistic government. A government of capitulation, a government of fraud, a government of inertia. A government like this must not be formed.”Ideological differences between the opposition parties were the main reason Mr. Bennett waited for so long since a general election in March to throw his lot in with Mr. Lapid. He was under pressure from his own party not to break with Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing and religious alliance, a factor he hinted at in his speech on Sunday.“This is the most complex decision I’ve made in my life, but I am at peace with it,” said Mr. Bennett.Any agreement reached in the coming days would need to be formally presented to Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, by Wednesday night. It would still then need to be endorsed by a vote in the Knesset, the Hebrew name for the Israeli Parliament.Under the deal being discussed, Mr. Bennett would lead the government first, probably until the fall of 2023, while Mr. Lapid would most likely serve as foreign minister, according to two people involved in the negotiations. The pair would then swap roles until a new general election in 2025. Mr. Bennett’s party won fewer seats than Mr. Lapid’s in a March election, but he holds significant leverage during the negotiations because no government can be formed without him.Their government would rely on the support of a small Arab Islamist party, Raam, to give it the 61 seats needed to control the 120-seat Parliament. Raam is not likely to play a formal role in the coalition, but is expected to support the new government at the Knesset confidence vote.Mr. Netanyahu would remain as caretaker prime minister until the parliamentary vote.The negotiations for this coalition were almost derailed by the recent conflict with Hamas, the Palestinian group that controls the Gaza Strip. That made Mr. Bennett leery of forming a government reliant on Raam, which has roots in the same religious stream as the Gaza militants.If approved, the deal would mark the end of the Netanyahu era — at least for now. Supporters of the proposed coalition hope it could break the deadlock that has stymied government action for more than two years.Mr. Netanyahu, the leader of the right-wing Likud party, has been in office since 2009, following an earlier stint between 1996 and 1999. His 15 years in power make him Israel’s longest-serving leader; it is one year longer than the combined terms of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion.Benjamin Netanyahu, addressing the United Nations General Assembly in 2009, is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesNear the end of Mr. Netanyahu’s tenure, he secured a major diplomatic prize with a set of eye-catching normalization agreements between Israel and four Arab states. They shattered assumptions that Israel would stabilize its relationship with the Arab world only once it made peace with the Palestinians.Under Mr. Netanyahu, Israel also scored diplomatic victories with the United States: The Trump administration moved the American Embassy to Jerusalem, closed its consulate for Palestinian affairs, shut down the Palestinian mission in the United States, and took a more combative line against Israel’s enemy Iran.But the Israeli-Palestinian peace process collapsed under Mr. Netanyahu’s watch, with formal negotiations petering out seven years ago. And tensions with Israel’s Arab minority increased, leading to widespread Arab-Jewish mob violence during the recent conflict.His government also enacted a law in 2018 that downgraded the status of the Arabic language in Israel and said that only Jews had the right to determine the nature of the Israeli state.Through an electoral agreement with far-right politicians, which ultimately allowed them to enter Parliament, Mr. Netanyahu also contributed to a rise in far-right influence on public discourse.And by clinging to power while standing trial on corruption charges, critics said, he undercut the rule of law and undermined democratic norms — all while being unable to give his full attention to governing, distracted as he was by such a serious court case.Mr. Netanyahu has denied the charges and defended his right to clear his name without leaving office.The case, and the polarizing effect it has had on the Israeli electorate, played a major role in Israel’s political instability over the past four years.Mr. Netanyahu’s decision to stay in office divided voters less by political belief than by their attitude toward him. In particular, it split the Israeli right, and made it harder for both Mr. Netanyahu and his opponents to form a working majority.That led to four inconclusive elections in two years, each of which ended with no faction being big enough to win power alone. The deadlock left the country without a state budget, among other problems.A desire to avoid a fifth election was a primary reason behind Mr. Bennett’s decision, he said. “It is either a fifth election or a unity government,” he said.After the first two elections in 2019, Mr. Netanyahu was left in charge as a caretaker prime minister. Following the third vote, in March 2020, he formed a government of national unity with his main rival, Benny Gantz, a shaky deal that collapsed last December when the two factions failed to agree on a state budget.Election billboards in Tel Aviv in February 2020. A government of national unity Mr. Netanyahu formed with his rival Benny Gantz, pictured far left, collapsed in December.Dan Balilty for The New York TimesA similar deadlock initially emerged after the most recent election in April. Mr. Rivlin, the president, granted Mr. Netanyahu, whose party finished first, an initial mandate to try to form a governing coalition. But he failed after a far-right group refused to enter a coalition reliant on Raam, which holds the balance of power.That gave Mr. Lapid — whose centrist party, Yesh Atid, or There Is a Future, came in second — the chance to form a government instead. His efforts were initially stymied by the outbreak of fighting between Israel and the Palestinians, which prompted his likely coalition partner, Mr. Bennett, to back out of coalition talks.But a cease-fire made it easier for the pair to restart negotiations, leading to the move on Sunday.Mr. Lapid, 57, is a former broadcaster who entered politics in 2012 and served as finance minister under Mr. Netanyahu in 2013.He was best known for moves to reshape a welfare system that gives money to devout Jewish men who study religious texts instead of seeking paid employment. Subsequent administrations reversed most of Mr. Lapid’s changes.During the campaign, Mr. Lapid, 57, pledged to preserve checks and balances and to protect the judiciary.Mr. Bennett, 49, is a former Israeli Army commando and software entrepreneur. He lives in Israel, but once led the Yesha Council, an umbrella group representing Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank.Until January, his party was in a formal alliance with Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right leader. Mr. Bennett opposes Palestinian statehood and favors formally annexing large parts of the West Bank.Isabel Kershner and Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting. More