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      Netanyahu Holds Slight Lead in Israeli Election, Exit Polls Show

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      If the right-wing bloc does eke out a narrow victory, it will allow Mr. Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, to return to office even as he stands trial on corruption charges.JERUSALEM — Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing alliance may have won a narrow lead in Israel’s fifth election in less than four years, exit polls suggested on Tuesday night, giving him a chance of returning to power at the helm of one of the most right-wing governments in Israeli history.Three broadcasters’ exit polls indicated that Mr. Netanyahu’s party, Likud, would finish first and that his right-wing bloc was likely to be able to form a narrow majority in Parliament.But exit polls in Israel have been wrong before, particularly in tight races — and they exaggerated Mr. Netanyahu’s eventual tally in the last election, in March 2021.If the right-wing bloc does eke out a narrow victory, it will allow Mr. Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, to return to office even as he stands trial on corruption charges.Regardless of whether Mr. Netanyahu wins back power, the election was a triumph for Israel’s far right.An ultranationalist religious alliance that backs Mr. Netanyahu was projected to become the third-largest bloc in Parliament, highlighting how the election was construed by many right-wing Jewish Israeli voters — unsettled by Arab participation in Israel’s outgoing government — as a chance to reinforce the country’s Jewish identity.The far-right alliance seeks to upend Israel’s judicial system, end Palestinian autonomy in parts of the occupied West Bank and legalize a form of corruption that Mr. Netanyahu is accused of committing.Prime Minister Yair Lapid arrives at a polling station in Hod Hasharon, Israel, on Tuesday.Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times“The time has come for us to be the landlords of our country,” Itamar Ben-Gvir, one of Mr. Netanyahu’s new far-right partners, said in a speech early on Wednesday morning.Mr. Ben-Gvir seeks to grant legal immunity to Israeli soldiers who shoot at Palestinians, and deport rival lawmakers he accuses of terrorism. Until recently, he hung a portrait in his home of Baruch Goldstein, who shot dead 29 Palestinians in a West Bank mosque in 1994.“The public voted for a Jewish identity,” Mr. Ben-Gvir added, as his supporters chanted “death to terrorists” in the background.At 3 a.m., Mr. Netanyahu arrived at the Likud party headquarters in Jerusalem and was given a triumphant reception by the party faithful. Though he cautioned that the final results were not yet in, he nevertheless delivered a kind of victory speech, telling his supporters, “If the true results reflect the projections, I will establish a national government that will look after everyone.”In an effort to appeal to all Israelis, and assuage the fears of his critics, he said he intended to work to heal the rifts within Israeli society, as well to seek a broader peace with Israel’s neighbors. He spoke of “restoring national pride” in the Jewish state, but added that Israel was a country that “respects all its citizens.” He made no mention of his allies’ divisive proposals to overhaul and weaken the justice system.Clearer results may not emerge until Wednesday morning, and final numbers will not be announced until Friday. Party leaders will not be asked to nominate a prime minister before next week.But if the exit polls prove to be correct, Israel may have ended a four-year political deadlock in which no leader could win a stable parliamentary majority, leaving the country without a national budget for long stretches and repeatedly returning Israelis to the ballot box.For the first time since 2019, the country could be governed by a parliamentary majority formed from a single ideologically aligned bloc — reducing the risk of infighting in the coalition and the likelihood of another early election. In addition to the far-right, Mr. Netanyahu’s likely coalition includes two ultra-Orthodox parties that oppose the secularization of Israeli public life.A government led by Mr. Netanyahu and featuring Mr. Ben-Gvir would bring down the final curtain on one of Israel’s most diverse coalitions ever: Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s eight-party alliance, which united political opponents from the right, left and center, and included the first independent Arab party to join an Israeli governing coalition.If the exit polls are accurate, the leaders of the parties in Mr. Netanyahu’s bloc will be able to formally nominate him for prime minister next week, as long as they can seal a coalition agreement. Two of Mr. Netanyahu’s far-right allies have said they will push to lead ministries that oversee the army and the police — appointments that Mr. Netanyahu has expressed wariness of, potentially slowing down coalitions negotiations.Adjusted projections early Wednesday morning indicated that Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud finished first, with 30 to 32 seats, while his wider right-wing bloc won 62 seats, according to all three main television channels, enough to form a narrow majority in the 120-seat Parliament.A polling station in the city of Bnei Brak, Israel, on Tuesday.Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York TimesMr. Lapid’s centrist party, Yesh Atid, was projected to win 22 to 24 seats, and his wider alliance 54 to 55 seats. An unaligned party won the remaining seats.That calculus could change quickly as real results come in. One Arab party, Balad, was teetering just below the electoral threshold, 3.25 percent of the total vote. Should Balad reach the threshold, analysts said, that would change all the calculations and reduce Mr. Netanyahu’s lead, potentially depriving his bloc of a majority.Early Wednesday, the central elections committee said that the final voter turnout by 10 p.m., when the polls closed, was 71.3 percent. That was the highest since Israel’s 2015 election, when turnout was 71.8 percent, but below some previous votes.Israel’s political gridlock began when Mr. Netanyahu declined to leave power after being placed under investigation on accusations of corruption. His decision left the country roughly evenly divided between voters who thought he should now stay away from politics and those who believed he should stay.An outright victory for Mr. Netanyahu would not resolve a more protracted debate about the kind of society Israelis want — a debate that was central to the election campaign.Mr. Netanyahu’s bloc presented the vote as a quest to preserve Israel’s Jewish character. He and his allies targeted Jewish Israelis alienated by Arab involvement in Mr. Lapid’s departing government and unsettled by a spasm of ethnic unrest between Arabs and Jews in Israeli cities last year.By contrast, Mr. Netanyahu’s opponents presented the election as a bid to protect Israel’s liberal democracy. In particular, they warned of his dependence on a far-right alliance that has frequently antagonized Israel’s Arab minority and seeks to remove checks and balances on the lawmaking process.Outside a polling station in Beit Shean, Israel, on Tuesday.Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesOnce again, Mr. Netanyahu’s fitness for office was the campaign’s defining theme. He was placed under investigation in 2016 on charges related to bribery, fraud and breach of trust.Three elections ended inconclusively in 2019-20, leaving Mr. Netanyahu in power but unable to pass a budget, and forcing Israelis to return each time to the ballot box.Mr. Netanyahu was ousted after a fourth election in 2021, when a former right-wing ally, Naftali Bennett, broke ranks to lead a coalition with Mr. Lapid’s centrist party and seven others, including Raam — the first Arab party to join an Israeli government.That alliance collapsed in July amid profound ideological disagreements among its members, leading Mr. Bennett to make way for Mr. Lapid and call for another election.Then followed a brief, downbeat and stop-start campaign in which the parties and a tired electorate were distracted by a run of four Jewish holidays through September and October.Mr. Netanyahu portrayed himself as the only candidate able to keep Israel safe, portraying a border deal sealed recently by Mr. Lapid with neighboring Lebanon as a weak compromise that had endangered Israel’s security.The far-right alliance allied to Mr. Netanyahu, Religious Zionism, often eclipsed him during the campaign through their populist promises to loosen judicial oversight over lawmaking, grant legal immunity to Israeli soldiers who shoot at Palestinians, and deport rival lawmakers they accuse of terrorism.A campaign poster of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Ramat Gan, Israel, on Tuesday.Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York TimesThe leader of Religious Zionism, Bezalel Smotrich, has described himself as a “proud homophobe” and said that Israel’s Arab minority had survived in Israel only “by mistake,” after Israel’s founders didn’t expel enough of them in the wars surrounding the creation of the state in 1948. He has also supported segregated maternity wards for Arab and Jewish women, and said Jewish developers should not have to sell homes to Arabs.His colleague, Mr. Ben-Gvir, was barred from serving in the Israeli Army because he was considered a security threat, and recently described Meir Kahane, an extremist rabbi who wanted to strip Arab Israelis of their citizenship, as his “hero.”Throughout the campaign, Mr. Ben-Gvir presented himself as an enforcer of law and order. He frequently visited areas of pronounced tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, at one point drawing his handgun and calling on his police escorts to shoot at nearby Arabs.A victory for Mr. Netanyahu would eliminate the already unlikely chance of resuming peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. Throughout the campaign, he presented himself as a bulwark against the creation of a Palestinian state — the so-called two-state solution — while allies like Mr. Ben-Gvir advocated ending Palestinian autonomy altogether.But though Mr. Lapid supports a two-state solution, he would also be unlikely to push for peace if he remained in government. Mr. Lapid’s own bloc includes parties that also oppose a Palestinian state, while the Palestinian leadership is also divided and badly placed to resume peace talks.The effect of a victory for Mr. Netanyahu “cannot be minimized,” said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem-based research group.“If the exit polls hold true,” he said, “Israel is headed toward a governing coalition that could seek to fundamentally alter its current democratic order and weaken the country’s delicate system of checks and balances.”Reporting was contributed by Myra Noveck from Jerusalem; Irit Pazner Garshowitz from Tzur Hadassah, Israel; Gabby Sobelman from Rehovot, Israel; and Hiba Yazbek from Nazareth, Israel. More

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      Another Israeli Election Looms, and a Familiar Face Plans a Comeback

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      BAT YAM, Israel — On paper, he is hardly the ideal candidate.Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest serving prime minister, was ousted 16 months ago — prompting political eulogies at the end of a 12-year run — and is still standing trial on corruption charges.But as Israel gears up for another general election, its fifth in less than four years, Mr. Netanyahu, a seasoned political phoenix running this time from the opposition, appears better positioned than any of his rivals to lead the next government coalition.“He’s the strongest political player, despite it all,” said Mazal Mualem, an Israeli political commentator and the author of a newly released biography of Mr. Netanyahu in Hebrew, “Cracking the Netanyahu Code.” “That he has survived till now is proof of his power,” she said. “Beyond being a politician, he is a social and cultural phenomenon.”Still, despite the loyalty that he has enjoyed so far from his conservative party, Likud; from his political allies; and from supporters drawn to his messages emphasizing the country’s Jewish identity, Mr. Netanyahu remains a divisive figure in Israel and may nevertheless fail to deliver them a clear victory.A Likud party rally this month in Ofakim, Israel. Polls show that voters are almost evenly split between the pro- and anti-Netanyahu camps.Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesPre-election opinion polls are showing an electorate almost evenly split between the pro- and anti-Netanyahu camps, with Likud getting the most votes, but each side falling short of a majority. Some political analysts are already predicting a sixth election, most likely next spring.Mr. Netanyahu, 73, universally known by his childhood nickname, Bibi, has not emerged from an election with a clear majority for Likud and its allies since 2015, as political polarization, paralysis and chaos have gripped the country.His opponents have also been unable to build a stable coalition, with the government of Naftali Bennett collapsing this summer. Yair Lapid took over as the caretaker prime minister of a transitional government. His centrist Yesh Atid party is currently polling second after Likud.While the recent election campaign has been marked by voter fatigue, Mr. Netanyahu has run an energetic race, flooding social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok with snappy videos and campaigning vigorously around Israel.Mr. Netanyahu also used his time in the opposition to write an autobiography, “Bibi: My Story.” Published this month, the English version was instantly ranked as an Amazon best seller.And he did not let up in his unrelenting efforts to bring down the last government, led by Mr. Bennett, which imploded after a year.Mr. Netanyahu, 73, used his time in the opposition to write an autobiography, “Bibi: My Story.” Published this month, the English version was instantly ranked as an Amazon best seller.Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesAll of that has helped bolster support for him and his political allies. Many Israelis still view him as the most qualified candidate to handle the country’s security, diplomacy and economy.Even his corruption trial, in which the Jerusalem District Court is slogging its way through a list of more than 300 witnesses, has earned him added sympathy and admiration from Israelis who agree with his claims that he has been “framed” by a liberal deep state, and the court proceedings have largely dropped from the public agenda.One reason for Mr. Netanyahu’s success, according to Ms. Mualem and several current and former Netanyahu aides and strategists, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, is his unrivaled domination of the social network realm. That allows him to bypass the mainstream media, which he has long viewed as biased, and speak directly to his public. Fluent in “Jewish language” and sentiment, Ms. Mualem said, he also manages to appeal to ultra-Orthodox voters, even though he is secular.Mr. Netanyahu’s focus is on getting every Likud voter out on Election Day, after tens of thousands sat out the 2021 election or voted for other parties.He asserted while on the campaign trail that internal polls were giving his tight bloc a fraction over 60 seats in Parliament, within touching distance of a 61-seat majority in the 120-seat legislature, though that would most likely mean forming a government with, and distributing ministerial positions to, the far-right Religious Zionism party, which is running on a joint slate with the extremist Jewish Power..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.Learn more about our process.The leader of Jewish Power, the ultranationalist lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir, recently pulled out a handgun during a campaign stop in a volatile East Jerusalem neighborhood and urged police officers to fire at local Palestinian stone-throwers.Israelis at the Western Wall for services ahead of Yom Kippur this month in Jerusalem. Hoping to win over a wider section of voters, Mr. Netanyahu continues to emphasize Israel’s Jewish identity.Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesThe opposing, ideologically disparate bloc of disaffected conservative, centrist, left-wing and Arab parties would have a much muddier path toward forming a government, not only because it is trailing behind the pro-Netanyahu bloc, according to much of the latest polling, but also because some of the bloc’s parties would object to sitting in a coalition with others.Hoping to win over soft-right waverers, Mr. Netanyahu has been less divisive than in the past, ceasing his attacks on the police and the judiciary and leaving that to some of his Likud stalwarts. Vilifying Arab politicians as “supporters of terrorism,” he emphasizes Israel’s Jewish identity and need for a Jewish government. But he has also been sending calming messages in Arabic to the Arab minority.His campaign has also homed in on Likud strongholds where previous turnout has been low, with his “Bibi-mobile” — a converted removal truck with one side replaced by bulletproof glass through which he speaks to supporters — showing up at rallies (known as Bibi-Ba, for Bibi is Back) across the country.This month, the Bibi-mobile turned up in a public park in Bat Yam, a mostly low-income Likud beach town south of Tel Aviv where voter turnout was under 50 percent in 2021.The moment a screen lifted to reveal Mr. Netanyahu behind the bulletproof glass, the audience — mostly locals who had ambled down from their apartments, some in undershirts, sweatpants and flip-flops — was instantly energized.“Good evening, Bat Yam!” Mr. Netanyahu boomed, on his third campaign stop of the night.It took on a pantomime quality, as a heavily made-up Mr. Netanyahu asked the crowd if they wanted another year of Mr. Lapid’s Israeli-Palestinian government (“No!”) or if they wanted Israel back (“Yes!”). Mentions of the Lapid government, which includes Ra’am, a small, Islamic party, elicited boos.Mr. Netanyahu, left, at a rally while inside his bulletproof vehicle this month in Netivot, Israel.Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesAs the crowd chanted, “Bibi, King of Israel!” Mr. Netanyahu moved on to a fourth stop, in another park across town. “Good evening, Bat Yam!” he boomed, as if it were his first time.Sara Brand, 73, a local resident, said she used to vote for the center-left Labor Party but went over to Likud because of the trial and what she called a media “crusade” against Mr. Netanyahu.Hai Bachar, 29, a security guard, said: “We are a Jewish, Zionist state. The left are enemies of Israel. They can’t be in government.”Research by Moshe Klughaft, a strategist who met with Mr. Netanyahu several times during this campaign, shows that many undecided voters are less concerned with personality than with the need for stable government and the high cost of living. Mr. Netanyahu is promising that a good turnout will guarantee “four years of stable, right-wing government,” and has pledged to introduce free day care for infants and children up to age 3 in a new “Bibi-sitter” video.If Mr. Netanyahu does return to the prime minister’s office, his detractors worry most that he and his loyalists will make fundamental changes to the judicial and democratic system aimed at canceling his trial.“The plan is absolutely to replace the attorney general,” said Ben Caspit, an Israeli political commentator and two-time biographer of Mr. Netanyahu. “They are saying, ‘We aren’t coming to destroy the system, but to reform it and fix it.’”Supporters of Mr. Netanyahu and the Likud party this month at a rally in Migdal Haemek, Israel.Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesBezalel Smotrich, the leader of the far-right Religious Zionism party in Mr. Netanyahu’s bloc, has already announced a sweeping plan for change that would include canceling the offenses of fraud and breach of trust — two of the charges that Mr. Netanyahu is accused of, along with bribery — from the criminal code.Mr. Netanyahu, who denies all wrongdoing, insists that any such change would not apply to him retroactively and that the case against him is collapsing in court. But to exclude him from such a legal amendment would require making him an exception under the law.Tzachi Hanegbi, a veteran Likud lawmaker and former minister, said in an interview that if Mr. Netanyahu had wanted to save himself from his trial, he could have entered into a plea bargain with the authorities.Mr. Netanyahu remains the leading candidate, Mr. Hanegbi said, because he retains a sense of mission, believing that Israel’s fate rests on his shoulders, and “because he wants it more than anybody else.”Even if Mr. Netanyahu fails this time around, he may still remain unchallenged from within Likud. “There will be no problem if he wants to remain,” Mr. Hanegbi said. “He can stay for another 10 years if he wants.”Israel’s voters are evenly split on the question of whether Mr. Netanyahu is fit to run the country while standing trial on corruption charges related to bribery, fraud and breach of trust.Amit Elkayam for The New York Times More

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      As Israel Votes, Again, Netanyahu Pins Hopes on the Far Right

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      To regain power, Benjamin Netanyahu, the longest-serving Israeli prime minister, will most likely need the support of Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right leader with a history of extreme views.TEL AVIV — He was barred as a teenager from serving in the Israeli Army because he was considered too extremist. He admires a hard-line rabbi who wanted to strip Arab Israelis of their citizenship. Until recently, he hung a portrait in his home of Baruch Goldstein, who shot dead 29 Palestinians in a West Bank mosque in 1994.Itamar Ben-Gvir, a rising far-right lawmaker, has long occupied the fringes of Israeli politics and been widely vilified for his extreme views. But now, as Israel prepares for its fifth election since 2019, and with the polls predicting a deadlock, he is likely to become a major player in Benjamin Netanyahu’s bid to regain power in the vote on Nov. 1.At a recent election rally for Mr. Ben-Gvir in southern Tel Aviv, supporters of Mr. Netanyahu were cheering on a candidate they knew would be critical for him.“We are from the same side,” said Limor Inbar, 58, an activist from Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party. “We share the same ideology.”Israeli voters face a choice between Mr. Netanyahu’s bloc of right-wing parties — including Mr. Ben-Gvir’s far-right alliance — and the governing coalition of right-wing, centrist and left-wing parties, led by Prime Minister Yair Lapid, that share little more than opposition to Mr. Netanyahu. Mr. Lapid’s alliance lost its parliamentary majority in the summer, a year after ousting Mr. Netanyahu, giving him another chance at power.A Ben-Gvir election poster last week in Jerusalem.Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York TimesAt the last election, in 2021, Mr. Ben-Gvir’s alliance only scraped into Parliament. This time, polls suggest it will be the second biggest group in Mr. Netanyahu’s bloc, and the third largest in the country.While right-wing dominance of Israeli politics is not new, Mr. Ben-Gvir’s rise illustrates how Mr. Netanyahu’s camp within the Israeli right has become more extreme and religious.As his traditional allies abandoned him, Mr. Netanyahu — though secular himself — has been forced to forge a stronger bond with ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties. And though wary of appearing in public with them, he has become more reliant on ultranationalists like Mr. Ben-Gvir.Three decades ago, Likud, then a more traditional conservative party, shunned Mr. Ben-Gvir’s ideological forbear, Meir Kahane, for being too extreme. Today, Likud has moved further to the right, Mr. Ben-Gvir has cooled his support for Mr. Kahane, and Mr. Netanyahu has few other potential partners.If Mr. Ben-Gvir helps return Mr. Netanyahu to power, the government will be dependent on a lawmaker who hopes to upend Israel’s judicial system, grant legal immunity to Israeli soldiers who shoot at Palestinians, and deport rival lawmakers he accuses of terrorism.Less than two years after entering Parliament, “Ben-Gvir is the most important figure in the Israeli right wing after Netanyahu,” said Nadav Eyal, a leading Israeli political commentator.“We are from the same side,” said Limor Inbar, 58, left, an activist from Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party. “We share the same ideology.”Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times“He is not only popular with right-wing voters,” Mr. Eyal said. “He’s getting out the votes of people who never voted before.”For more than a quarter-century, Mr. Ben-Gvir, 46, was relevant only on Israel’s far-right fringe. In 1995, he was filmed holding an emblem ripped from the car of Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister who signed the Oslo peace accords.“Just as we got to this emblem, we’ll get to Rabin,” he said at the time. Mr. Rabin was later assassinated; Mr. Ben-Gvir had no connection to his murder.Mr. Ben-Gvir is an admirer of Meir Kahane, an Israeli American extremist assassinated in 1990 who wanted to strip Arab Israelis of their citizenship, segregate Israeli public space, and ban marriage between Jews and non-Jews.Mr. Ben-Gvir has often attended memorial events for Mr. Kahane, and has several convictions for incitement to racism and support for a terrorist group, as Mr. Kahane’s party is designated in Israel. A lawyer, Mr. Ben-Gvir has represented followers of Mr. Kahane and settlers accused of violence.Mr. Ben-Gvir in Israel’s Supreme Court this month.Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York TimesToday, Mr. Ben-Gvir still calls Mr. Kahane “a hero,” but has distanced himself from Mr. Kahane’s most extreme policies.“I have no problem, of course, with the minorities here,” he said in a brief voice message, after declining a full interview. “But whoever is a terrorist, whoever commits terror — and anyone who wants jihad and to annihilate Jews, and not only that, also hurts Arabs — I have a problem with him.”In other interviews, he has said he has become more moderate.The portrait of Mr. Goldstein, who killed the Palestinians in 1994, no longer hangs in Mr. Ben-Gvir’s home. He regrets the episode involving Mr. Rabin’s car, he said in September. If he had actually “got to” Mr. Rabin himself, he would have only shouted at him, Mr. Ben-Gvir added.He has told his supporters to chant, “Death to terrorists,” instead of, “Death to Arabs.” He does not support expelling all Arabs, only those he calls terrorists.“This is a Jewish country,” he said in his voice message. But, he added, “I also want this country to be a safe country for all its citizens.”In May 2021, Mr. Ben-Gvir’s visit to a Palestinian area of East Jerusalem, Sheikh Jarrah, exacerbated unrest in the neighborhood that contributed to an 11-day war between Israel and militants in Gaza. This month, he returned to the neighborhood and encouraged the police to open fire on Palestinian stone-throwers.Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York TimesThe sincerity of Mr. Ben-Gvir’s shift was placed in doubt in September by a senior member of his party, Jewish Power. In a leaked video, that party member, Almog Cohen, appeared to present his leader’s moderation as an election ploy.“Those who don’t use tricks, lose,” Mr. Cohen told a young supporter. Asked to elaborate by phone, Mr. Cohen declined to comment.But to many of his supporters, Mr. Ben-Gvir’s shift seems credible.He has moved “a long way” from Mr. Kahane’s ideas, said Sheffi Paz, a former leftist activist who now works with Jewish Power.Regardless, even the prospect of a reformed Mr. Ben-Gvir has drawn concern.In May 2021, his visits to a Palestinian area of East Jerusalem, Sheikh Jarrah, exacerbated unrest in the neighborhood that contributed to an 11-day war between Israel and militants in Gaza. This month, he returned to the neighborhood and encouraged the police to open fire on Palestinian stone-throwers.“Friends, they’re throwing rocks at us,” he said, pulling out his handgun. “Shoot them.”Some Israelis link his growing popularity to a gradual normalization of far-right thinking. The Israeli news media has granted Mr. Ben-Gvir more airtime this year than even some senior cabinet ministers, enhancing his profile.Supporters of Mr. Ben-Gvir this month in Tel Aviv.Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times“The mainstream, average opinion in Israel has become closer to him,” said Ilan Rubin Fields, a documentary film director who interviewed Mr. Ben-Gvir in 2018. “I don’t think he’s that much more radical than the average person you’d stop in the street,” Mr. Fields added.Others attribute Mr. Ben-Gvir’s prominence to Mr. Netanyahu’s desperation.Mr. Netanyahu refused to leave office after being placed on trial for corruption in 2020, prompting right-wing allies to abandon him. That forced him to look for allies elsewhere.Since 2019, Mr. Netanyahu has helped broker alliances between far-right groups, including Mr. Ben-Gvir’s, that would have struggled to enter Parliament alone. His interventions helped legitimize Mr. Ben-Gvir, gave him a bigger platform and ultimately got him elected.The most recent intervention, in August, ensured another far-right party could benefit from Mr. Ben-Gvir’s now rocketing popularity.“Because of the threats Netanyahu feels for his very immediate and personal future, he is willing to lay his hand on Ben-Gvir and include him in his camp,” said Tomer Persico, a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, a research group in Jerusalem. “That changes the whole of the Israeli political map.”A Ben-Gvir rally last week in Tel Aviv.Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York TimesMr. Ben-Gvir’s rise has also been propelled by young ultra-Orthodox voters who have grown disenchanted with traditional religious parties and right-wing secular Israelis who voted in the last election for Naftali Bennett.A former settler leader, Mr. Bennett was expected to help extend Mr. Netanyahu’s tenure. But he angered his base by forming a coalition with Mr. Lapid instead, as well as, for the first time in Israel history, a party from the country’s Arab minority.To his former supporters, the decision endangered the country’s Jewish identity and stifled the government’s ability to deal with Arab militants. It drove some of them to Mr. Ben-Gvir.“We have to save our Jewish state,” said Ms. Inbar, the activist.She stood behind Mr. Ben-Gvir at his rally, holding up a placard that suggested that only a right-wing government could block Arab influence on Israeli politics.“Yameen o Falasteen,” the sign said in Hebrew. “The Right — or Palestine.”Mr. Ben-Gvir entering the Supreme Court to discuss a petition he filed against the signature of the maritime border agreement with Lebanon.Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York TimesGabby Sobelman More

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      Deadly Shooting at Israeli Checkpoint Sets Jerusalem on Edge

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      Surging violence claimed the lives of four Palestinians and an Israeli soldier over the weekend, raising tensions on the eve of a Jewish holiday.JERUSALEM — Israeli security forces on Sunday said that they were still searching for the gunman who carried out a deadly attack late Saturday at a checkpoint in East Jerusalem and that three Palestinians had been arrested in connection with the shooting.The attack, which left an Israeli soldier dead and a security guard severely wounded, came as tensions surged before the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, when worshipers and pilgrims pour into the city. Israeli forces were put on high alert across the city ahead of the holiday, which begins at sundown on Sunday evening and lasts a week.The attack on Saturday night at the checkpoint near the Shuafat refugee camp, on the northeastern outskirts of Jerusalem, occurred hours after a deadly Israeli arrest raid and armed clashes in the city of Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, during which two Palestinians were killed.The recent spasm of violence gripping Israel and the West Bank is the worst those areas have seen in years. The Israeli military has been carrying out an intensified campaign of arrest raids, particularly in and around the northern West Bank cities of Jenin and Nablus, after a spate of terrorist attacks in Israeli cities that killed 19 people in the spring.The military raids, which take place almost nightly, are often deadly. At least 100 Palestinians have been killed so far this year. The Israeli authorities say that many of those were militants killed during clashes or while trying to perpetrate attacks, but some Palestinian protesters and uninvolved civilians have also been killed.The high death toll in the West Bank has spurred more disaffected Palestinian men to take up arms and try to carry out revenge attacks, according to analysts. The resurgence of loosely formed, armed Palestinian militias in the northern West Bank is increasingly reminiscent of the chaos there during the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, which broke out in 2000 and lasted more than four years.The new militancy comes after years without any political progress toward a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and is being fueled by splits from and divisions within Fatah, the secular party that controls the Palestinian Authority, the body that administers parts of the West Bank.Israel captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 war and then annexed East Jerusalem in a move that was never internationally recognized. The Palestinians claim the West Bank and East Jerusalem as part of a future Palestinian state.Adding to the frictions is Palestinian frustration with the authority’s leaders, who are widely viewed as inept and corrupt, and whose security coordination with the Israeli military is decried by many Palestinians as collaboration with the enemy. Power struggles are also at play, as Palestinian factions jockey for a position to succeed Mahmoud Abbas, the authority’s 87-year-old president.Israeli armored vehicles during a raid on Saturday by the Israeli military at a refugee camp near the West Bank city of Jenin.Alaa Badarneh/EPA, via ShutterstockHamas, the Islamist militant group that dominates the Palestinian coastal enclave of Gaza, and Fatah’s main rival, has been encouraging the armed groups in the West Bank in an effort to destabilize the area. It is expected to continue to do so in the run-up to the Israeli election, which is set to take place on Nov. 1 — the country’s fifth in under four years.The United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Tor Wennesland, said in a statement late Saturday that he was “alarmed by the deteriorating security situation,” citing the rise in armed clashes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.“The mounting violence in the occupied West Bank is fueling a climate of fear, hatred and anger,” he said, adding, “It is crucial to reduce tensions immediately to open the space for crucial initiatives aimed at establishing a viable political horizon.”The attack on the checkpoint occurred shortly after 9 p.m. on Saturday, when a man emerged from a vehicle, shot at the security personnel then fled on foot in the direction of the Shuafat refugee camp.The military identified the soldier who was killed, a female member of a combat battalion of the military police, as Sgt. Noa Lazar, 18. She was promoted in rank to sergeant from corporal after her death.The Israeli military raid on the Jenin refugee camp earlier Saturday took place, unusually, in broad daylight. The target, who was eventually arrested, was a member of the Islamic Jihad militant group, according to the military, which also said he had been released from prison in 2020 and had since been involved in shooting attacks against Israeli soldiers.The military said that dozens of Palestinians hurled explosives and fired shots at soldiers during the raid, and that the soldiers responded with live fire.The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the two Palestinians who were killed as Mahmoud al-Sous, 18, and Ahmad Daraghmeh, 16. Two more Palestinian teenagers were killed by Israeli troops in separate incidents in the West Bank the day before.Human rights groups have accused Israel of using excessive force in quelling unrest in the West Bank. Nabil Abu Rudeineh, the spokesman for Mr. Abbas, the Palestinian president, blamed Israel for the escalation and warned that it would push the situation toward “an explosion and a point of no return, which will have devastating consequences for all.”The prime minister of Israel, Yair Lapid, who is running for election against former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Sunday that Israel would “not rest” until the “heinous murderers” of Sergeant Lazar were brought to justice. Mr. Netanyahu said he was “holding the hands of the security forces operating in the field.” More

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      Lessons Learned, Israel’s Unlikely Islamist Kingmaker Looks Ahead

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      Mansour Abbas, the first Arab politician to lead his party into an Israeli governing coalition, says the yearlong experiment was just a beginning.KAFR QASSEM, Israel — As Israel heads this fall into yet another election campaign, with the likelihood of yet another stalemate looming, one potential kingmaker is sitting on the sidelines eager to take part in the country’s next government.The question is whether he will get the chance.Mansour Abbas, the leader of a small Islamist party called Raam that made history last year by becoming the first independent Arab party to enter an Israeli governing coalition, says he would do so again.“The process has just begun,” he said in a recent interview, discussing his political ambitions and his experience helping the former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, now the caretaker leader, form a coalition with a razor-thin majority in 2021.“We proved we can manage a country together,” Mr. Abbas said.But many Jewish and Arab politicians now balk at the idea of Mr. Abbas acting as a linchpin of any future government, as debate rages in Israel over an Arab party joining another Israeli coalition.Hailed by many as a model of national unity and healing, the Bennett government imploded after a year, and Mr. Abbas became a lightning rod for criticism from all sides.Mr. Abbas last year with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett of Israel, then the head of the Yamina party, at the Knesset.Emmanuel Dunand/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHe has drawn fire from Palestinians for accepting Israel as a de facto Jewish state and for rejecting accusations that it practices apartheid. Ayman Odeh, the leader of the Joint List, an alliance of predominantly Arab parties that sits in opposition in the Israeli Parliament, denounced Raam’s politicians as “pet Arabs.”Right-wing Jews have attacked Mr. Abbas for alleged affiliations with Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza. But he has denied any connections to Hamas, and Yihye Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza, has called him a traitor.“There is still fear and suspicion on both sides,” Mr. Abbas said in the interview, speaking in a borrowed office at the headquarters of an Islamic charitable organization, the 48 Association, in Kafr Qassem, an Arab town in central Israel.As a divided Israel prepares for its fifth election in under four years on Nov. 1, many polls have been predicting another impasse, with neither of the main contenders for the premiership — the conservative front-runner Benjamin Netanyahu or Mr. Lapid, his centrist rival — seen as being easily able to form a majority coalition.Most pre-election polls predict that Raam will win the same four seats in November as it did last year, the minimum threshold for entering Parliament.That could be enough for the party to play kingmaker again — if a future government were also willing to do business with Mr. Abbas, 48, who was a little-known Galilee dentist and imam before he entered national politics and shot to prominence with Raam in the last election.The departing coalition is unlikely to regroup in the same format after the next election and in any case is far from gaining a majority, according to most polls, even including Raam’s four seats.Mr. Netanyahu was the first to start negotiating with Mr. Abbas, ahead of the 2021 elections, but after that effort fell through, he and his Likud party demonized Mr. Abbas and Raam.Protesting Mr. Abbas in April in Jerusalem.Menahem Kahana/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWhen a Likud lawmaker recently suggested that Raam could join a Netanyahu-led coalition if Likud managed to muster 61 seats in the 120-seat Parliament, making it less dependent on the Arab party, Mr. Netanyahu denied such a plan was afoot. Indeed, he denounced Raam as an “antisemitic, anti-Zionist party that supports terrorism and represents the Muslim Brothers who aspire to destroy Israel.”Mr. Abbas said that Mr. Netanyahu’s comments were “disappointing” and derived from his “narrow political interests,” but he has not ruled out sitting in a Netanyahu-led coalition in the future. His primary purpose, Mr. Abbas said, would be to create “new politics” and a “brave partnership” in national decision-making and to help improve the lot of Israel’s Arab minority, which makes up a fifth of the population, from the inside.“When you are dividing up the resources, deciding for our public, I want to sit in,” he said.For decades, neither the predominantly Arab parties nor the Jewish parties were eager to join forces in Israeli governments. The Jewish parties were wary of relying on Arab partners for decisions pertaining to national security, and the Arab parties did not want to be held responsible for Israeli wars or for its occupation of the territories conquered by Israel in 1967.Mr. Abbas took a middle way, joining the coalition after the 2021 election but not becoming a minister. Made up of eight ideologically diverse parties from the left and right, religious and secular, Jewish and Arab, the coalition was mainly bound by a desire to oust Mr. Netanyahu after 12 consecutive years in office and as he battles corruption charges in court.Mr. Abbas cautions against rushing to characterize the experiment as a failure or a success.“You can’t expect to solve all the problems in a few months,” he said. “A year ago, we were on the brink of civil war,” he added, referring to the spasm of violence that shook Israel in May 2021, an explosion of Arab resentment over decades of discrimination and racial tensions.The coalition deal with Raam included a pledge of 30 billion shekels, about $9 billion, to fund a five-year plan to improve conditions in Arab society and to contend with the gun violence plaguing the community.Benjamin Netanyahu has denounced Raam as an “antisemitic, anti-Zionist party that supports terrorism and represents the Muslim Brothers who aspire to destroy Israel.”Amir Levy/Getty ImagesMr. Abbas said that about 70 percent of the money had been allocated for specific projects, but that government approval for the plans had been late in coming.His said his priority in a future government would be to see those plans through and to focus on civic issues affecting Israel’s Arab minority, like housing and education, and encouraging employment of Arab citizens in the high-tech industry.Mr. Abbas also said that he had learned valuable lessons during his first time in government.He cited an episode in which he suspended Raam’s participation in the coalition after Israeli-Palestinian tensions over a Jerusalem holy site and a deadly wave of Arab terrorist attacks. With the fate of the government in the balance, the country was forced to wait on a decision of the Shura Council, Raam’s Islamic-style advisory body, before the party could rejoin the coalition.The episode illustrated how pivotal Mr. Abbas and Raam had become, but it also exposed the precarious nature of their positions. Mr. Netanyahu exploited the fears of many Jewish Israelis worried about the Arab influence in the government, saying it had been “held hostage by the Shura Council.”“I admit it was an own goal,” Mr. Abbas said. “We didn’t have any experience of how to be in a coalition.”In the future, he said, such political decisions should be left up to the elected representatives to avoid any impression “that the Islamic Movement is running the country.”In Kafr Qassem, where 62.7 percent of the vote went to Raam in the last election, residents appeared to accept the limitations of what could be achieved in a year and to be in favor of having an Arab party sitting in government.Mr. Abbas at a meeting for Arab sector mayors and heads of councils last year in Umm Al-Fahm. Amit Elkayam for The New York Times“If you go backward, you’ll have no future,” said Muhammad Zbeida, 40, a grocery store owner. “If we want to live together, you need to have your people everywhere.”“The young generation — Jews and Arabs — want a better life,” he said. “Everything takes time. You don’t build something new overnight.”Nazir Magally, a veteran Arab Israeli journalist and author of a new book, “The Responsibility of the Minority,” praised the diverse coalition as “a good start.” But he criticized Mr. Abbas for failing to invest political capital in advocating for Palestinians in the occupied territories while sitting in a government that had ruled out peace negotiations from the outset.He also criticized the bickering among the Arab parties in Israel, saying it was likely to drive Arab voters away.Mr. Abbas, a married father of three who still preaches at a mosque in his hometown on Fridays, said he viewed his political path in historical terms.“We are not the only ones having difficulty,” he said of the Arab minority in Israel.He cited Israel’s Mizrahim, or Jews of Middle Eastern and North African origin, who faced discrimination in the early years after Israel’s creation in 1948 and gained political influence only in the 1970s, and the ultra-Orthodox Jews who became influential players in Israeli politics.“Now it’s our turn,” he said. 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      ¿Por qué Israel tiene tantas elecciones?

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      Los israelíes regresarán a las urnas por quinta vez, en menos de cuatro años.JERUSALÉN — El primer ministro israelí, Naftali Bennett, estará tomando decisiones en los próximos días para disolver el Parlamento y derrocar a su propio gobierno un año después de asumir el cargo, un proceso que desencadenará la celebración de nuevas elecciones dentro de unos meses. El proyecto de ley de disolución ha sido programado para una votación preliminar el miércoles, con una votación final que probablemente se realizará el lunes.La coalición de Bennett había comenzado con una mayoría mínima y recientemente la perdió, lo que hizo que fuese imposible gobernar.Una nueva elección le dará a Benjamin Netanyahu, el ex primer ministro de Israel con más años de servicio y ahora líder de la oposición, la oportunidad de regresar al poder aunque lucha contra unos cargos de corrupción. Sin embargo, su regreso está lejos de estar asegurado.Salvo el escenario improbable de que Netanyahu u otro líder del partido pueda formar una coalición alternativa con al menos 61 escaños en el Parlamento de 120 curules, los israelíes regresarán a las urnas en el otoño por quinta vez en menos de cuatro años.Aquí ofrecemos algunas explicaciones de la actual situación política en el país.¿Qué tipo de gobierno tiene Israel?Israel es una democracia parlamentaria con un sistema electoral de representación proporcional. Ningún partido ha obtenido nunca los votos suficientes para obtener una mayoría absoluta en el Parlamento. Es por eso que los partidos más grandes deben formar coaliciones consiguiendo el apoyo de los movimientos políticos más pequeños que negocian para proteger sus intereses y, a menudo, terminan ejerciendo un poder desproporcionado.Los últimos años han sido particularmente tumultuosos. Entre abril de 2019 y marzo de 2021, Israel celebró cuatro comicios que terminaron sin resultados concluyentes, con una legislatura dividida entre los partidos aliados con Netanyahu, quien fue primer ministro durante 15 años, y los que se oponen a sus intentos de permanecer en el poder.Asientos vacíos en la Knéset, el lunesAbir Sultan/EPA vía Shutterstock¿Por qué colapsó el gobierno actual?Bennett, máximo dirigente de un pequeño partido de derecha, ha liderado una difícil coalición de ocho movimientos formada por opositores políticos de derecha, izquierda y centro con agendas ideológicas enfrentadas, y que incluyó al primer partido árabe independiente que se ha unido a una coalición de gobierno israelí.Apodada por algunos como la “coalición kumbaya”, sus integrantes estaban unidos por el deseo de restaurar un sentido de unidad y estabilidad nacional, y principalmente, derrocar a Netanyahu después de que pasó 12 años consecutivos en el cargo.Pero las tensiones dentro de la coalición por cuestiones políticas y la presión implacable de Netanyahu y sus aliados hicieron que dos miembros de Yamina, el partido de Bennett, abandonaran la coalición. Varios legisladores árabes y de izquierda también se rebelaron en votaciones clave, lo que hizo que el gobierno se paralizara y luego entrara en crisis.Entonces, ¿quién lidera a Israel en este momento?Cuando finalmente se apruebe la disolución del Parlamento, muy probablemente antes de fines de junio, Bennett entregará el poder a Yair Lapid, el ministro de Relaciones Exteriores —un político de centro muy conocido por haber sido una personalidad de la televisión durante muchos años—, quien encabezará un gobierno provisional durante varios meses hasta que se convoque la elección y mientras se realizan las prolongadas negociaciones para una nueva coalición.Según los términos del acuerdo de coalición, se suponía que Lapid, el líder de Yesh Atid, el segundo partido más grande de Israel después del conservador Likud de Netanyahu, remplazaría a Bennett como primer ministro en agosto de 2023.Pero el acuerdo incluía una cláusula de seguridad en caso de que el gobierno no durara tanto. Estipulaba que si el Parlamento se disolvía debido a las acciones de los miembros de la coalición de derecha, como es el caso, Lapid se convertiría automáticamente en primer ministro interino del gobierno provisional.Trabajadores de la Comisión Electoral Central de Israel durante el recuento final de votos en la Knéset, en Jerusalén, el año pasado.Abir Sultan/EPA vía Shutterstock¿Cuándo son las próximas elecciones y quién se postulará?Aún no se ha fijado una fecha para la elección, pero pareciera existir un consenso sobre la fecha, que probablemente será a fines de octubre o principios de noviembre.Netanyahu y su partido Likud lideran las encuestas, seguidos por Lapid y Yesh Atid. Bennett, cuyo partido Yamina ocupaba solo seis escaños en el Parlamento cuando tomó posesión el año pasado, no parece haber obtenido mucho apoyo adicional.Al líder del partido que obtiene la mayor cantidad de votos generalmente se le otorga la primera oportunidad de formar un gobierno. El caso de Bennett fue muy inusual: se desempeñó como primer ministro porque era visto como el más aceptable para el flanco derecho de la diversa coalición.¿La próxima vez será diferente?Es posible que una quinta elección no produzca un resultado más definitivo o un gobierno más estable que las cuatro anteriores, según los analistas.“Hemos estado en esta película cuatro veces y podemos obtener resultados similares una quinta vez”, dijo Gideon Rahat, politólogo de la Universidad Hebrea de Jerusalén.“Por parte de Netanyahu, puede haber 1000 elecciones”, agregó Rahat. “Está preparado para barajar las cartas una y otra vez hasta que gane”.Los aliados de Netanyahu esperan que la decepción con el gobierno de Bennett impulse a los votantes de derecha que habían abandonado al líder político para que vuelvan a apoyarlo.“Mucha gente ha cambiado de opinión”, dijo Tzachi Hanegbi, un legislador experimentado de Likud y exministro, señalando las encuestas que muestran una erosión en el apoyo hacia algunos partidos de la coalición de Bennett.Pero a menos que Netanyahu salga victorioso y forme el próximo gobierno, dijo Ben Caspit, comentarista político y autor de dos biografías de Netanyahu, esta podría ser su última campaña electoral porque algunos de sus aliados políticos parecen menos inclinados a tolerar otro fracaso.Una valla publicitaria del partido Likud el año pasado, en Jerusalén. Muestra a Benjamin Netanyahu, a la derecha, y a sus rivales políticos, Gideon Saar, Naftali Bennett y Yair Lapid con un titular que dice: “Solo Likud formará un gobierno de derecha completo”.Abir Sultan/EPA vía Shutterstock¿Cuáles son los temas más controversiales?Esta última agitación política se produce en medio de una escalada en una batalla clandestina entre Israel e Irán. Y el conflicto con los palestinos se cierne sobre cada elección.Esta vez, es probable que la integración de los partidos árabes de Israel en el gobierno nacional sea el centro de atención. En repetidas oportunidades, Netanyahu intentó deslegitimar al gobierno de Bennett calificándolo como “dependiente de los partidarios del terrorismo”, refiriéndose a los políticos árabes que son ciudadanos de Israel.Los israelíes de centro y de izquierda dicen que un gobierno de Netanyahu dependerá de los extremistas de extrema derecha.Netanyahu ha prometido más acuerdos de paz con países que alguna vez fueron hostiles. Con la ayuda del gobierno de Trump, había establecido relaciones diplomáticas con los Emiratos Árabes Unidos, Bahréin y Marruecos.El aumento del costo de vida y los precios exorbitantes de la vivienda son quizás los temas más preocupantes para muchos votantes.Los críticos de Netanyahu dijeron que si regresa al poder, la democracia misma de Israel estaría en juego porque sus aliados piden restricciones en el sistema judicial y la cancelación de su juicio.“Quiere aplastar la democracia israelí y establecer una dictadura corrupta sin tribunales y con medios que le sirvan”, dijo Or-Ly Barlev, activista social israelí y periodista independiente. “Estamos al borde de un abismo”.Isabel Kershner, corresponsal en Jerusalén, ha estado informando sobre la política israelí y palestina desde 1990. Es autora de “Barrera: la costura del conflicto israelí-palestino”. @IKershner • Facebook More

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      Israel’s Government Collapses, Setting Up 5th Election in 3 Years

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      The governing coalition decided to dissolve Parliament, plunging the country back into paralysis and throwing a political lifeline to Benjamin Netanyahu.JERUSALEM — Israel’s governing coalition will dissolve Parliament before the end of the month, bringing down the government and sending the country to a fifth election in three years, the prime minister said on Monday.The decision plunged Israel back into paralysis and threw a political lifeline to Benjamin Netanyahu, the right-wing prime minister who left office just one year ago upon the formation of the current government. Mr. Netanyahu is currently standing trial on corruption charges but has refused to leave politics, and his Likud party is leading in the polls.Once Parliament formally votes to dissolve itself, it will bring down the curtain on one of the most ambitious political projects in Israeli history: an unwieldy eight-party coalition that united political opponents from the right, left and center, and included the first independent Arab party to join an Israeli governing coalition.But that ideological diversity was also its undoing.Differences between the coalition’s two ideological wings, compounded by unrelenting pressure from Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing alliance, led two right-wing lawmakers to defect — removing the coalition’s majority in Parliament. When several left-wing and Arab lawmakers also rebelled on key votes, the coalition found it impossible to govern.The final straw was the government’s inability last week to muster enough votes to extend a two-tier legal system in the West Bank, which has differentiated between Israeli settlers and Palestinians since Israel occupied the territory in 1967.Several Arab members of the coalition declined to vote for the system, which must be extended every five years. That prevented the bill’s passage and prompted Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, a former settler leader, to collapse the government and thereby delay a final vote until after another election.“We did everything we possibly could to preserve this government, whose survival we see as a national interest,” Mr. Bennett, 50, said in a televised speech. “To my regret, our efforts did not succeed,” he added.Expected to be held in the fall, the snap election will be Israel’s fifth since April 2019. It comes at an already delicate time for the country, after a rise in Palestinian attacks on Israelis and an escalation in a clandestine war between Israel and Iran. It also complicates diplomacy with Israel’s most important ally, the United States, as the new political crisis arose less than a month before President Joseph R. Biden’s first visit to the Middle East as a head of state.Mr. Biden will be welcomed by a caretaker prime minister, Yair Lapid, the current foreign minister. The terms of the coalition agreement dictated that if the government collapsed because of right-wing defections, Mr. Lapid, a centrist former broadcaster, would take over as interim leader from Mr. Bennett.Mr. Lapid will lead the government for at least several months, through the election campaign and the protracted coalition negotiations likely to follow.Former premier Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press at the Knesset on Monday.Oren Ben Hakoon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn a show of unity on Monday night, Mr. Bennett and Mr. Lapid gave consecutive speeches from the same stage, both hailing the successes of an unlikely government that many analysts did not expect to last even for a year.The fractious alliance was formed last June after four inconclusive elections in two years had left Israel without a state budget or a functional government.The coalition’s members agreed to team up to end this paralysis, and because of their shared desire to oust Mr. Netanyahu. Mr. Netanyahu’s refusal to resign despite standing trial on corruption charges had alienated many of his natural allies on the right, leading some of them to ally with their ideological opponents to remove him from office.The coalition was cohesive enough to pass a new budget, Israel’s first in more than three years, and to make key administrative appointments. It steadied Israel’s relationship with the Biden administration and deepened its emerging ties with key Arab states.Its leaders and supporters also hailed it for showing that compromise and civility were still possible in a society deeply divided along political, religious and ethnic lines.“We formed a government which many believed was an impossible one — we formed it in order to stop the terrible tailspin Israel was in the midst of,” Mr. Bennett said in his speech.“Together we were able to pull Israel out from the hole,” he added.Nevertheless, the government was ultimately unable to overcome its contradictions.Its members clashed regularly over the rights of Israel’s Arab minority, the relationship between religion and state, and settlement policy in the occupied West Bank — clashes that ultimately led two key members to defect, and others to vote against government bills.The new election offers Mr. Netanyahu another chance to win enough votes to form his own majority coalition. But his path back to power is far from clear.Polls suggest that his party, Likud, will easily be the largest in the next Parliament, but its allies may not have enough seats to let Mr. Netanyahu assemble a parliamentary majority. Some parties may also only agree to work with Likud if Mr. Netanyahu steps down as party leader.The opening of the summer session of the Knesset last month.Maya Alleruzzo/Associated PressThis dynamic may lead to months of protracted coalition negotiations, returning Israel to the stasis it fell into before Mr. Netanyahu’s departure, when his government lacked the cohesion to enact a national budget or fill important positions in the civil service, and the country held four elections in two years. Through it all, Mr. Netanyahu is expected to remain on trial, a yearslong process that is unaffected by a new election, and which will likely only end if he either accepts a plea deal, is found guilty or innocent, or if prosecutors withdraw their charges. Despite the promises of some coalition members, the outgoing government failed to pass legislation to bar a candidate charged with criminal offenses from becoming prime minister.Critics fear Mr. Netanyahu will use a return to office to pass laws that might obstruct the prosecution, an accusation that he has denied.Understand the Collapse of Israel’s GovernmentCard 1 of 4A fragile coalition. More

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      Israeli Government Loses Parliament Majority, Raising Prospect of Election

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      A second lawmaker has defected from the government coalition. The move edges Israel closer to the polls for the fifth time in three years.CAIRO — A second lawmaker has quit Israel’s governing coalition, giving the opposition a narrow two-seat majority in Parliament and raising the possibility of a fifth election in three years that would deepen the country’s political stasis.Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi, a member of Israel’s Palestinian minority from the left-wing Meretz party, resigned from the coalition on Thursday, the second lawmaker to do so in two months.Ms. Rinawie Zoabi attributed her decision to the government’s treatment of the Arab community in Israel, and its expansion of settlements in the West Bank. She said recent police interventions at the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and the police assault on mourners at a journalist’s funeral last week were the final straws.“Again and again, the coalition leaders have preferred to adopt hawkish, hard-line and right-wing positions on important basic issues of unparalleled importance to the general Arab society,” Ms. Rinawie Zoabi wrote in a resignation letter to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.“No more,” she added. “I cannot continue to support the existence of a coalition that conspires in this disgraceful manner against the society from which I have come.”Without Ms. Rinawie Zoabi, the government could still survive with a minority in Parliament until March 2023, when it will need a majority to pass a new budget. As prime ministers, Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon and Yitzhak Shamir each led minority governments for extended periods, including when Mr. Rabin negotiated the Oslo Accords in the 1990s.The current coalition could also try to entice members of the opposition to join the government, reinstating its majority.But Ms. Rinawie Zoabi’s defection means that opposition lawmakers now control 61 of the 120 seats in Parliament, enough to vote to dissolve the body and call for another election, the fifth since April 2019.Opposition parties also have enough seats to create their own new coalition government without going to elections. But they are divided and may not be able to agree on a candidate for prime minister, making new elections more probable.The defections could offer a political lifeline to Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister who was ousted in June when the current coalition was formed. The eight parties of the coalition overcame profound ideological differences because they shared a desire to remove Mr. Netanyahu, whose refusal to resign despite standing trial for corruption had alienated many of his natural allies on the right.As a left-winger, Ms. Rinawie Zoabi is not expected to support a Netanyahu-led government. But she could join the opposition in voting for new elections as early as next week.A spokesman for Ms. Rinawie-Zoabi said that she had not decided whether or not to support a vote to dissolve Parliament.That would give Mr. Netanyahu another chance to win more seats for his right-wing alliance, giving them a majority in Parliament.Ms. Rinawie Zoabi’s departure from the coalition is the latest manifestation of the incompatibility of the government’s eight constituent parties — a fractious alliance of right-wing, left-wing, secular, religious and Arab groups that joined forces in June after multiple inconclusive elections had left Israel without a state budget or a functional government.The coalition was cohesive enough to pass a new budget, Israel’s first in more than three years. It also made key administrative appointments and deepened Israel’s emerging relationships with key Arab states.At its formation, Ms. Rinawie Zoabi said she had hoped the government would forge “a new path of equality and respect” between Jewish and Arab Israelis. In a first for Israel, the coalition included an independent Arab party, Raam, while an Arab was appointed as a government minister for only the third time in Israeli history.But despite that early optimism, the government’s members clashed regularly over the rights of Israel’s Arab minority and over settlement policy in the occupied West Bank.Tensions came to a head during the recent holy month of Ramadan, when the Israeli police regularly clashed with Palestinian stone-throwers at the Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, a site sacred to both Muslims and Jews. They escalated further last week, when a Palestinian journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, was shot dead in the West Bank during an Israeli raid — and when police attacked mourners carrying her coffin at her funeral two days later.But while Mr. Bennett managed to persuade Raam to stay in the coalition through these successive crises, he has few means of preventing further defections from its left-wing and Arab members. He is also struggling to prevent further rebellion from the coalition’s right-wing members, who feel he has already boosted Arab society enough.Last month, a right-wing member of the coalition, Idit Silman, became the first member of government to defect — and there are fears that others may follow, particularly with the administration under pressure from the right to respond more forcefully to a rise in terrorist attacks.Should new elections be called, Israel could also be led by a new interim prime minister until a government is formed. Under the terms of the current coalition agreement, Mr. Lapid, the foreign minister, could take over from Mr. Bennett in the event of snap elections, depending on the manner in which the government collapses.That could leave Mr. Lapid, a centrist former broadcaster, in charge for at least several months, through an election campaign and the protracted coalition negotiations that will most likely follow.Carol Sutherland contributed reporting from Moshav Ben Ami, Israel. More