Netanyahu and the right are about to regain power; they’ll hold it for a long time

The eight-party coalition that took office in Israel a year ago was always misrepresentative of the electorate’s ideological affiliations. More than 70 of the 120 politicians Israelis voted into the Knesset in March 2021 came from seven firmly right-wing parties, either secular or religious — Likud, Shas, Yamina, United Torah Judaism, Yisrael Beytenu, Religious Zionism and New Hope.

Israel has been governed these past 12 months by a coalition that spans the political spectrum from right to left, with an Islamist party for good measure, only because the leaders of three of those seven right-wing parties (Yamina, Yisrael Beytenu and New Hope) opted to put aside core principles for what they argued was a greater Israeli interest: ousting Benjamin Netanyahu.

And so it was last June that Netanyahu found himself consigned to the opposition after a record 12-year stint as prime minister, and several of his former allies, led by Naftali Bennett, joined forces with his longtime political opponents to run the country.

Today, though, the coalition is on its last legs. First, it lost its narrow majority. Now it cannot even reliably manage 60-60 parity in parliament. READ MORE