A senior official in Israel’s Likud-led governing coalition believes the end is nigh for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s current government, after former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman bolted, leaving Netanyahu with a razor-thin majority of 61 seats in the 120-member Knesset.
Earlier this month, Liberman and his five-MK Yisrael Beytenu faction left the government in protest over a ceasefire agreement with the Gaza-based terror group Hamas, which was signed following a massive barrage of rockets on southern Israel.
While Education Minister Naftali Bennett’s Jewish Home party threatened to join Yisrael Beytenu in leaving the government if he was not tapped as Defense Minister, the Jewish Home later withdrew its ultimatum, choosing to remain in the coalition.
Though the government managed to remain intact and avoid snap elections for the time being, it failed its first major legislative test earlier this week, when the government failed to secure a majority for the ‘Cultural Loyalty Law’, forcing the coalition to drop a vote planned for Monday from the agenda.
The Cultural Loyalty Law was pushed by Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev, and would empower the minister to strip funding from artists or groups which publicly reject Israel as a Jewish, democratic state; mark Israeli independence day as a day of mourning; desecrate or destroy Israeli national symbols like the flag; or to praise or otherwise express solidarity with terrorism.
The government’s failure to pass the bill was seen as a major defeat for the coalition, and a sign that it would be difficult to pass more difficult pieces of legislation, including an amendment to the draft law.
On Wednesday, Israel Hayom reported that a senior coalition official claimed that the government was nearing its end. READ MORE
