Not necessarily. But both perils are raising their heads from the fiercely acrimonious duel raging between the two parties leading Israel’s government coalition. Even in a week of cheer induced by the steep downturn in coronavirus infection – as a result of a three-week lockdown – a storm of mutual blame and harsh backbiting has seized the ministers of Kahol Lavan and Likud.
Battle was joined on Monday, Oct. 19, by the No. 2 leaders of the two parties. Kahol Lavan’s FM Gaby Ashkenazi slapped down an ultimatum: if by the end of this month, the government refuses to back down on the 2020/21 state budget, approves senior official appointments and regulates cabinet meetings, “We’ll turn back to the voter,” he said.
Likud’s Finance Minister Israel Katz struck back: “if Kahol Lavan wants another election, let’s go. We’ll beat them” he said, adding that a fourth election in less than two years was undesirable and bad for the country.
Coronavirus has hit Israel’s economy hard, forcing it to contract for the first time in decades. Often hand-to-mouth spending drew on the pro-rated version of the 2019 budget, including ($30bn) in relief for wage earners, businesses and householders, in the absence of a 2020 budget.
The argument over the state budget has bedeviled coalition relations from their outset in May. But Ashkenazi revealed that what really bothered his party was the disrespect it suffers from the Likud prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu: “It is insulting not only to the foreign and defense ministries, but for the whole country, that they were not briefed on the normal ties and peace agreements (with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain) because we ‘could not be trusted not to leak them to Iran,” the foreign minister complained. READ MORE
