On Monday Netanyahu Was Toasting Victory. Now He’s Toast.
The majority Netanyahu expected in the Knesset never materialized. But another majority pulled together to block an indicted politician like him from forming a government.
Noga Tarnopolsky
Updated Mar. 06, 2020
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Then came a remarkable cascade of bad news for Netanyahu, Israel’s longest serving prime minister, and its first to be indicted while in office.
Avigdor Lieberman, his onetime defense minister and now a fearsome nemesis, announced his support for a law proposed by Gantz, a former army chief of staff, which would bar an indicted legislator from being appointed to form the government.
Such a law would eliminate any route to immediate political survival for Netanyahu, whose trial in three separate cases of bribery, fraud and breach of trust is scheduled to open in Jerusalem District Court on March 17.
In an almost unseen instance of Israeli multi-partisanship that Israeli media call “the anti-Bibi coalition,” this law enjoys the support of 62 members of the 120-member Knesset, from the majority-Arab Joint List through the left-wing Labor Party, and now, unto Lieberman, a hardline secular right-winger.
Further, Lieberman, who holds seven potentially king-making Knesset seats, announced that he would recommend Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin choose Gantz to form the next government.
It is the third election in under a year in which Netanyahu—and Gantz—have failed to secure an operating majority of the Knesset, but for Netanyahu the stakes are higher.
more:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/israeli-prime-minister-benjamin-netanyahu-was-toasting-victory-now-hes-toast?via=newsletter&source=DDMorning
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