OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The Israeli parliament unanimously approved early Tuesday a draft bill
to dissolve parliament, a key legislative step that pushes the country closer
towards its fifth election in less than four years.
اضافة اعلان
Members of
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s outgoing coalition and the opposition led by
ex-premier Benjamin Netanyahu have been sparring in Israel’s parliament, the
Knesset, since last week over a dissolution bill.
The coalition said
it wanted quick approval of the law after Bennett announced last week that his
year-old, ideologically divided eight-party alliance was no longer tenable.
But Netanyahu and
his allies have been holding talks seeking to form a new Netanyahu-led
government within the current parliament, which would avert new elections.
The sides have
traded legislative jabs but finally agreed late Monday to advance a bill that
would be finalized as law by the end of Wednesday.
The opposition’s
readiness to dissolve parliament suggested that Netanyahu’s efforts to form a
new government had stalled.
Early Tuesday, the
Knesset House committee approved the bill. It was then brought to the plenum
for its first reading, which it passed 53–0.
According to the
bill, parliament would dissolve, with new elections to be held on October 25 or
November 1, with the date to be set after further negotiations.
The bill must then
be approved in two further full Knesset votes.
At midnight after
the bill’s secures final approval, Bennett will hand power to Foreign Minister
Yair Lapid, in accordance with the power-sharing deal they agreed following
inconclusive elections last year.
The Bennett
coalition, a motley alliance of religious nationalists, secular hawks,
centrists, doves, and
Arab Islamists, was imperiled by its ideological divides
from its outset.
The final straw,
according to the premier, was a failure to renew a measure that ensures Jewish
settlers in the occupied West Bank live under Israeli law.
Bennett, the former
head of a settler lobby group, said the measure’s expiration on June 30 would
have brought security risks and “constitutional chaos”.
Dissolving parliament before the expiration date means the
so-called West Bank law will remain in force until a new government takes
office.
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