Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi of the left-wing Meretz party announced on Thursday that she was leaving the eight-party coalition government, causing a storm in domestic politics. Zoabi’s resignation reduced the coalition to 59 MPs and left it in a minority in the Israeli legislature.
Unsurprisingly, the opposition was caught off guard by the news of a second MP in a month to give the government the finger, but it is not yet certain that new elections will be called in the autumn, however much the right-wing led by Benjamin Netanyahu would like to see this happen. Zoabi has left the government but, when asked by a reporter, she said
she will not vote to overthrow the government, thus calling for new elections.
Experts believe that Netanyahu’s Likud is not playing around and will introduce a bill to dissolve the Knesset as early as next Wednesday, which, if it happens, is unlikely to produce the result the right hopes for.
The calculation is simple: In the 120-member legislature, at least 61 votes are needed to topple the government, but the Natanyahu party, without Zoabi, can only count on 60.
What the Netanyahu group has achieved through painstaking, sweaty work is no mean feat: In the last month and a half, two MPs, Amichai Chikli and Idit Silman, have left the Bennett government and, although they have made strong ideological arguments for their decision, it is certain that they will be rewarded with a comfortable velvet ministerial chair for their betrayal.
Of course, there is no shortage of such comfortable positions in Israel, and Zoabi may just have one if she changes her mind by next Wednesday. Political analysts say it is even possible that
she was merely reassuring the ruling party public that she would not vote to dissolve the new parliament because she did not want to see Bennett or Lapid’s number on her mobile phone every minute.
Zoabi’s decision surprised all his party colleagues. Meretz MPs — not a huge crowd, of course, as it has only 6 MPs in the Knesset — said they had learned of Zoabi’s decision from the press. (Meretz, which describes itself as social democratic, was founded by Shulamit Aloni in 1992 and is led by Nitzan Horowitz, now minister of health.)
After failing to reach Zoabi by phone, Meretz Chairman Nitzan Horowitz and Minister of Regional Cooperation Issawi Frej headed for Zoabi’s home in Nazareth, but turned back halfway when they learned that the renegade Israeli-Arab MP was already in Jerusalem, waiting in the make-up room of Channel 12 News to explain her break with the coalition on live television.
„Unfortunately, in recent months, the coalition leaders have decided, for political reasons, to preserve and strengthen the right-wing tendency,” said Zoabi, who cited police behavior during recent clashes with Palestinians on the Temple Mount and the behavior at the funeral of slain Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh last Friday as reasons for her resignation.
„I cannot continue to support a coalition that oppresses the people I come from,” she wrote.
There is serious work going on behind the scenes.
Naftali Bennett has called a meeting of his party on Friday to discuss the way forward, with press reports suggesting that almost all coalition party leaders are doing the same.
Of course, the opposition side, and more specifically its largest party, Likud, is doing the same and will continue to court the ruling party MPs, in case some get fed up with the coalition, which is put together purely on the basis of opposition to Netanyahu. Although Likud can’t count on another left-wing Arab MP to pick up and leave the Bennett-Lapid government, there are still six Yamina MPs left to vie for the velvet seat.
