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Netanyahu's Boxed In and Could Be Finished at Next Election

Netanyahu's Boxed In and Could Be Finished at Next Election

(Bloomberg) -- Time may be running out for Benjamin Netanyahu. An unprecedented loyalty oath suggests just how rocky his standing might be.

Weeks after becoming Israel’s longest-serving leader, Netanyahu seems no better positioned to form a government following the Sept. 17 election than he was after failing in May and calling a snap revote, opinion polls show. To prevent any defections within his Likud party, its entire election slate has been signed on to a written pledge to support only a Netanyahu-led government.

Surveys indicate a close race between blocs led by the prime minister’s right-wing Likud and the centrist Blue and White headed by former military chief Benny Gantz. They’re also showing the premier could again find himself at the mercy of onetime ally Avigdor Liberman, whose refusal to join Netanyahu’s cabinet after the April 9 election led to the breakdown of coalition talks and the calling of a second vote.

Netanyahu's Boxed In and Could Be Finished at Next Election

Liberman’s Yisrael Beitenu party has only emerged stronger from the showdown, and looks poised to double its strength to 10 of parliament’s 120 seats. Without the hawkish former defense minister’s support, Netanyahu has no easy path to forming a government, and if another coalition-building impasse emerges, he may be pressed to resign.

“If there is a result as we see in the polls today, there will be formidable pressure for a national unity government” yoking Likud and Blue and White, “and this can go through only without Netanyahu,” said Gayil Talshir, a senior lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “And he has no intention of leaving of his own will.”

In a column in the Israel Hayom newspaper on Wednesday, Netanyahu vowed that he was committed to establishing a strong, right-wing coalition and that “there will be no national unity government.” Blue and White says it won’t join a unity government led by Netanyahu because of the corruption allegations against him, but would team up with Likud if it’s led by someone else.

Liberman, who’s been pushing for a unity government, urged Likud last week to dump the prime minister if he’s chosen to form a coalition and fails again.

Surprise Breakdown

The prime minister’s failure to form a government weakened him as he tries to fend off what he says are baseless graft allegations cooked up by left-wing opponents who haven’t been able to unseat him at the ballot box. Remaining in office could be Netanyahu’s best bet for heading off any indictment: He’s been trying to change Israel’s law to shield a sitting prime minister from trial.

While decision-making is paralyzed, challenges are building: The release of the Trump administration’s Middle East peace plan has been held up, Israel’s troubling fiscal deficit isn’t being addressed, and the slow-burn faceoff with Iran and its proxies could easily explode into bigger confrontations.

Netanyahu is down, but he may have a way out. There’s been speculation he might offer to rotate the premiership with Liberman -- an option Liberman hasn’t ruled out.

The prime minister may also be able to persuade the center-left Labor party or defectors from that camp to join his government, Hebrew University political scientist Reuven Hazan said. What’s more, he could legally form a minority government as long as he’s able to pass laws.

“Essentially Netanyahu could have a government of 59 or 60 as long as everyone else doesn’t vote against it,” Hazan said. “It wouldn’t survive for long, but he will have a government.”

Currently, without Liberman and Labor, surveys show Netanyahu corralling about 55 parliamentary seats. A Gantz-led bloc without Liberman polls in that ballpark, but includes an Arab party unlikely to be included in a Zionist-led government. Because of that breakdown, analysts expect Netanyahu to get first shot at cobbling together Israel’s next coalition.

There’s nothing to stop Netanyahu from calling a third election should coalition talks fail again, but most commentators say that’s unlikely because it would drag out the political paralysis further and cost hundreds of millions of shekels without necessarily offering a resolution.

By the time the next coalition is formed, Israel will have been controlled by a caretaker government for almost an entire year, said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute research center.

“This is a lost year, a lost opportunity to make progress on agendas relevant to the Israeli people and the Israeli state,” Plesner said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gwen Ackerman in Jerusalem at gackerman@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lin Noueihed at lnoueihed@bloomberg.net, Amy Teibel, Mark Williams

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