Netanyahu Fails to Form Ruling Coalition Regime

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

Coalition regimes rule Israel. No party ever won a majority in the nation's history. 

The one winning the largest percentage of votes gets to form a ruling coalition, if able — requiring at least 61 MKs in the Knesset.

Following April 9 elections, Netanyahu was only able to cobble together 60 MKs willing to partner with his leadership.

For the first time in Israeli history, a sitting prime minister or prime minister-designate failed to form a ruling coalition.

Israel heads to an unprecedented second election on September 17 in the wake of his most embarrassing political defeat. 

By a late-night 74 - 45 majority, following a 12-hour debate, MKs voted to dissolve the Knesset — a month after its members were sworn into office.

The impasse Netanyahu couldn't resolve was over legislation requiring ultra-orthodox youths to perform military service like other Israelis of draft age.

Ultra-orthodox parties want the measure softened. Yisrael Beiteinu party head Avigdor Lieberman (controlling five MKs) said he'd only support Netanyahu if he requires ultra-orthodox Israeli youths to perform IDF service — putting him at odds with religious fundamentalist MKs.

Netanyahu remains prime minister during the interim period before September elections, his political future riding on the outcome.

Haaretz described his emotional state after last night's defeat, saying:

His "appearance in the Knesset on Wednesday had nothing of (his earlier) fire… We saw an ashen-faced Bibi, ranting about the injustice done to him and the nation by Avigdor Lieberman," adding: 

"It was the Netanyahu we never see in public and only hear about in whispers. Unprepared and unscripted. Raging at the destruction of his career."

Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party can't defeat Netanyahu's Likud in September elections. The number of seats YB wins in the rerun will determine what say he has over deciding who'll be Israeli prime minister.

He'll support Netanyahu if he bends on the draft law. Yielding to Lieberman will cost him support from ultra-orthodox parties, a damned if he does or doesn't choice.

If Lieberman supports leading challenger Benny Gantz over Netanyahu following September elections, he'll lose a chance for an unprecedented fifth term as prime minister.

He'll also be more vulnerable to prosecution for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust out of power, a indictment pending after an October hearing on his case.

With the Knesset dissolved, his aim to get immunity legislation passed, limiting Supreme Court power, will be delayed until after September elections.

Haaretz commentator Bradley Burston jumped all over him, saying Wednesday's dissolution of the Knesset made his "darkest, deepest fear (come) true," adding:

He's "scared (and) it shows… We, an entire country, can suddenly see him for what he really is: A loser. It's all coming apart."

Even if he wins in September, he's "a loser…a man with no honor…a man whose every word, every facial expression, every argument, every belief, is a false front. There is not one cell of principle in him."

"You needn't look any deeper than his eyes: His life is falsehood and hatred. His work is falsehood and hatred. His legacy is falsehood and hatred."

Haaretz editors are some of his fiercest critics, demanding he and his extremist partners not be "permitted to exploit their power…bend(ing) the law in the service of the criminal suspect in the prime minister's residence."

Netanyahu exceeds the worst of Sharonian evil, heading the most extremist Ziofascist regime in Israeli history, an embarrassment to what governance the way it should be is all about.

Israel under Netanyahu and coalition extremists resembles Arundhati Roy's earlier description of India, calling the country a "limbless, headless, soulless torso left bleeding under the butcher's clever with a flag driven deep into her mutilated heart."

Netanyahu's rule is all about state terror, apartheid viciousness, institutionalized racism, belligerence, exploitation, occupation harshness, neoliberal rapaciousness, terror-bombing defenseless Gazans, and war at his discretion.

Edward Said once called Sharon "pathologically deranged," his pure evil all the worse because of "how (he) manage(d) to persuade (others in his regime) to think in the same delusional and criminal way."

Netanyahu and the criminal gang comprising his regime exceed the worst of Sharon and other extremist Israeli prime ministers.

The problem for long-suffering Palestinians is no matter who serves as Israeli prime minister, brutality against them remains unchanged.

Most frightening is Israel's terrorist infrastructure, its hegemonic rage along with Washington's regional presence, their permanent war footing, their killing machines threatening world peace no matter who is empowered in both countries.

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My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

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