Israeli Parties Call for Early Elections; Netanyahu: It Would Be a Historical Mistake

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, referred to the downfall of his right-wing government as "repeating a historical mistake." On Friday, November 16, he urged the leaders of the remaining parties in his coalition to abandon their request for early elections. Netanyahu's statement came after Israeli media reported an increased likelihood of early parliamentary elections amid the ongoing political crisis and the failure of a meeting between Netanyahu and Naftali Bennett, the leader of the "Jewish Home" party. Bennett had requested the position of Minister of Defense following the resignation of Avigdor Lieberman. Bennett, who has been the Minister of Education since the beginning of Netanyahu's government, stated a day earlier that if he became Minister of Defense, "Israel would be back on the path to victory." However, according to the Yedioth Ahronoth news site, Netanyahu rejected Bennett's request, responding that "given the critical challenges Israel faces," he would take on the Ministry of Defense himself. According to Walla, the rejection of Bennett's request was interpreted by the "Jewish Home" party as a failure of the meeting between the party leader and the Prime Minister, leading towards early elections. Members of the "Jewish Home" also stated that considering the firm stance of Moshe Kahlon, the Minister of Finance, who is calling for elections at the earliest opportunity, the current government's survival is not feasible. While the "Jewish Home" party announced that the leaders of the coalition parties would determine the election date on Sunday, November 18, the Prime Minister's office expressed hope that these politicians would be convinced not to repeat a "historical mistake" on that day. Netanyahu refers to events that led the right-wing parties of the then Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to collapse, resulting in Yitzhak Rabin of the Labor Party becoming Prime Minister in the next elections, who a year later signed the Oslo Accords with the Palestine Liberation Organization, leading to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority and changing the overall regional dynamics. The political crisis of Netanyahu's government intensified after Moshe Kahlon and Aryeh Deri, leaders of two coalition parties, insisted on the necessity of holding elections at the earliest opportunity following Avigdor Lieberman's resignation. Lieberman, who had been the Minister of Defense for the past two and a half years, described the Israeli army's ceasefire against armed Palestinian organizations in Gaza as "surrendering to terror" and resigned. With the exit of Lieberman's "Israel Our Home" party from the coalition, another minister from this party also resigned. Netanyahu's government currently still has the support of 61 representatives, which is one more than half of the Knesset members. However, the exit of the "Jewish Home" party with its 8 seats would also remove Netanyahu's government from its current shaky majority. Israeli media have mentioned the first week of April 2019 as the closest possible date for elections. Netanyahu canceled his official trip to Austria, which was supposed to begin on Thursday, to address his government's crisis. Meanwhile, Lieberman on Friday, in his first comments after resigning from the Ministry of Defense, criticized the government's management regarding armed Palestinian organizations in Gaza more explicitly. In a farewell ceremony with army commanders, Lieberman referred to Hamas, stating that the government's agreement to send millions of dollars from Qatar to Gaza is "feeding a monster that could become another Hezbollah." According to Lieberman, "Hamas leaders, by firing about 500 recent rockets at Israel, have actually gained immunity from the Israeli government." While Netanyahu recently agreed to transfer $90 million from Qatar to Gaza, with $15 million of it arriving in Gaza last Friday through Israeli Mossad intervention and distributed among Palestinians, two days later, a failed commando operation by the Israeli army sparked a crisis between the country and Palestinian organizations, during which about 500 rockets were fired from Gaza towards southern Israel. The two-day quasi-war crisis was the heaviest confrontation between the two sides in the past four years. Thousands of Israelis protested for several consecutive days on Friday against the lack of security in the southern cities of the country. Hundreds of Israelis living in the south also went to Tel Aviv on Thursday night to protest there. Meanwhile, Palestinians continued their protests at the Gaza-Israel borders on Friday, although regional media reported that Hamas, in line with commitments made for a ceasefire to Egypt and Qatar, asked demonstrators to hold their protests peacefully. In this context, the political earthquake in Israel and the paths ahead for Netanyahu's government, the Minister of Defense of Israel resigned in protest against Netanyahu and the developments in Gaza.