Newly Sworn In, Yair Lapid Set To Become Israel’s Next Prime Minister

Israel’s foreign minister, Yair Lapid, the architect of the outgoing coalition government, will become the country’s caretaker prime minister just after midnight on Friday. He will be the 14th person to hold that office, taking over from Naftali Bennett, who served the shortest term in that office.While the world’s attention is largely fixed on Ukraine, there is considerable anticipation in Israel with respect to Mr. Lapid’s sudden emergence at the center stage of the country’s politics, as well as a healthy dose of intrigue. “Yair Lapid’s Journey: From Late-night Host to Israel’s Next Prime Minister,” runs a headline in Haaretz that also asks, “Will his caretaker spell as prime minister prove a footnote in history, or can he be the politician who defeats Benjamin Netanyahu twice?”Meanwhile, the Knesset voted Thursday to dissolve itself, marking the end of a year-old experimental coalition government, and sending the country to the polls in November for the fifth time in less than four years.“Yair, I’m handing you the stick,” Mr. Bennett told Mr. Lapid after the vote. “This country and this position do not belong to any one person. We’re doing this together and now it’s your time.”The Jerusalem Post reported that Messrs. Bennett and Lapid along with their families participated in a small ceremony for Mr. Lapid’s transition to prime minister, and that prior to that Mr. Lapid also paid a visit to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem.The government collapsed just more than a year after it was formed in a historic move that saw the longtime leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, ousted after 12 years in power by a coalition of ideologically diverse parties, the first to include an Arab faction.The motion to dissolve passed, with 92 lawmakers in favor and none against, after days of bickering by coalition and opposition lawmakers over the date of new elections and other last-minute legislation.New elections will be held November 1.The move brings a formal end to a political experiment that saw eight parties from across the Israeli spectrum try to find common ground after a period of prolonged gridlock in which the country held four elections in two years.The upcoming elections are an extension of Israel’s protracted political crisis, at the heart of which sits Mr. Netanyahu and his ongoing corruption trial. The four deadlocked elections in the previous three years were largely referendums on Mr. Netanyahu’s fitness to serve while facing charges of accepting bribes, fraud, and breach of trust. Mr. Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing.Mr. Lapid, a former talk-show host who heads a center-left party, is expected to campaign as caretaker prime minister to keep the job as the main alternative to Mr. Netanyahu, and will likely get an early boost when he welcomes President Biden to the country next week.Polls by Israeli media show Mr. Netanyahu and his allies are projected to gain seats, though it is unclear whether they would have enough to form a 61-seat majority in the 120-member Knesset. If neither he nor anyone else succeeds in doing so, Israel could go to elections yet again.On Wednesday, Mr. Bennett said he would be taking a hiatus from politics and would not be running in the upcoming elections. His Yamina party was riven by infighting and splintered following the formation of the government last year as its members broke away in protest of what they considered Mr. Bennett’s excessive compromises to more liberal coalition allies.The death blow came earlier this month, when the government failed to renew an emergency law that preserves the special legal status of Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, legislation that most Israelis view as essential. Because the Knesset was dissolved before the end of the month, the emergency law was automatically renewed until after the formation of a new government.“They promised change, they spoke about healing, they tried an experiment, and the experiment failed,” Mr. Netanyahu said in an address to parliament ahead of the vote. “We are the only alternative: a strong, stable, responsible nationalist government.”The outgoing governing coalition made history by being the first to include an Arab party. The leader of the Islamist Ra’am faction, Mansour Abbas, joined the coalition to secure better services and more government funding for Israel’s Arab minority, which makes up some 20 percent of the population.Mr. Netanyahu and his allies accused coalition members of partnering with terrorist sympathizers. His allies have provided little evidence to back those claims, citing only Mr. Abbas’s Islamist roots, and Mr. Netanyahu himself also reportedly courted the party after the previous election last year.Israel’s Arab citizens face widespread discrimination and are seen by many Jewish Israelis as a fifth column because they have close family ties to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, and largely support their struggle for independence.

Newly Sworn In, Yair Lapid Set To Become Israel’s Next Prime Minister

Newly Sworn In, Yair Lapid Set To Become Israel’s Next Prime Minister

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