Is there going to be an Israel 2019b?

Today, the Knesset of Israel took the first step towards passing a bill to dissolve itself and set an early election, probably in early September. This came after Yisrael Beitenu leader Avigdor Liberman said he would not join an emerging government coalition that he claimed would be a halakha government. He was referring to the demands in such a coalition of the two Haredi Knesset factions, Shas and United Torah Judaism. (Halakha is Jewish law.)

It is still possible that this is all an elaborate ploy by PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his various allies to pressure Liberman into backing down. However, Liberman himself has said he welcomes new elections, and the preliminary reading of the elections bill passed with 65 votes, or exactly the number that the putative right/Haredi coalition would have if Yisrael Beitenu’s five seats are included.

In the 2019(a?) election in April, Netanyahu’s Likud won 35 seats, and the two Haredi lists 8 each. Add to those the seats of “soft right” Kulanu (4) and ultranationalist Union of Right Parties (5) and you get 60, exactly half the Knesset. These 60 seats could be sufficient to form and maintain a government, as long as Liberman and his YB do not vote against its investiture. Would they really vote with the left and Arab parties to stop its formation? It seems unlikely. Given the constructive vote of no confidence now in place in Israeli Basic Law, it would take at 61 seats to elect an alternative government in order to oust an already in-place minority government. It is even harder to imagine YB voting for any actual alternative at some future point in the life of the government. Nonetheless, Netanyahu clearly wants a majority coalition, even though pleasing all those small and essential partners would not make such a government notably more stable than a minority one.

It is also possible to imagine a flexible coalition deal in which YB is allowed to vote against the version of the Haredi conscription bill that Liberman objects to. However, the Knesset is under a Supreme Court deadline (oft-extended) to pass something to replace the current law, and it is not clear if any majority can be found for one. Yet the Haredi parties insist that the law be “fixed” to protect their constituencies from being drafted, because the reversion point is a law they dislike even more (i.e., there would suddenly be a requirement for many more enlistments from the ultra-orthodox constituencies, which is something that even the army is not exactly clamoring for).

So, unless a compromise can be struck by Wednesday, it seems the train is in motion for Israel to have two general elections in the same year for the first time in its history.

And I guess that means I’d be asked by the editors to update my chapter on the electoral system for the almost in-press Oxford Handbook of Israeli Politics and Society yet again.