Minister-without-portfolio MK Benny Gantz on Saturday night set June 8 as a deadline for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to launch a comprehensive plan for the ‘day after’ Hamas in Gaza, a plan that includes freeing the Israeli hostages, installing a civil governing body comprised of both international and Palestinian actors, and enabling evacuees from Israel’s north to return home by September 1.
Gantz threatened that if this didn’t happen, his National Unity Party would leave the government and return to the opposition, and Gantz would act to topple the government.
Several National Unity Knesset members said in radio interviews on Sunday that they may leave the government earlier than June 8 if they see that Netanyahu is not moving in their direction. Channel 12 reporter Amit Segal quoted “senior members” in National Unity, presumably including Gantz, making similar comments.
Gantz’s exit will not necessarily lead to an election. The governing coalition without him will still number 64 MKs, a majority in the 120-member parliament. However, the party’s departure is expected to lead to an exponential increase in the pressure on the government to head to an election.
Three political avenues could lead to an election:
The first is that Netanyahu himself will react to the pressure by initiating a new election. There will likely be an agreed-upon date for an election, either close to the end of 2024 or during the first few months of 2025.
A second option is that Gantz brings forward a bill to dissolve the Knesset. This would require that at least five members of the coalition support the move.
A third option is that Gantz attempt to form an alternative government without heading to an election, in a process known as “constructive no confidence.”
Gantz will need to form a new government on paper and then have it pass with the support of at least 61 MKs. In this scenario, Gantz would likely try to bring together a new coalition of the Zionist parties, leaving out the Arab parties Ra’am (five MKs) and Hadash-Ta’al (five MKs), the haredi party United Torah Judaism (seven MKs), and the far-right parties Otzma Yehudit (six), Religious Zionist Party (seven), and Noam party (one). Shas, with its 11 MKs, would be a question mark, as it has expressed more moderate and acceptable views than UTJ on issues such as the haredi IDF draft. Even without Shas, such a coalition could number well over 70 MKs if a substantial number of Likud MKs join. Gantz may tempt them by agreeing to have someone else lead such a government, possibly Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
The Knesset summer session recesses on July 28 for nearly three months. Gantz’s June 8 deadline gives him enough time to try to force an election before the recess.
However, Netanyahu has not indicated that he would be willing to move up an election. Facing the fact that an election could be the end of his political career, he is likely to try to keep his coalition together until the end of the summer session. This would leave Netanyahu in power at least until the Knesset returns from recess at the end of October, not to mention the requisite three months more until the election is held.
What may tip the scales in the end is the force of public pressure to go to an election. Sustained high public pressure could lead enough coalition MKs to support a new election and vote in favor of dispersing the Knesset.