Israeli parliament votes to dissolve, new elections will be held

• The bill needs two more Knesset votes to become law.
• If passed, parliament would dissolve and new elections would be held on October 25 or November 1.
• Outgoing Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s coalition is no longer tenable.

JERUSALEM: The Israeli parliament unanimously passed a draught bill to dissolve parliament early Tuesday, a critical legislative move that brings the country closer to its sixth election in less than four years.

Since last week, the coalition of outgoing Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and the opposition led by outgoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been fighting in the Knesset over a measure to dissolve the government.

Bennett’s year-old, ideologically divided eight-party collaboration is no longer tenable, so the coalition wants the measure passed quickly.

Netanyahu and his allies are trying to make a government led by Netanyahu out of the current parliament so that there won’t have to be new elections.

The sides traded legislative insults but agreed late Monday to advance a bill that will become law by Wednesday.

Netanyahu couldn’t get a new cabinet together because the opposition was getting ready to end parliament.

The Knesset committee passed the bill early Tuesday. The first reading passed, 53-0 in the plenum.

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As per the measure, parliament would dissolve and new elections would be held on October 25 or November 1.

The bill needs two more Knesset votes.

After midnight, Bennett will pass control to Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, as agreed after last year’s inconclusive elections.

Religious nationalists, secular hawks, centrists, doves, and Arab Islamists threatened the Bennett coalition from the start.

The last straw, according to the premier, was not extending a law that made sure Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank lived under Israeli law.

Bennett, a former settler lobbyist, said the measure’s June 30 expiration would have caused “constitutional chaos.”

Dissolving parliament before the deadline means West Bank law remains in effect until a new government takes office.

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