Israel’s Government Faces Crisis After Right-Wing Lawmaker Quits

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s government faces a crisis after a lawmaker quit the ruling coalition, leaving it without a majority in parliament less than a year since coming to power.

Idit Silman, the coalition’s de facto whip, in a letter to Mr. Bennett Wednesday said she was resigning from the coalition over disagreements about the country’s Jewish character. She recently clashed with Israel’s health minister over whether leavened grain products should be allowed in Israeli hospitals during the coming Passover religious holiday. In Jewish tradition, such products are removed from public spaces and not consumed during the holiday.

Her resignation leaves the government with 60 lawmakers backing it in the 120-member parliament, or Knesset. The coalition can continue to govern without a majority but it will struggle to pass laws, requiring support from opposition lawmakers.

With one more resignation, the government could collapse. That would give the opposition a potential majority in a vote to dissolve parliament and send the country to a fifth election in a little over three years.

Still, even if a second coalition member resigns, the opposition would struggle to form its own government without lawmakers from the Joint List, a union of largely Arab Israeli parties, to vote with it to dissolve parliament and set up new elections. Israeli political analysts are skeptical that could happen due to the Joint List’s animosity toward former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the opposition leader.

While Israel’s Knesset is in recess for the next five weeks the opposition would need the government’s support to hold a vote to dissolve parliament.

Chen Friedberg, a senior lecturer of political science at Ariel University, said it was unlikely that the government would dissolve before parliament is back in session.

Israel has held four elections since 2019 with voters largely divided over whether Mr. Netanyahu should rule while on trial for corruption.

Mr. Bennett’s government came to power in June last year after a mix of left-wing, centrist and right-wing parties, including for the first time an independent Arab party, united in their opposition to Mr. Netanyahu. The parties’ deep ideological differences have created an unwieldy alliance. Members have clashed over policies related to West Bank settlements, Palestinians and questions of religion and state.

“Unfortunately, I cannot lend a hand to harming the Jewish identity of the state of Israel,” Ms. Silman, who is a member of Mr. Bennett’s right-wing Yamina party, wrote in her resignation letter.

Mr. Bennett, in a statement Wednesday night, blamed months of incitement against Ms. Silman by Mr. Netanyahu and his allies for her defection. He said coalition leaders are committed to maintaining the current government.

 “The alternative,” Mr. Bennett said, “is more elections and then maybe more elections, and a return to the days of dangerous instability to the state of Israel.”

If another member of Mr. Bennett’s right-wing bloc defects and a vote is held to dissolve the parliament, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid would become the interim prime minister under a rotation deal reached when the government was founded.

Polls show Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party remains the most popular, especially among right-wing voters, but he lacks a clear majority to form a government of his own. Mr. Netanyahu could also form an alternative government without new elections. This too, would be challenging.

Without the Joint List, Mr. Netanyahu currently has 54 lawmakers in what he calls his right-wing nationalist camp. He would need to entice at least seven more. Lawmakers in Mr. Bennett’s right-wing and religious party, which numbered seven after elections and is now down to five, are politically aligned with Mr. Netanyahu, but formed an alternative coalition after Mr. Netanyahu failed to get 61 lawmakers to support him due largely to his corruption charges.

The political crisis comes after a burst of terrorist attacks in recent weeks that has left the government vulnerable to charges from the right-wing opposition that it is weak against terrorism.

The opposition could potentially prevail if Mr. Netanyahu agreed to yield the prime minister role. So far, he has vowed to continue leading his party.

For now, Israeli political analysts believe the current coalition could survive until March 2023, when it needs a majority to pass a budget. Failure to pass a budget would automatically trigger new elections.

 “The only guaranteed thing is we’re back in a crisis mode,” said Yohanan Plesner, the president of the Jerusalem-based think tank the Israel Democracy Institute.