Netanyahu’s government teeters

Coalition partners press for new elections

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Transcribed from the clipping

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has so far survived corruption investigations and the threat of bribery charges without much damage to his standing. But his government teetered on the edge of collapse Friday as Netanyahu’s coalition partners pressed for new elections over his handling of Gaza.

The call for new elections intensified after Netanyahu rebuffed on Friday a request by the hawkish leader of the Jewish Home party, Naftali Bennett, for the defense minister’s post, which opened this week with the resignation of the hard-liner Avigdor Lieberman. Bennett’s party had threatened to leave if he was not given the job.

Netanyahu has been working feverishly to shore up his governing coalition in the days since Lieberman quit his post over the government’s acceptance of what he viewed as a humiliating cease-fire to end a fierce bout of fighting in Gaza. Lieberman pulled his party out of the government, leaving Netanyahu’s coalition with a precarious parliamentary majority of one.

Netanyahu is also having to grapple with popular fury. Protesters from Sderot, a southern stronghold of his conservative Likud party, and other border communities plagued by rocket fire from Gaza, have been burning tires and blocking main roads, seething over a truce they said resolved nothing and left them as vulnerable as before.

Netanyahu was still holding out Friday, trying to persuade his remaining coalition partners not to repeat what he called “the historic mistake of ’92,” when right-wing parties toppled a right-wing government and brought the left back to power.

But with such a slim majority, most of his partners seemed ready to call it quits, and discussions for an election date were expected to start Sunday.

How this transcription was made

Date and publication rest on the collector's slide label; no masthead, folio or printed dateline appears on this clipping. Adjudicated confirmed against the printed page: No masthead or folio on the clipping. The date is fixed close to the day by the story: Avigdor Lieberman's resignation "opened this week" (he resigned Wednesday 14 November 2018), the government "teet. Filed under the archive’s spelling; the page prints “Santa Fe New Mexican”.

Context added by this archive

The Gaza fighting that brought down the government is counted entirely in Israeli terms: 460 rockets into southern Israel, 160 Israeli airstrikes, Sderot residents burning tires. No Palestinian casualty figure, no Gazan voice, no Palestinian analyst. The piece names and quotes five Israelis.

Hendel is the one Maria tagged, and this is his fullest appearance in the batch — but he is talking about Netanyahu’s electoral standing, not about Palestinians.

Closing paragraph as printed: ‘Many Israelis see three main options for dealing with Gaza: A long-term truce with Hamas amid a major international effort to rehabilitate the territory; another all-out war to subdue Hamas and crush its military capabilities once and for all; or dealing Hamas a heavy military blow that would go some way to achieving the second option and perhaps lead to more fruitful talks for reaching the first.’

Cite this clipping

"Netanyahu’s government teeters," The Santa Fe New Mexican, 17 November 2018. Covering Palestine archive, CP-2018-045. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-2018-045