This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/world/middleeast/israel-netanyahu-gantz-government.html

The article has changed 27 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
Benny Gantz Agrees to Become Speaker of Israeli Parliament Benny Gantz, Breaking Vows, Says He Would Serve Under Netanyahu
(about 3 hours later)
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates. JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was set to hold onto power after his chief rival, Benny Gantz, reversed himself Thursday and signaled that he would be open to serving in a Netanyahu-led government.
JERUSALEM — Benny Gantz, the former Israeli army chief who spent the last year challenging the long rule of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and fought him to a draw in three elections, was poised Thursday to take over instead as the new speaker of Parliament. Mr. Gantz, a former Israeli army chief who had vowed to bring Mr. Netanyahu’s long rule to an end and fought him to a draw in three elections, said he was changing course to help bring the country together to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
The move signaled his agreement to a demand by Mr. Netanyahu and paved the way for Mr. Gantz to sit in a Netanyahu-led emergency unity government, contrary to his campaign promises. “These are unusual times and they call for unusual decisions,” Mr. Gantz said in a speech to Parliament early Thursday evening.
“This is not the time for infighting and mudslinging,” he said. “This is not the time for controversy and divisions. This is the time for responsible, committed, patriotic leadership. Let’s join hands and get Israel out of this crisis.”
The move was a 180-degree reversal and broke countless campaign promises by Mr. Gantz. Mr. Netanyahu has been indicted on criminal corruption charges and Mr. Gantz had vowed not to serve in a government led by a prime minister under indictment.
Mr. Gantz said that he would “explore the formation of a national emergency government” because of the coronavirus, which has claimed eight lives in Israel, infected thousands and devastated the country’s economy.
Mr. Gantz’s move immediately led to the breakup of his centrist Blue and White party.Mr. Gantz’s move immediately led to the breakup of his centrist Blue and White party.
He may also have doomed his own political future as a credible alternative to Mr. Netanyahu, some analysts said, but the shape of the new government was not immediately clear on Thursday afternoon. He may also have doomed his own political future as a credible alternative to Mr. Netanyahu, some analysts said. Others said a unity government would offer Mr. Gantz his best chance at taking over as prime minister at some point in the future.
Mr. Netanyahu has been urging Mr. Gantz to join forces with him to fight the coronavirus crisis after the most recent election, on March 2, left neither of them in a position to form a majority government. The shape of a new government and of Mr. Gantz’s role in it were not immediately clear on Thursday afternoon. As an interim move, Mr. Gantz nominated himself up for the position of Parliament speaker, acquiescing to a key demand by Mr. Netanyahu, and was voted into that position on Thursday evening.
Mr. Netanyahu had been urging Mr. Gantz to join forces with him to fight the coronavirus crisis after the most recent election, on March 2, left neither of them in a position to form a majority government.
Thursday’s dizzying turn of events was the latest twist in a political and constitutional crisis that has played out in the shadow of the epidemic.
With Israel divided between center-left voters desperate for Mr. Netanyahu to leave the stage and those on the right who cannot imagine another leader, the country has been deadlocked, unable to enact budgets or make pressing decisions until it can resolve the question of its leadership.
Mr. Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving prime minister, has refused to step aside while he defends himself against bribery, fraud and other corruption charges, becoming the first sitting Israeli leader to be indicted and face a criminal trial.
Mr. Gantz and the left-wing, right-wing and Arab parties who rallied behind him won a slim majority of 61 seats in the 120-seat Parliament in the March election. With little in common but their enmity for Mr. Netanyahu, they were too diverse to sit together in a government.
But they had been planning to cooperate to push through legislation to stop Mr. Netanyahu from securing a fifth term, whether by enacting term limits or by barring an indicted lawmaker from forming a government.
In the end, however, Mr. Netanyahu’s almost nightly appeals to Mr. Gantz to join him — during televised addresses about the country’s response to the virus — appeared to wear down Mr. Gantz’s resolve.
Mr. Netanyahu has proposed a three-year government in which he would stay on as prime minister for the next 18 months and Mr. Gantz would take over for the next 18. Alternatively, Mr. Netanyahu has floated the idea of a temporary emergency government for the next six months under his leadership, to be followed either by a new deal for a unity government or a fourth election.
Mr. Gantz did not say on Thursday whether he supported either of these proposals.
Thursday’s endgame was particularly head-spinning, even for the hurly-burly of Israeli politics.
Mr. Gantz went from petitioning the Supreme Court on Wednesday to censure the previous speaker, Yuli Edelstein — a Netanyahu ally who resigned rather than allow the election of a new speaker — to accepting Mr. Edelstein’s support in the Thursday vote that elected Mr. Gantz as speaker.
Mr. Netanyahu’s conservative Likud party had issued an ultimatum that if Blue and White nominated its original candidate for speaker, Meir Cohen, that would spell the end of unity talks. Mr. Cohen had been expected to advance legislation blocking Mr. Netanyahu from serving another term.
Mr. Gantz’s acquiescence to that demand — by nominating himself instead — prompted howls of denunciation in Parliament from his partners in the center and left. They said that Mr. Gantz had dashed the hopes of his voters to end Mr. Netanyahu’s career and betrayed his own countless campaign promises never to serve under an indicted prime minister, all over an empty threat.
Ahmed Tibi, a lawmaker from the predominantly Arab Joint List, declared that Mr. Gantz was suffering the “virus of surrender.”
Nitzan Horowitz, leader of the left-wing Meretz party, said that Mr. Gantz “built himself on one promise only: an alternative leadership.” He added, “Entering Netanyahu’s government is to spit in the face and betray the voters of Blue and White and the entire center-left bloc.”
Many Israelis, however, thought Mr. Gantz took the high road in light of the public-health emergency.
“Gantz’s decision is difficult and fraught with dangers,” Shelly Yacimovich, a former Labor party leader, wrote on Twitter, “but it is surprising for its boldness and the only one that creates any chance of a unity government. Not that a unity government is a pleasing scenario. On the contrary. But unfortunately, it is the only possible scenario.”
Though the details of any unity government deal, or even if one had been reached, remained unclear, Mr. Netanyahu’s defense minister, Naftali Bennett, did not wait to congratulate Mr. Gantz “on the courageous step of entering a unity government headed by Netanyahu.”
“This is the right thing for Israel at this time of emergency,” Mr. Bennett wrote on Twitter.
Mr. Gantz was expected to serve as speaker for a short time, possibly only for a few days, before taking on a senior ministerial role in such a government.
Two of Blue and White’s top leaders, Yair Lapid and Moshe Yaalon, said shortly before the vote for parliament speaker started on Thursday that they were breaking off from Mr. Gantz’s party.
They said they were taking the name Blue and White with them, since their factions constituted the majority of the alliance.
Mr. Gantz was expected to bring leaders of the much-diminished, left-leaning Labor party with him into a Netanyahu government. But the right-wing Mr. Yaalon and Avigdor Liberman, of the ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, appeared to be left among the opposition.