Israel counts last votes as Netanyahu’s majority firms up
By Gil Ronen
1 November 2012
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday declared that he has a majority of votes in Israel’s parliament. Yet in the past two hours of parliamentary debate, with most of the ministers calling for “a government of national unity” including Netanyahu, Netanyahu had failed to make a breakthrough on a motion to dissolve the Knesset, which by Israeli law must approve the proposal.
In fact, the Knesset is now likely to pass the unprecedented move for the first time in Israel’s 25-year-old history, with Netanyahu’s forces securing a majority after weeks of parliamentary paralysis.
Netanyahu has now succeeded in winning a majority of the vote among his own party’s parliamentary faction. His Likud Party garnered 40 of the 120 votes, or 32.5 percent. His coalition partners, the Zionist Union, has 37.6 percent of the vote. The Knesset is now likely to pass the unprecedented move for the first time in Israel’s 25-year-old history.
The Knesset votes are of great significance, in that they will be a prelude to Netanyahu’s third term as prime minister, when he will be seeking a third term.
That’s because Netanyahu received just a 40-percent vote in the final results of the March 30 election. However, he won a fifth of the members of parliament, or 63 seats, which is enough to form a majority in the Knesset. Thus, if the Knesset votes as expected, there will be a third term for Netanyahu in the Israeli parliament.
However, if the Knesset votes against the government proposal to end the parliamentary paralysis, it would create a constitutional crisis in Israel, since, by law, the current Knesset has to approve the move before making the decision for dissolution of the parliament.
According to various reports, there is a consensus within Netanyahu’s coalition to try to reach a deal on the Israeli government proposal to dissolve parliament, in
