Israel’s fourth national election in under two years appears to have ended in a deja vu scenario; that is, in a stalemate, with no party leader having a clear path to cobbling together a ruling coalition. While preliminary results show Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud garnering 30 mandates — vastly outperforming the next closest party, Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, which is projected to win 12 seats — his right-wing/ultra-Orthodox bloc seemingly fell short of the 61-seat majority required to form a government in the 120-member parliament.
Though not all votes have yet been counted, including some 450,000 ballots that for various reasons were not cast at regular polling stations, analysts do not believe that the pendulum will swing far enough in any direction to change the outcome, and that the Center-Left bloc will also lack the support to form a coalition.
Official results are not expected before Friday at the earliest and could take longer to determine due to coronavirus-related holdups along with upcoming Passover holiday.
Nevertheless, the wild card could be the Islamist Ra’am party, which surprised many by crossing the electoral threshold. Both Netanyahu and Lapid will likely court Ra’am head Mansour Abbas, who has expressed a willingness to explore all options.
Abbas’ mandates could, theoretically, put either bloc over the top, although parties on both sides of the political divide might torpedo this eventuality due to ideological differences with Ra’am.
Accordingly, a fifth election may be on the horizon; this, despite the fact that Israelis appear to be suffering from voter fatigue. Turnout on Tuesday was just under 67 percent, the lowest figure since the 2009 election.
The Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday night struck targets belonging to terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip after a rocket fired from the coastal enclave landed in an open area near Beersheba.
#شاهد | لحظة استهداف طائرات الاحتلال الحربية لهدف داخل قطاع #غزة ، قبل قليل . pic.twitter.com/b2y1TLD1Fy
— المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام (@PalinfoAr) March 24, 2021
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was reportedly at a campaign event in the southern Israeli city when the rocket was launched. He was immediately removed from the event by security guards.
The IDF strikes targeted a site for manufacturing rockets and a military position. “The Hamas terrorist organization bears responsibility for what happens inside and outside of the Gaza Strip, and will bear the consequences of terrorist acts against Israeli citizens,” the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said in a statement.
The escalation comes after explosive kites and balloons were found earlier this week near Israel’s border with Gaza; this, following a months-long lull in the launching of such devices into Israeli territory.
For the first time since September 2018, the Middle East Quartet – comprised of representatives from the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations – convened to discuss renewing “meaningful negotiations” between Israel and the Palestinians.
Following the meeting, the body called on both parties to refrain from “unilateral actions that make a two-state solution more difficult to achieve.”
The session came after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed hope that the Quartet could potentially jump-start peace talks now that there was a new president in the White House.
The Biden Administration previously said that it supports a two-state solution to the conflict and would reverse several decisions made by former president Donald Trump.
In related news, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in an interview on Wednesday that “we will invite Palestinian and Israeli public figures to have talks in China.”
In an attempt to circumvent potential Israeli sanctions on Palestinian commercial banks, the Palestinian Authority has decided to use its postal bank to distribute “pay-for-slay” funds to convicted terrorists, according to Qadri Abu Bakr, the PLO’s Director for Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs.
Under a new Israeli law, Palestinian banks incur liability if they maintain accounts that make payments to terrorists. Such accounts were closed to avoid possible penalties, but not before the PA paid terrorists three months’ worth of “salaries.”
However, the postal bank is not a banking institution and is therefore not subject to the law. Moreover, it plans to install ATMs and issue cards to distribute the payments.
Many view the PA’s “pay-for-slay” policy as a means of incentivizing violence against Jews and Israelis, with more money being doled out to terrorists who shed the most blood. In 2020, Ramallah paid more than NIS 512 million ($157 million) to terrorists.
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