Politics

Israel’s Lost Year

After two nationwide elections, no one has been able to form a government, straining relations with friends and inflaming tensions with rivals.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Photographer: Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images

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By Ivan Levingston

December 5, 2019 at 5:01 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

This article is part of the December 9, 2019 issue of businessweek.

On Nov. 14, 2018, Israel’s then-Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman withdrew his small hawkish party from the parliamentary coalition led by embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, plunging the government into chaos. More than a year later, that confusion has yet to abate.

After two successive national elections, neither Netanyahu nor his principal rival, former military chief Benny Gantz, has been able to form a government; the latest attempt, by Gantz’s centrist Blue and White bloc, ended in failure on Nov. 20.