Senior coalition member says current situation similar to final days of previous government

A senior coalition member is quoted by Channel 12 news as saying the current situation is similar to the final days of the previous government in 2022 before it fell.

A day after the opposition managed for the first time to defeat a coalition bill in the Knesset plenum, the unnamed source says: “Things are non-functional and are very reminiscent of the final days of the previous Bennett-Lapid government.”

That power-sharing government, led by Naftali Bennett and then Yair Lapid, brought together ideologically diverse parties that had a razor-thin majority in the parliament to send Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc to the opposition. Immense pressure put on right-wing members of that coalition caused a few to withdraw their support and send the country to elections that propelled Netanyahu’s bloc to power with 64 seats in the 120-member Knesset.

Now, increasingly frequent and significant rifts are coming to the fore between coalition factions, especially with Itamar Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit party.