In a dramatic move, coalition whip Idit Silman announced Wednesday that she is quitting the coalition and will instead work to form a new government.
Silman’s announcement, which she said was due to the “harming” of Jewish identity in Israel, means that the coalition no longer has a majority.
“I will not abet the harming of the Jewish identity of the State of Israel and the people of Israel. I will continue to try to persuade my friends to return home and form a right-wing government,” she said in a statement. “I know I am not the only one who feels this way. Another government can be formed in this Knesset.”
According to reports, Silman did not tell Prime Minister Naftali Bennett — head of the Yamina party of which she is a member — of the move in advance, leaving the premier to learn through media reports that he had lost his government majority.
Silman’s departure raises the possibility of new parliamentary elections less than a year after the government took office. While Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s government remains in power, it is now hamstrung in the 120-seat parliament and will likely struggle to function.
Silman, from Bennett’s religious-nationalist Yamina party, had opposed the distribution of leavened bread and foodstuffs in public hospitals — in breach of religious tradition during the Passover holiday, public broadcaster Kan reported.
Bennett’s coalition of eight political parties ranging from Islamists to hard-line nationalists and dovish liberals — all united solely in their opposition to former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu — now holds 60 seats in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
The Knesset is currently in recess, and it remains unclear if the opposition will now have enough support to hold a no-confidence vote and send Israelis to the polls for the fifth time in just over three years.
Silman’s announcement comes amid growing tensions within the coalition, which united parties last year from the left to the pro-settlement right, along with the Islamist Ra’am, in order to dethrone Netanyahu and his Likud faction after a series of inconclusive elections that paralyzed the Knesset for two years.
As the legislative branch of the Israeli government, the Knesset passes all laws, elects the president, approves the cabinet, and supervises the work of the government through its committees. It also has the power to waive the immunity of its members, remove the President and the State Comptroller from office, and to dissolve itself and call new elections.
The Knesset has de jure parliamentary supremacy, and can pass any law by a simple majority, even one that might arguably conflict with the Basic Laws of Israel, unless the basic law includes specific conditions for its modification; in accordance with a plan adopted in 1950, the Basic Laws can be adopted and amended by the Knesset, acting in its capacity as a Constituent Assembly.
