Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Sunday that he had accepted a proposal to extend budget negotiations, preventing the government from collapsing and plunging the country into a new election.
In a nationally televised address, Netanyahu said that now was not the time to drag the country into a fourth parliamentary elections in less than two years.Netanyahu and his rival and coalition partner, Benny Gantz, had faced a Monday night deadline to agree on a budget. Otherwise, the government would have collapsed and automatically triggered a new vote.
His announcement came after Israeli lawmakers spent much of the day unsuccessfully trying to agree on a compromise. After three deadlocked elections, Netanyahu and Gantz reached a power-sharing agreement in April to form a government to address the virus crisis. As part of their coalition deal, Netanyahu's Likud party and Gantz's Blue and White agreed to pass a two-year budget.
But pushing back the deadline would only kick the budget crisis down the road. The two parties are at loggerheads over several key issues -- including judicial appointments and the annexation of West Bank settlements -- and the government has been beset by infighting. Gantz also complained that Netanyahu left him and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi in the dark about the deal announced earlier this month to normalize relations with the United Arab Emirates.
At the same time, Israel has recorded more than 100,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and more than 800 deaths. Unemployment remains over 20% despite the government's reopening of the economy in May, following a more than month-long lockdown.
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