The Government of Israel loses its majority after the escape of a conservative deputy

Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Wednesday at a rally against the Government in Jerusalem.ABIR SULTAN (EFE)

After 10 months of relative calm at the end of two years of crisis with four legislative elections, Israel returns to the proverbial political instability intrinsic to its fragmented Parliament.

The escape of an ultra-conservative deputy has left the government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett without the scraped majority of 61 in a 120-seat Knesset (Legislative Chamber) on Wednesday.

The departure of Orthodox Jew Idit Silman hits Bennett twice, who learned of the defection from the press.

This parliamentarian belonged to the same party as the prime minister —Yamina, with an ultra-nationalist orientation—, and she acted as coordinator of the complex votes in the heterogeneous coalition of eight parties.

The alliance formed by three right-wing forces, two centrists, two from the left and, for the first time Israel, an Islamist Arab formation, removed the conservative Benjamin Netanyahu in June last year, after having remained in office for 12 years.

His situation is even more precarious in the Knesset after the departure of Deputy Silman, who claimed in a statement "to act in defense of Israel's Jewish identity."

But the coalition of the so-called Government of change is not in danger of being overthrown in the short term in a Parliament in tables.

In the first place, Netanyahu will need to add at least one more deputy in the opposition ranks to be able to present a motion of no confidence with the support of 61 seats.

But above all, he would have to convince the six Arab nationalist parliamentarians from the Joint List alliance to offer him their unlikely support.

For now, the political tension seems to be contained until the start of the next session in the Knesset, in mid-May, after the celebration of chained religious festivities —Ramadan, Jewish Passover and Holy Week— which this year exceptionally coincide in April.

Netanyahu languished in opposition as a Jerusalem court tried him for bribery, fraud and abuse of power in three separate cases.

Protected by the discomfort of the most conservative Jewish sectors due to the wave of attacks with firearms that claimed the lives of 11 people in three Israeli cities at the end of March, the former prime minister has pressured several right-wing deputies to break the discipline of a government coalition with the presence of Islamists.

The three attacks were carried out by three Israeli Arabs and one Palestinian.

Silman's escape was the first piece of Netanyahu's strategy.

To celebrate, he led a massive rally in Jerusalem on Wednesday night in which he demanded the resignation of the Executive.

“Israel is bleeding to death.

This weak government in the face of terrorism has to leave because it is causing damage to the Jewish identity of Israel”, thundered the former prime minister from the speakers' gallery, in which he was followed by ultra-Orthodox and far-right leaders with whom he shares the great opposition parliamentary bloc.

“I have tried to work for unity, but I cannot go against the Jewish identity of Israel.

I am leaving the coalition and I am going to try to persuade other colleagues (deputies) to return to the common home of the right to form a conservative government.

I know I am not the only person who thinks this way, ”Sliman added in his farewell statement, of which he did not warn Bennett, his political leader.

The orthodox nun Silman has resorted to the pretext of unleavened bread, the only one allowed by Jewish law during the long Easter week, to justify her escape to Netanyahu's nationalist and conservative camp.

As chairwoman of the Knesset Health Committee, she had asked the health minister, the leftist Nitzan Horowitz, to maintain a ban on the consumption of leavened bread in hospitals.

The Supreme Court ruled last year that the religious freedom of secular Jews, Christians and Muslims living in Israel must also be respected in their eating habits and lifted the traditional hospital veto.

The minister came to reply that he should abide by judicial decisions rather than the dictates of the rabbis.

For Orthodox Jews, the presence of leavened bread during Passover is seen as sacrilege.

That is why they strive to thoroughly clean their houses to remove every last crumb before the festival that commemorates the flight of the chosen people from Egypt begins next week.

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