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Israel’s Knesset Votes to Formally Dissolve

General election scheduled for March 17, 2015

by
Stephanie Butnick
December 08, 2014
Knesset members pictured during the vote to dissolve the Knesset on December 3, 2014 in Jerusalem. (THOMAS COEX/AFP/Getty Images)
Knesset members pictured during the vote to dissolve the Knesset on December 3, 2014 in Jerusalem. (THOMAS COEX/AFP/Getty Images)

Israel’s Knesset voted 93-0 to dissolve itself, officially ending the current government. The vote comes one week after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Finance Minister Yair Lapid, leader of the Yesh Atid party, and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, and was all but expected as Netanyahu’s coalition splintered beyond repair.

As Lahav Harkov explained last week, “This coalition was probably doomed from the start.” But it wasn’t the economy, or even the controversial proposed “Jewish State” bill, that drove Netanyahu’s coalition apart. It was that the coalition members just couldn’t get along.

General elections have been scheduled for March 17, 2015.

Stephanie Butnick is chief strategy officer of Tablet Magazine, co-founder of Tablet Studios, and a host of the Unorthodox podcast.