Photo Courtesy of Reuters.
Israel has a new government after holding four elections in two years since 2019 with none of the parties obtaining the 61 seats majority needed to form government, Several coalition efforts by H,E Benjamin Netanyahu, Benny Gantz failing to bring together the needed majority to form government.
It is against this backdrop that Yair Lapid leader of Yesh Atid party together with 7 other parties have formed a coalition with Naftali Bennett as Prime Minister for the first two years on rotation to hand over to Yair Lapid in 2023 for another two years. Here are the 8 parties that formed the government:
- Yesh Atid – 17 seats (Led by Yair Lapid)
- Blue and White – 8 seats (Led by Benny Gantz)
- Yisrael Beytenu – 7 seats (Led by Avigdor Liberman)
- Labor Party – 7 seats (Led by Merav Michaeli)
- Yamina – 7 seats (Led by Naftali Benett)
- New hope – 6 seats (Led by Gideon Saar)
- Meretz – 6 seats (Led by Nitzan Horowitz)
- Ra’am – 3 seats (Joint Arab List)
This is historical since Naftali Bennett’s party holds only 7 seats in the Knesset and he unseats Benjamin Netanyahu who has been Prime Minister since 2009 to 2021uniterrupted and before that from 1996 to 1999.
Naftali Bennett was sworn in as Prime Minister of Israel on 13th June 2021.
Israeli law requires that a political party win in an election would command 61 seats in the Israeli Parliament known as the Knesset. Israeli parliament has 120 seats, 37 parties participated in the most recent election, the leading party Likud led by the Prime Minister H.E. Benjamin Netanyahu gathered 30 seats.
We pray that God will guide the new leaders into His will for this great nation that is at the center of God’s plan for the nations of the world.
B’Hatzlacha.
