Leftist lawmaker's resignation offers Israel's Bennett staying power
Now that Meretz Knesset member Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi has quit the coalition, the interim balance of power has shifted to the right.
Israeli fighter pilots have a saying that means the greatest threat you face is the one you cannot see. It's particularly apt in the latest crisis rattling Israeli politics.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and his alternate, and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, have been feverishly fighting to stem further defections from the right-wing flank of their rickety government coalition and preventing the Islamist Ra’am party from bolting as well. They were preoccupied by tightening control over Bennett’s shrunken Yamina and pursuing deals for support from outside the coalition with the opposition Joint List and perhaps ultra-Orthodox opposition lawmakers. But the latest blow landed from a completely different direction.
