Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

70-Day Coalition Made Mockery of Democracy

The 70-day-old Israeli coalition government that broke up on Tuesday was a prime example of political shoddiness at its worst.

Israel has seen its share of unity governments. Some lasted longer than others; some accomplished a great deal and some were missed opportunities. But there has never been anything like this.

In the dark of night 70 days ago, only minutes before the Knesset was going to schedule elections for September 4, the leaders of the two big parties shocked everyone with a “historic” coalition agreement for the ensuing 18 months.

The new government had four goals: pass a universal draft law, change the system of government, jump-start the peace process and pass an emergency budget. Tuesday, after 70 days of euphoria, the partnership dissolved without any one of those things being achieved.

Benjamin Netanyahu and Shaul Mofaz are emerging from this bad joke, which made a mockery of Israeli democracy, looking bad. Both are going back to square one in much worse positions than before. Netanyahu looks as though he has forged an eternal alliance with the ultra-Orthodox, while Mofaz, who wanted the public to judge him by his results, has a very poor report card to show his voters; it has four zeros on it. He had good intentions, but we all know what the road to hell is paved with.

For more, go to Haaretz.com

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.