The man who stood the best chance of replacing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Yamina party Chair Naftali Bennett, called Yesh Atid party Chair Yair Lapid and Islamist Ra’am party leader Mansour Abbas on May 13 to tell them he was abandoning their joint government initiative.
The premature death of what has been billed in recent weeks as a “government of change,” tentatively scheduled to be sworn in next week and send Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the Knesset opposition benches, is the direct outcome of violent clashes in mixed Jewish-Arab towns this week.
