Coalition teetering as Silman resigns

It seems the only thing happening today is Idit Silman announcing her resignation from the coalition, throwing the entire political situation into a tizzy. Will it lead to a new government in the current coalition? Will it lead to new elections? Will it calm down and will she reverse her decision? Will the Opposition find another defector? Will Yair Lapid be the Prime Minister over a caretaker government or will Bennett remain PM until elections (these two options depend on how the government falls, if it will) or neither? 

So many questions and so many possible scenarios.

Whatever happens remains to be seen, all we can do is wait. I am not in the business of predictions or prophecy. In the meantime, we can just comment on what happened. 

The government overall functioned ok but it definitely had a dysfunctional aspect to it. They both had difficulty passing the main laws and reforms it had set as goals for itself and sold to the public, while at the same time the individual parties within the coalition were proposing laws that were upsetting other parts of the coalition. Instead of recognizing that the coalition is fragile and care must be taken to not disillusion other members too much, they each tried to take as advantage of the situation as possible, perhaps recognizing that this might be their only chance and the chance and opportunity might be short lived. Sometimes parties played along and supported even though they were upset and sometimes they did not, only to cause the other parties to be upset. Governments and coalitions cannot function like this, especially with just a razor thin majority. They were not wise enough or bold enough to work for the people, but were each seen as working for themselves and at most their own narrow sectors, taking and handing out  too many jobs, creating too many ministerial positions and deputy and other jobs...

It is hard to believe that of all the issues that have played out over the past year or so, it is the Supreme Court decision on bread that Nitzan Horowitz instructed hospitals to adhere to that forced Silman's hand. Any other government will have to deal with the same Supreme Court decision, and she did not bear responsibility for it, so I am not sure what was really the impetus for this resignation. Was it the job Netanyahu promised her? Was it just the straw that broke the camels back? Was it the pressure form the Opposition? Was it a bad relationship with Bennett or other members of Yamina?  Silman herself seemed unstable for the past year (I am not familiar with her style enough to know if it went longer than that) and seemed to waffle back and forth on different issues regularly, and came under attack regularly from the Opposition seeing her as a weak link and a good target. her claim of having been attacked drew particularly harsh attention from the Opposition and they made her into a laughing stock over that. I dont know, and I dont know if we will ever really know, what and why this is all about.

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