If Benjamin Netanyahu fails to form a governing coalition by October 24, President Reuven Rivlin will have to choose between granting him a two-week extension or, more likely, giving Benny Gantz of the centrist Blue and White party a chance to form a coalition. As of last week, coalition negotiations had stalled, but in the past few days several parties began making conciliatory gestures. Vivian Bercovici explains why:

[T]he deliverance from the present national stasis may have come in the form of White House chaos. Donald Trump’s recent decision to withdraw American troops from northern Syria has plunged the region into a new round of volatility and chaos. . . . Trump’s erratic conduct seems to have jolted Israeli leadership into a more wakeful state of mind, and catalyzed discussions around the possibility of a unity coalition being formed imminently.

The jarringly abrupt withdrawal of U.S. troops from northern Syria and the ensuing mayhem present a critical security challenge to Israel. Suddenly, . . . we heard grudging rumblings: that Blue and White will sit with Likud under Netanyahu’s leadership and “hold its nose”; that the ultra-Orthodox parties are even grumbling along the same lines and may sit with Blue and White and Avigdor Liberman’s [right wing, but staunchly secularist] Yisrael Beytenu.

There are now reports of further discussion to cobble together a quick governing coalition in order that the country may function, primarily because of the increasingly volatile and deteriorating regional security situation. The “compromise” being discussed is that there will be no legislation considered on matters of religion and state, in effect putting on ice, for the meantime, the root of the ongoing political impasse. However, . . . Benny Gantz dismissed the buzz as meaningless chatter.

Events in Syria and the region nonetheless may [still] stave off the surreal possibility of a third election in one year. The state needs a functioning government, and that imperative is more fundamental and important than any leader or party.

To Mathias Döpfner, a German and the publisher of the online magazine Politico, the war between Israel and Iran

is a central front in a global contest in which the forces of tyranny and violence in recent years have been gaining ground against the forces of freedom, which too often are demoralized and divided. In a world full of bad actors, Iran is the most aggressive and dangerous totalitarian force of our time.

But Israel is only the first target. Once Israel falls, Europe and America will be the focus. . . . It is therefore surprising that Israel is not being celebrated worldwide for its historic, extremely precise, and necessary strike against Iranian nuclear-weapons facilities and for the targeted killing of leading terrorists, but that the public response is dominated by anti-Israel propaganda. The intelligence and precision of Israel’s actions are not admired but are instead used here and there to perpetuate blatantly anti-Semitic stereotypes.

If Israel does not achieve its goals—destruction of the nuclear facilities, maximum weakening of the terrorist regime, and, ideally, the removal of the mullahs—the world will quickly look very different. China will seize this historic opportunity to annex Taiwan sooner than expected. Largely without resistance. . . . That is why America and Europe, in their own interests alone, must stand united with Israel and do everything in their power to ensure that this historic liberation is achieved.