While the incumbent Israeli prime minister, whose Likud party won a plurality of votes in the recent election, has two weeks to form a governing coalition, it seems that he cannot do so unless he is able to coax individual parliamentarians away from their parties. Meanwhile the Likud lost a Knesset vote on Monday for control of the “arrangements committee.” Haviv Rettig Gur explains:

The panel is a short-lived entity established by each new Knesset to manage the parliament’s agenda and conduct much of its business between the new Knesset’s swearing-in and the official formation of a ruling coalition a few weeks later.

The committee is immensely powerful for the duration of its brief lifespan. It is responsible for establishing the new Knesset’s committees, appointing their chairs and members for the interim period, and coordinating the legislative agenda between the parliamentary factions and with the as-yet interim government.

With control of the arrangements committee, Netanyahu might have had a chance at calling for a direct election of the prime minister, which could in theory end the political deadlock. But it was not to be, and the reason why is significant:

[Netanyahu’s challenger from the right, Naftali] Bennett, voted with Likud on the arrangements-committee question, after Likud promised to give him one of its own seats on the panel. . . . But Netanyahu neglected the Islamist party Ra’am, apparently feeling that its leader Mansour Abbas was in his pocket. And Abbas did not like being ignored. The opposition leader, Yair Lapid, made Abbas a better offer, and Ra’am’s vote with the center-left proved decisive, handing the right its first clear defeat in the new Knesset.

On Monday, even as Netanyahu discovered just how troubled his political prospects had become, Yair Lapid and his allies in the so-called “change camp” continued their efforts to block him at every turn, with the [Lapid] meeting the leaders of various factions, including publicly announced and photographed talks with the once-taboo Arab MKs in the Joint Arab List and Ra’am.

Of course, even with support from the Arab parties, there is no guarantee that Lapid will have the necessary seats for a coalition either.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”