Last week, one of the Bennett-Lapid government’s key bills failed to pass by a single vote—because the speaker of the Knesset accidentally voted the wrong way. Previously, an even more important piece of legislation, necessary to maintain the coalition, couldn’t be advanced due to the absence of a quorum. These were just two of several setbacks in the past week, and speak to the fragility of a fissiparous coalition with a thin majority in the Knesset. But that’s not the only reason for these woes, explains Haviv Rettig Gur:

In recent years, Jerusalem has developed good relations with a group of Central European countries that have proved far more sympathetic than those of the West, and whose governments have sometimes stopped the European Union from issuing anti-Israel statements. But Europe, both East and West, is now in a state of political flux, and this approach may soon be obsolete. Emmanuel Navon proposes a new direction for Jewish state that capitalizes on its economic ties with Western Europe. Take, for instance, post-Angela Merkel Germany: