Israel's precarious coalition government was a step closer to collapse on Wednesday with politicians expected to approve a preliminary measure to dissolve parliament, raising prospects of elections next year.
In a prime-time televised address on Tuesday, Benny Gantz, the key coalition partner of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said his centrist Blue and White party would back a bill to dissolve the Knesset, Israel's parliament.
But Wednesday's parliamentary vote on an opposition proposal is only a first step.
A bill to dissolve the Knesset will require three additional successful readings before new elections must be called.
Mr Gantz's decision to side with the opposition, at least for now, highlights the widening cracks in Israel's centre-right coalition, imperilled from the start by mistrust, infighting and public recriminations.
"I had no illusions about Netanyahu," Mr Gantz said in his Tuesday speech.
He reminded Israelis that he battled the prime minister in three consecutive inconclusive elections that did not allow either leader to form a majority government.
Demonstrations against Netanyahu – in pictures
Mr Gantz said he decided to agree on a unity government with Mr Netanyahu, who he knew to be a "serial promise-breaker", because he wanted to spare Israelis "an ugly and costly" fourth election, especially because the coronavirus pandemic was accelerating.
"Netanyahu didn't lie to me," Mr Gantz said. "He lied to all of you."
The Netanyahu-Gantz coalition, established in April, included strict power-sharing arrangements.
Mr Netanyahu, who heads the right-wing Likud party, was to serve as prime minister for the first half of the three-year arrangement.
Mr Gantz had been scheduled to take over as premier in November 2021 but Mr Netanyahu's critics always insisted he would find a way to sink the coalition before vacating the prime minister's office for Mr Gantz.
The unity deal included several triggers that would automatically force new elections, including a failure to pass a budget.
Mr Gantz accused Mr Netanyahu of consistently misleading the public over the budget issue to serve his own political ends.
"Netanyahu committed to pass a budget in August, and naturally did not stand by his word. He promised that it would happen in December and is not following through. Does anyone believe him any more?" Mr Gantz said.
Mr Gantz directly called on Mr Netanyahu to "put a state budget forward", making clear that if he did so, new elections could be avoided.
Mr Netanyahu released a video shortly before Mr Gantz spoke on Tuesday, urging him to keep the coalition together.
"Now is not the time for elections," Mr Netanyahu said. "Now is the time for unity."
Mr Gantz courts huge political risks by taking Israel back to the polls.
His Blue and White coalition fractured when he decided to strike a deal with Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gantz's personal popularity has fallen, according to a series of recent polls.
His former ally turned critic, Yair Lapid of the Yesh Atid party, is now the Knesset opposition leader and would be seen by many voters as a more effective anti-Netanyahu force than Mr Gantz in a new election.
In a commentary on Israel's N12 website, political columnist Amit Segal argued that Mr Gantz's political fortunes were plummeting.
Blue and White was "never going to revert to being a government alternative", Mr Segal said.
"The party can only expect a nightmarishly difficult election campaign."
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
The Birkin bag is made by Hermès.
It is named after actress and singer Jane Birkin
Noone from Hermès will go on record to say how much a new Birkin costs, how long one would have to wait to get one, and how many bags are actually made each year.
Brief scores:
Day 2
England: 277 & 19-0
West Indies: 154
Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
U19 WORLD CUP, WEST INDIES
UAE group fixtures (all in St Kitts)
- Saturday 15 January: UAE beat Canada by 49 runs
- Thursday 20 January: v England
- Saturday 22 January: v Bangladesh
UAE squad:
Alishan Sharafu (captain), Shival Bawa, Jash Giyanani, Sailles
Jaishankar, Nilansh Keswani, Aayan Khan, Punya Mehra, Ali Naseer, Ronak Panoly,
Dhruv Parashar, Vinayak Raghavan, Soorya Sathish, Aryansh Sharma, Adithya
Shetty, Kai Smith
ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5
Wicked: For Good
Director: Jon M Chu
Starring: Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jonathan Bailey, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh, Ethan Slater
Rating: 4/5
Third Test
Day 3, stumps
India 443-7 (d) & 54-5 (27 ov)
Australia 151
India lead by 346 runs with 5 wickets remaining
More from Rashmee Roshan Lall
Despacito's dominance in numbers
Released: 2017
Peak chart position: No.1 in more than 47 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Lebanon
Views: 5.3 billion on YouTube
Sales: With 10 million downloads in the US, Despacito became the first Latin single to receive Diamond sales certification
Streams: 1.3 billion combined audio and video by the end of 2017, making it the biggest digital hit of the year.
Awards: 17, including Record of the Year at last year’s prestigious Latin Grammy Awards, as well as five Billboard Music Awards
A list of the animal rescue organisations in the UAE
Brief scores:
Liverpool 3
Mane 24', Shaqiri 73', 80'
Manchester United 1
Lingard 33'
Man of the Match: Fabinho (Liverpool)
