NETANYAHU COUNTDOWN IS ON: The anti-Benjamin Netanyahu forces in Israel’s parliament are
close to finalizing a complicated set of deals, among eight parties, which would end Netanyahu’s government, ahead of a Wednesday afternoon deadline.
Palestinians are shrugging and focusing on their own generational shift in leadership, as Israelis come to grips with what life might be like under a power-sharing deal between
Naftali Bennett, who would serve as prime minister until 2023, and
Yair Lapid, a secular and centrist former TV show host, who would take over as prime minister in 2023. Bennett doesn’t think there should be a sovereign Palestine; Lapid supports a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. A common view in Palestine is that it doesn’t matter who’s in charge in Israel, because no potential prime minister wants a substantially different relationship with Palestinians.