Thirty-fourth Government of Israel

The March 17, 2015, Knesset election gave Likud, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 30 seats, compared with 24 for the center-left Zionist Union.[5] Turnout reached 71.8 percent, the highest recorded since 1999.[5] Likud’s six-seat advantage contrasted with final pre-election polls that had placed it four seats behind the Zionist Union.[6] Contemporary commentators partly attributed the result to Netanyahu’s late appeals to right-leaning voters.[6]

Winning the largest number of seats did not by itself give Likud the parliamentary strength needed to govern: it still required coalition partners to reach a majority of 61.[5] The election’s practical outcome depended on which parties were prepared to cooperate, rather than on a direct election of the prime minister.[7] One breakdown of the results placed 57 seats in the right-wing and ultra-Orthodox bloc, 42 in the left and Arab bloc, and 21 in the center.[7] Although combining the latter two categories produced 63 seats, that arithmetic did not translate into a workable governing coalition.[7]

The Joint List had declared that it would not enter a coalition, leaving the left and center with only 50 seats without its participation.[7] The distinction between parliamentary totals and potential coalition partners was therefore central to the negotiations that followed the election.[7] Netanyahu’s eventual majority emerged through agreements among Likud, a socioeconomic reform party, a national-religious party, and two ultra-Orthodox parties, rather than through a majority won by Likud alone.[6]

On April 20, Netanyahu requested a 14-day extension from President Reuven Rivlin, explaining that he needed additional time to assemble a stable government.[5] Negotiations continued into the final days of the extended period.[5] Avigdor Liberman, leader of Yisrael Beiteinu, withdrew from coalition talks on May 4, leaving Netanyahu to conclude an agreement with Jewish Home alongside the other prospective partners.[5] The government that emerged consequently began with the minimum majority rather than the broader coalition Netanyahu had sought.[6]

Netanyahu announced the formation of his coalition on May 6, 2015, after agreements reached in the final hours before the deadline.[6] The coalition agreement was signed about two hours before that deadline.[5] The five participating parties were Likud, with 30 seats; Kulanu, with 10; Jewish Home, with eight; Shas, with seven; and United Torah Judaism, with six.[6] Together they controlled 61 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, leaving 59 members outside the governing coalition.[6]

The last-minute negotiations assigned Jewish Home important ministries: Naftali Bennett received education, Ayelet Shaked justice, and Uri Ariel agriculture.[8] Shaked was also to join the Security Cabinet.[9] Netanyahu acknowledged the limited parliamentary foundation while expressing his preference for expansion: “61 is a good number and 61 plus is an even better number.”[8] Labor leader Isaac Herzog rejected participation in the emerging coalition, saying, “I will not be a fifth wheel in the Netanyahu government.”[9]

Before the government took office, the Knesset approved an amendment allowing the cabinet to exceed the previous 18-minister limit and permitting ministers without portfolio.[5] The change expanded Netanyahu’s room to distribute cabinet positions, while the coalition itself still depended on a 61–59 majority.[5][6]

Disagreements within Likud over ministerial appointments delayed the swearing-in proceedings.[10] Gilad Erdan initially remained outside the government, while Silvan Shalom became deputy prime minister and interior minister and Benny Begin received a ministerial post without portfolio.[10] Netanyahu retained foreign affairs, with Tzipi Hotovely serving as deputy foreign minister.[10] The Knesset approved the government on May 14 by 61 votes to 59, and the cabinet was sworn in that day.[2]

The original leadership included Moshe Ya’alon as defense minister, Moshe Kahlon as finance minister, Bennett as education minister, Shaked as justice minister, and Aryeh Deri as economy minister.[6] Likud ministers associated with the Security Cabinet included Erdan, Shalom, Yisrael Katz, Yuval Steinitz, and Ze’ev Elkin, with responsibilities encompassing public security, interior affairs, transportation, energy, and immigrant absorption.[6] Steinitz and Elkin were reportedly to rotate within the Security Cabinet.[6]

The government’s basic policy outline committed it to strengthening governability and stability through changes to the governing system.[11] Its stated objective was to “increase governability and government stability,” accompanied by reforms intended to improve both.[11] The policy guidelines also committed the government to enshrining Israel’s status as a Jewish state while protecting minority rights, advancing negotiations with the Palestinians, and encouraging Jewish immigration to Israel.[12] They did not explicitly mention a two-state solution.[12]

Domestic objectives included lowering the cost of living and developing struggling communities and cities in the north and south.[12] These priorities intersected with the agenda of Kulanu, a new center-right party led by Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon.[6] Kulanu emphasized socioeconomic reform, including the cost of living and inequality.[6] Kahlon’s coalition agreement also gave him a veto over specified legislation, making his participation important not only to the government’s numerical majority but to the scope of its legislative program.[13]

Jewish Home’s control of justice, education, and agriculture gave Bennett and his party opportunities to advance the interests of settlers in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria.[6] Shas and United Torah Judaism pursued different priorities, securing commitments concerning welfare support, military-service exemptions for Haredi men, and religious authority.[6] The coalition negotiations included promises to restore welfare benefits for men remaining in religious study and to roll back the preceding government’s legislation requiring ultra-Orthodox men to undertake military or national service.[13]

Several potentially consequential proposals were on the agenda at the government’s formation: a nation-state bill, restrictions on foreign donations to nongovernmental organizations, changes making it harder for the Supreme Court to overturn legislation, and measures to regularize settlement outposts unauthorized under Israeli law.[6] These were proposed initiatives, not a single package of measures already enacted when the government began.[6] Kahlon opposed many of them and could prevent their passage, while the differing priorities of the coalition parties made the narrow majority a potential vulnerability.[6]

Economic policy also included initiatives outside the coalition’s institutional and religious agenda.[14][15] A 2019 commentary in Tikvah Ideas credited Netanyahu with pushing through a significant 2015 measure increasing government investment in Arab communities and associated the policies with social and economic improvements for Arab citizens.[14] The commentary identified left-wing activist Ron Gerlitz as an adviser on those policies, although it did not provide a funding total or the measure’s formal identifier.[14]

An account in Tikvah Ideas described a separate 2015 agreement intended to enable a private American company and its Israeli partner to develop Israel’s largest natural-gas field.[15] The account said that the agreement promised protection from adverse regulatory legislation for 10 to 15 years, prompting a challenge by Zionist Union, Meretz, and two nongovernmental organizations.[15] It described the Supreme Court as striking down the arrangement and requiring either legislative support for the regulatory-stability commitment or renegotiation without it.[15]

In May 2016, Netanyahu expanded the coalition by bringing in Yisrael Beiteinu and its six Knesset seats, replacing Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon with Avigdor Liberman.[16] The decision followed months of talks with Herzog about a possible alternative expansion involving Labor.[16] Those negotiations had included proposed limits on settlement activity and renewed diplomatic initiatives concerning the Palestinians, but Netanyahu ended them and chose an agreement with Liberman instead.[16]

Ya’alon resigned from the government and Knesset in May 2016, citing Netanyahu’s conduct and a loss of trust in him amid the political events surrounding his replacement.[2] Environmental Protection Minister Avi Gabbai also resigned in protest at Liberman’s inclusion in the government.[17] Although the coalition gained parliamentary support, the defense appointment changed the relationship between Netanyahu and a prominent political rival who now held a central cabinet position.[16]

Liberman resigned as defense minister in November 2018 after criticizing the government’s ceasefire and accommodation policy toward Hamas.[2] He called the ceasefire “surrender to terror.”[2] Netanyahu then assumed the defense portfolio himself, before appointing Bennett to it in November 2019.[2] Across the government’s term, the defense ministry was consequently held by four people: Ya’alon, Liberman, Netanyahu, and Bennett.[2]

Other appointments also changed after the original cabinet took office.[2] Begin left after a little more than two weeks to make room for Erdan; Danny Danon became Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations; and Shalom resigned.[2] Religious Affairs Minister David Azoulay died while serving in office.[2] By contrast, Kahlon remained finance minister for five years, Steinitz headed the energy and water ministry throughout that period, and Elkin held the Jerusalem and Heritage portfolio for five years while also taking on environmental protection during the government’s tenure.[2]

Netanyahu accumulated several additional ministerial responsibilities at different times, including foreign affairs, health, defense, education, economy, labor and welfare, immigrant absorption, interior affairs, and diaspora affairs.[2] He held communications for nearly two years before relinquishing it in February 2017 amid investigations concerning him and a petition to the High Court.[2] A coalition provision had prevented partners from advancing communications initiatives.[2]

Yaakov Litzman of United Torah Judaism initially served as deputy health minister and became health minister following a High Court ruling.[2] He resigned in November 2017 over railway work on Shabbat, maintaining that the work violated Jewish law and the religious status quo.[2] Netanyahu subsequently served as health minister for a period, while Litzman later returned as deputy minister.[2] At one point the government included a record five female ministers, although that number fell after Sofa Landver’s departure in 2018.[18]

The cabinet reversed a November 2014 decision that had broadened the range of Orthodox rabbis authorized to perform conversions.[19] Following the reversal, legal conversions remained in the hands of 33 rabbis working in four centralized conversion courts.[19] Repealing the decentralization measure had been included in the 2015 Likud–United Torah Judaism coalition agreement and was an important objective for both United Torah Judaism and Shas.[4]

In July 2016, the Knesset passed legislation sponsored by United Torah Judaism allowing local rabbinates to prevent Reform and Conservative movements from using state-run mikvaot for conversion ceremonies.[4] The measure formed part of the coalition’s changes concerning Orthodox authority and the administration of religious life.[4] These decisions affected both the institutions conducting conversion and access to facilities used in conversion ceremonies.[4]

On June 25, 2017, the cabinet indefinitely suspended an agreement concerning egalitarian prayer access at the Western Wall.[4] On the same day it approved draft legislation that would have given the Chief Rabbinate a monopoly over conversion and revoked legal rights obtained by converts through independent Orthodox and non-Orthodox rabbinical courts.[4] Shas and United Torah Judaism pressed for these decisions; the conversion proposal remained draft legislation in the cited account and should not be confused with an enacted law.[4]

The regulation of public activity on Shabbat was another recurring issue.[4] In January 2018, the Knesset passed the so-called mini-markets law, empowering Interior Minister Aryeh Deri to veto municipal bylaws permitting expanded commercial activity on Shabbat.[4] Deri subsequently used that authority to block bylaws in Modi’in, Holon, Givatayim, and Herzliya.[4] The earlier dispute over railway maintenance that prompted Litzman’s resignation likewise concerned the relationship between state operations and Shabbat observance.[2]

In July 2018, the Knesset enacted Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, with 62 votes in favor, 55 against, and two abstentions.[3] The law enshrined Israel’s status as the Jewish people’s nation-state and addressed state symbols, Jerusalem as the capital, Jewish self-determination, and Jewish settlement as a national value.[3] It established Hebrew as the state language and gave Arabic a “special status.”[3] A provision that would have permitted separate community settlement was softened before the final vote.[3]

Netanyahu led the push for the Basic Law.[20] Its provisions expressed the government’s commitment to Israel’s Jewish national character, an objective already included in its initial policy guidelines.[12] The enacted law did not include an explicit statement of individual rights for Israeli Arabs, despite Netanyahu’s statement that they were entitled to such rights.[20]

On December 24, 2018, coalition leaders announced that the Knesset would be dissolved and that an early election would take place on April 9, 2019.[21] The Knesset voted to dissolve itself on December 26.[1] Coalition leaders publicly invoked national and budgetary responsibility, while accounts identified an impasse over legislation regulating ultra-Orthodox military recruitment as a major factor; Ynet presented that explanation as probable rather than definitive.[2][21] Coalition partners could not agree on the bill, and Yesh Atid announced that it would oppose it.[21]

Dissolving the Knesset did not immediately end the government’s service or Netanyahu’s tenure as prime minister.[1] The cabinet continued in a caretaker capacity from December 2018 until May 2020.[1] During this period, elections repeatedly failed to produce an agreed successor coalition, extending the life of the government beyond the parliamentary term in which it had originally won confidence.[22]

The April 9, 2019, election gave Likud and Blue and White 35 seats each.[23] Rivlin gave Netanyahu the first opportunity to form a government, but Liberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu refused to join and Netanyahu could not obtain sufficient support elsewhere.[23] Negotiations deadlocked over Haredi draft exemptions.[24] On May 30, after the unsuccessful coalition-building period, the 21st Knesset voted to dissolve itself and scheduled another election for September 17.[23]

The September election also failed to produce a government.[23] Both Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz were unable to assemble a coalition, and the Knesset dissolved on December 11, setting up a third election.[23] Netanyahu remained in charge of the caretaker government throughout the repeated electoral impasse.[25] During that period, budgets were not passed, important civil-service positions remained unfilled, and basic state functioning was impaired.[25]

A third election followed in March 2020.[26] As COVID-19 spread, Gantz agreed to enter an emergency unity government under Netanyahu, with an arrangement providing for Gantz to become prime minister later.[22][26] Netanyahu and Gantz signed their national emergency government agreement on April 20, 2020.[26] It provided that Netanyahu would remain prime minister for 18 months, after which Gantz was designated to take over.[26]

The Thirty-fifth Government of Israel was sworn in on May 17, 2020, ending the Thirty-fourth Government’s service.[27] The Netanyahu–Gantz unity government brought to an end the immediate stalemate that had persisted through elections in April 2019, September 2019, and March 2020.[22] The transition therefore followed not simply one election and one round of negotiations, but three election campaigns during an extended caretaker period.[1]

A commentary in Tikvah Ideas described the April agreement as averting a fourth election in less than two years and estimated the projected government’s support at about 70 of the Knesset’s 120 members.[28] Its planned rotation of the premiership distinguished the successor arrangement from the Thirty-fourth Government’s original five-party coalition under Netanyahu alone.[26][28]

Public attitudes toward the successor arrangement were divided.[29] A May 2020 survey found division over establishing the rotation government, while about half opposed the High Court ruling enabling Netanyahu to form a coalition and the shortening of the governmental term to three years.[29] A large majority opposed the new government’s size.[29] These responses accompanied the transition from prolonged caretaker administration to a newly constituted coalition.[29]

The Thirty-fourth Government became Israel’s longest-serving government, and its caretaker period was also the longest in the country’s history.[2] Its five-year lifespan included three national election campaigns, with caretaker service extending from the first dissolution in December 2018 until the coalition with Blue and White took office in May 2020.[1] Its duration thus encompassed both a period of coalition government and an unusually extended transition without a newly formed cabinet.[1]

Its original policy outline emphasized governability and government stability, while its final phase was marked by repeated failures to assemble a successor coalition.[11][22] The government began with the minimum parliamentary majority.[6] It later expanded through Yisrael Beiteinu and remained in office during repeated electoral deadlock.[16][22] These were distinct stages rather than a single uninterrupted experience of the original 61-seat coalition.

The legislative record included the Nation-State Basic Law and changes affecting conversion, religious facilities, and Shabbat commerce.[3][4] The cabinet’s composition also combined continuity in finance, energy, and Jerusalem and Heritage with repeated turnover in defense and other portfolios.[2] Its record number of female ministers was a notable feature of representation, even though the number declined before the government left office.[18]

The Nation-State Basic Law generated a significant dispute over national identity and equality.[20] Supporters presented it as affirming Israel’s identity as the Jewish people’s nation-state, while Arab lawmakers protested its passage and critics objected to the absence of an explicit equality provision.[3][20] Debate also concerned whether other Basic Laws and judicial review adequately protected equality; Rivlin had warned that the proposed separate-settlement provision could harm Israel and Jews worldwide before that provision was softened.[3][20]

Religious-affairs decisions concerning the Western Wall, conversion, mikvaot, and Shabbat commerce were also politically contentious, involving the authority of Orthodox institutions and the position of other Jewish religious movements.[4] The reasons for the December 2018 election decision attracted further interpretation: draft-legislation difficulties were a major reported factor, while suggestions that pending decisions in Netanyahu’s corruption cases influenced the timing remained analysis rather than an established official explanation.[21]