JERUSALEM: Israel will hold a snap election in March after parliament failed on Tuesday to meet a deadline to pass a budget, triggering a ballot presenting new challenges for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Campaigning in Israel’s fourth parliamentary election in two years gets underway with Netanyanu facing public anger over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and while he is engaged in a corruption trial, the first against an Israeli prime minister.
Israel’s longest-serving leader will also have to contend with a new rival from the right, Gideon Saar, a defector from Netanyahu’s Likud party who an opinion poll on Israel’s Kan public TV on Tuesday showed was drawing even with him.
Netanyahu, who has denied any criminal wrongdoing, and the current defense minister, centrist politician Benny Gantz, established a unity government in May after three inconclusive elections held since April 2019.
But they have been locked in a dispute over passage of a national budget key to implementing a deal in which Gantz was to have taken over from Netanyahu in November 2021.
The Speaker of Parliament declared its dissolution late on Tuesday in a session broadcast on live television, saying a snap election was automatically triggered by its failure to approve a budget.
Israel to hold snap election, with Netanyahu facing new challenges
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Israel to hold snap election, with Netanyahu facing new challenges
- Netanyanu faces public anger over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic
- He will also have to contend with a new rival from the right, Gideon Saar
UN chief expresses deep concern over escalating Iran-US tensions
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for diplomatic engagement to resolve differences between the United States and Iran amid a surge in military activities and rhetoric across the Middle East, his spokesperson said on Friday.
“We are very concerned about the heightened rhetoric we’re seeing around the region by the heightened military activities, war games or just military, increased military, naval presence in the region. And we encourage both the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran to continue to engage in diplomacy in order to settle the differences,” said Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson for UN secretary-general.
The call for restraint follows a formal letter delivered on Thursday by Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s permanent representative to the UN, addressed to the Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council. Iravani emphasized that Iran is prepared to exercise its inherent right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, promising a decisive and proportionate response to any military aggression.
Iravani further warned that in such a scenario, all bases, facilities, and assets belonging to hostile forces in the Middle East would constitute legitimate targets for Iranian defensive measures. The envoy added that the United States would bear full and direct responsibility for any unforeseen and uncontrollable consequences resulting from further provocations.
