Israeli leaders form emergency government to lead war on Gaza

JERUSALEM, Israel 

Amid its war on Gaza, Israel has formed an emergency government under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a move that brings to mind the emergency government during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

Netanyahu held talks with National Unity Party leader and former Defense Minister Benny Gantz and opposition leader and former Prime Minister Yair Lapid as well as the leader of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu Party, Avigdor Lieberman, on joining the government.

The Likud party led by Netanyahu said in a statement carried Tuesday by the Israeli Broadcasting Authority that the heads of the coalition unanimously supported the formation of an emergency government and authorized Netanyahu to work on it.

“The people are united, and now the leadership must be united. I call on the opposition leaders to form a national emergency government without preconditions, similar to the one that was formed with (Prime Minister) Menachem Begin on the eve of the outbreak of the Six-Day War,” Netanyahu said on Monday.

The Israeli Knesset, or parliament, says on its website that a national unity government is a government based on a broad coalition, the members of which also include representatives of rival parliamentary groups. It says it is formed in emergency situations (such as war, natural disasters or economic crises), which requires the mobilization of comprehensive forces in order to confront the situation.

The Knesset points to the 13th government headed by Levi Eshkol, the leader of the "Ma'arach" (The Alignment) party, an electoral alliance of the new Labor Party and Mapam, which served the term of the sixth Knesset as the most prominent example of an emergency government.

“On June 1, 1967, Eshkol included the ‘Rafi’ and ‘Gahal’ blocs in the government coalition and established a national bloc government. Moshe Dayan, from the ‘Rafi’ party, joined the government and served as Minister of Defense, while Menachem Begin and Yosef Sapir, from the ‘Gahal’ party, joined as ministers without portfolio,” it adds.

According to the Knesset’s website, “the goal of appointing Dayan to the Ministry of Security on the eve of the Six-Day War (1967) was to dispel the public’s fears in light of the threats made by the Arab countries to the existence of the State of Israel,” as he put it.

The announcement of efforts to form an emergency government in Israel came after long months of disagreements between the government and the opposition over a package of “judicial reform” laws pushed by the government, which the opposition feared “will turn Israel into a dictatorship.”

In a dramatic escalation of Middle East tensions, Israeli forces have launched a sustained and forceful military campaign against the Gaza Strip in response to a military offensive by the Palestinian group Hamas in Israeli territories.

The conflict began when Hamas initiated Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against Israel, a multi-pronged surprise attack including a barrage of rocket launches and infiltrations into Israel via land, sea and air, which Hamas said was in retaliation for the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem and Israeli settlers’ growing violence against Palestinians.

In response to Hamas' actions, the Israeli military launched Operation Swords of Iron against Hamas targets within the Gaza Strip. Israel's response has extended into cutting water and electricity supplies to Gaza, further worsening the living conditions in an area that has reeled under a crippling siege since 2007.