Netanyahu's Coalition Government crumbling - Kadima party resigns - Bibi might have to call for early elections

Well, that didn’t last long. The newest and largest member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition voted to leave it on Tuesday, ankling the government not quite 10 weeks after joining. Kadima, the center-right party that averted elections by joining Netanyahu’s coalition in May, voted overwhelmingly to return to opposition after Netanyahu chose to side with religious parties in the divisive question of a universal draft.

Kadima’s departure does not guarantee new elections. Netanyahu’s remaining coalition members continue to account for a majority of the Knesset, as Israel’s legislature is known. But it leaves him weaker and more vulnerable to the passions of the factions who remain — nationalists on one hand, and religious parties on the other, who live on opposite polls of the draft issue. Israel’s high court has ruled that a new law must be in place by July 31, and analysts say hopes for a compromise are leaving with the centrist Kadima.

“It’s more than likely that he’s heading for early elections,” says Reuven Hazan, a political scientist at Jersualem’s Hebrew University. “Now that Kadima is gone, Netanyahu is being pulled by two sides, and whatever side he goes to he will lose the other side. So unless he can juggle this for an extended amount of time he’s unlikely to last.”

Read more: [link to world.time.com]