The Netanyahu Era Is (Almost) Over

Here is today’s Foreign Policy brief: Israel’s anti-Netanyahu bloc forms a government-in-waiting, U.S. President Joe Biden plans to announce strategies for overseas vaccine distribution, and Sri Lanka prepares for an oil spill.

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After weeks of negotiations interrupted by a brief war, Israel’s opposition parties have agreed to form a government, denying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a sixth term.

The final agreement came minutes before a midnight deadline on Wednesday, as a diverse array of political groups—including, for the first time, an Arab-Israeli party—signed on to a coalition deal. Notifying Israeli President Reuven Rivlin of his success in forming a government, Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid said the new government “will do everything it can in order to unite and unify all sections of Israeli society.”

Naftali Bennett, a former protégé of Netanyahu and the son of American immigrants, will assume the role of prime minister in a rotational agreement with Lapid.

Lapid will hold the post of foreign minister until a proposed handover in August 2023. Lapid’s decision to initially hand power to a junior partner showcased his sincerity, a Lapid aide told Foreign Policy. “We said we would do whatever it takes [to end Netanyahu’s rule], and we did,” the aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Although a government has been agreed in principle, hurdles remain. Yariv Levin, the speaker of Israel’s parliament and a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, wants to delay the parliamentary vote, giving Netanyahu and his allies time to convince wavering members to abandon the new coalition. Although the exact date is the subject of legal debate, the vote would take place on June 14 at the latest. The 61 members of the coalition-in-waiting have already submitted a request to remove Levin, potentially allowing a vote to take place on Monday, June 7.

The more things change… Although the government would put an end to Netanyahu’s reign, it won’t necessarily put an end to his policies. Some of Bennett’s views are considered further to the right than Netanyahu’s, especially when it comes to Israeli settlement expansion in Palestinian territory. Defense Minister Benny Gantz, who just oversaw the war in Gaza, retains his position while Gideon Saar, the new justice minister, only left the Likud party after a failed bid to unseat Netanyahu as leader.

The special relationship. Bennett’s rise comes at a critical time for the U.S.-Israel relationship, when pro-Palestinian voices are being heard in the halls of U.S. power as they have never been before. For some Democrats, the ousting of Netanyahu may be enough to resume unconditional support for Israel, but others will want to see substantial changes in policy, especially regarding the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Stephen M. Walt, writing in Foreign Policy, argued for the good of both countries, now is the time to end the special relationship between the United States and Israel.

The billion-dollar question. Although a new government is not yet set in stone, normal business carries on: Gantz arrives in Washington today to request $1 billion in emergency military aid to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome defenses and help restock its bomb supply following the bombardment of Gaza. “I would imagine that the administration would say yes to this request, and it will sail through Congress,” Sen. Lindsey Graham said on Tuesday.

But even the Iron Dome won’t last forever—as Hamas showed by firing barrages of rockets that broke through. Today, Seth Frantzman argued in Foreign Policy, “Israel won’t admit this, but there is a strategic peak for this technology.”

U.S. vaccine plans. U.S. President Joe Biden could announce plans to distribute 80 million coronavirus vaccine doses globally as soon as today, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday. Blinken said vaccine distribution would be coordinated with COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX), the World Health Organization-backed vaccine initiative for low- and middle-income countries, and would come “without any political strings attached”—a veiled criticism of China and Russia. COVAX received a boost on Wednesday when an international fundraising drive successfully raised a further $2.4 billion for the program.

Iran talks. European Union coordinator Enrique Mora said an agreement would be reached regarding at the Iran nuclear deal talks in Vienna as soon as next week as a fifth round of discussions concluded with no breakthrough. “I am sure that the next round will be the one in which we will finally get a deal,” Mora told reporters on Wednesday. His comments differ from Iranian government spokesperson Ali Rabiei, who said on Tuesday a deal was likely in August. They also veered from a joint statement from Britain, France, and Germany that struck a more cautious tone. “We have, of course, worked based on the principle of nothing is agreed to [until] all is agreed,” the statement read.

Sri Lanka’s oil danger. Sri Lanka is preparing for a possible oil spill after a stricken cargo ship sank off its west coast on Wednesday. The Sri Lankan Navy and Indian Coast Guard is on standby to deal with any spill, the cargo ship’s operators said on Thursday, but some damage to the surrounding ecosystem has already been done: Millions of plastic pellets have already covered Sri Lanka’s coastline, and the government has banned fishing in the area.

Japan’s election. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is likely to call a snap election in September, the newspaper Asahi Shimbun reported on Thursday. The vote would take place following the conclusion of the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games in September, events the vast majority of Japanese oppose, according to recent polls. Organizers said 10,000 volunteers for the games have resigned in recent months due to health concerns.

Bird flu in China. A man in China’s Jiangsu province was diagnosed with the H10N3 strain of bird flu, China’s National Health Commission said on Tuesday, the world’s first human case. The health commission said contact tracing had uncovered no evidence of human-to-human transmission. The World Health Organization (WHO) is monitoring the case alongside the Chinese government, a WHO statement said.

Tariff threats. The United States imposed—and immediately suspended—trade tariffs on goods from Austria, India, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom on Wednesday in a move designed to pressure those countries for taxes they have levied on large U.S. tech firms.

The tariffs come as G-7 and Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development nations negotiate agreements on how to better tax multinationals, including a global minimum corporate tax rate and a tax on the profits of large multinationals in each country they operate in rather than the countries they are headquartered in.

The owner of a sunflower oil factory in Bulgaria has taken legal action after U.S. soldiers accidentally stormed his business during a NATO training exercise. The mix-up occurred while soldiers were simulating the clearing of an airfield in southern Bulgaria and continued on to Marin Dimitrov’s factory, where workers watched on as gun-wielding soldiers stalked through the premises.

The incident has led to a rebuke from the highest levels, with Bulgarian President Rumen Radev calling it “absolutely unacceptable.”

“We always learn from these exercises and are fully investigating the cause of this mistake,” the U.S. Embassy in Sofia said in a statement. “We will implement rigorous procedures to clearly define our training areas and prevent this type of incident in the future.”