Netanyahu sacks Livni and calls for elections as 'soon as possible'

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fired Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Finance Minister Yair Lapid from his government, Israeli media reported on Tuesday.

Snap elections will now have to be held, although local media is reporting these are unlikely to happen until March. The move comes less than a day after Netanyahu failed to reach an agreement with his coalition partners over key policy decisions, including the Jewish nation-state bill.

Livni heads up the centrist HaTnuah party, while Lapid, a heads the centrist Yesh Atid party. The two parties account for 25 of the coalition's 68 seats and are seen as the most liberal in the otherwise right-wing coalition. 

The remaining government ministers from Yesh Atid have also been released from their duties. Livni was the only party member to form part of the Israeli cabinet.

“Netanyahu is leading Israel into unnecessary elections. The prime minister has chosen to act irresponsibly with respect to the nation, and to put the needs of the Israeli public at the bottom of his agenda,” said a Yesh Atid statement, issued after the two sides failed to reach an agreement.

“Netanyahu prefers a deal he made with the Haredim [Orthodox Jews] on moving up the elections over the interests of all Israeli citizens,” the statement added.

Netanyahu, however, hit back issuing a letter of dismissal and criticising his former colleagues for alleged disloyalty, saying that he "will not tolerate an opposition from within the government."

The prime minister then called on the Knesset to dissolve "as soon as possible" and is due to give a press conference later this evening.

Lapid met with Netanyahu last night for emergency talks, after which point Lapid announced that he would soon be resigning due to Netanyahu's insistance that all government ministers get behind his version of the controversial Jewish nation-state bill. Lapid also clashed with Netanyahu over demands to freeze the zero VAT plan involving provision of inexpensive, new apartments for first-time home buyers, which was one of his party’s core policies.

A source in Yesh Atid told Ynet news after the discussion that Netanyahu had been planning to torpedo the meeting from the beginning, “even before Lapid opened the doors to his office.”

“Netanyahu read out the demands like one reads to a child,” the source said.

Dimi Reider, a journalist and Associate Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Middle East Eye that Netanyahu had wanted elections for some time.

“He was still ahead in the polls, but this was being eroded by Jerusalem and discontent over the Gaza war,” he said. “He was facing the beginning of various rebellions within his own party, so if he waited out his term, he might not have made it to the next one, so he was aiming for elections as soon as possible.”

Elections were not due to take place until 2017, although analysts have been speculating that the vote might be pushed up to 2016, or even late 2015 for some time.

Reider told MEE that Netanyahu had allowed various crises in the government to "explode" and that his admonishments to Lapid on Monday were "just so insulting that Lapid had to refuse and walk out of the government and then Netanyahu can say ‘well I didn’t want elections, I wanted stable government, but it’s impossible to work with this person.'”

“What Netanayahu wants is a right-wing government without all this Lapid nonsense and he’s probably going to get it,” he said.

In an opinion poll published by the liberal Haaretz newspaper over the weekend, Netanyahu's popularity was shown to be declining, although he is still is expected to keep the premiership.