Fifth Election In Three-&-A-Half Years Set For 1 November

The Israeli Knesset has voted to dissolve itself, confirming the widespread expectation that the country will be plunged into its fifth general election campaign in just over three and a half years.

• The election is set for Tuesday 1 November.
• The governing coalition of outgoing PM Naftali Bennett collapsed over myriad disagreements over Israeli settlers in the West Bank, the application of Israeli law to those settlers, and the status of various Israel-Palestine issues. The broad nature of the gov't, involving hard-line Zionist right-wingers as well as Islamist parties, meant the longevity of the administration was often in question.
• Leader of the largest party in the former gov't, liberal Yesh Atid's Yair Lapid, becomes caretaker PM until the election.
• Polls show both the outgoing gov't and the parties supportive of former PM Benjamin Netanyahu consistently short of the 61 seats required to govern as a majority. Unless one of the parties previously supportive of Bennett switches to back Netanyahu's right-wing Likud Party, Israel could be set for further political paralysis.