Three days after the Peace Now demonstration outside the Prime Minister’s home in Jerusalem, which featured a call for toppling and replacing Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, the government did in fact collapse. The Knesset is in the process of dissolving itself and its members have already agreed on a date for early elections.

Israelis will go to the polls on March 17, almost two full years before the end of the term of this government.

Netanyahu moved to dissolve the government for several reasons. One of them was that two key members of his coalition, Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party and Tzipi Livni’s Hatnu’ah, refused to support his move to pass a new Basic Law, the so-called “Jewish State” law, which would severely disrupt the delicate balance between Israeli democracy and the state’s character as a Jewish state. 

On Tuesday, the prime minister fired Lapid and Livni, the cabinet members who comprised the left flank of his government, and started the parliamentary process that ushers in new elections.

Secretary of State John Kerry reacted to the news by saying: "We hope …that those elections will produce -- the possibility of a government that can negotiate and move towards resolving the differences between Israelis and Palestinians, and obviously, the differences in the region."

We agree.