Israel's coalition government is at an impasse: talks between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yair Lapid broke down late Monday after Lapid refused to accede to Netanyahu's demands to retract his opposition to the Jewish nation-state bill and freeze the zero-VAT plan, a hallmark of Lapid's economic policy agenda. 

Immediately after the meeting, Aryeh Deri, Chairman of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party called on all faction heads to "meet at once and to reach an agreement for setting a date as quickly as possible for elections." Deri's move definitively brings forth elections, as Netanyahu will not be able to form an alternative coalition without the ultra-Orthodox parties, and his own Likud party has purportly blocked any avenue by which Lapid can replace him with an alternative coalition without calling elections. 

Lapid believes that holding elections now will "paralyze the economy." According to his associates, Netanyahu does not want to call elections either - but the Prime Minister also refuses to continue running the coalition in its present form. 

Read more at Ha'aretz.

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