The dust of seven long months of electioneering and coalition building finally settled this week. The 20th Knesset’s committees are now staffed with lawmakers after the last outstanding disagreements between coalition and opposition parties were hammered out in the Knesset last week.

On Sunday, the 34th Government’s Ministerial Committee for Legislation held its first meeting to set the government’s legislative agenda for the coming term, and on Monday, the “housing cabinet,” the committee of ministers charged with finding a solution to Israel’s runaway housing prices, will hold its first meeting.

Slowly, haltingly, the Israeli state is getting back to work after long months of virtual paralysis on many issues.

And as the system returns to a measure of normalcy, some startling characteristics of the new political configuration created by the March election are becoming clear.

For one thing, the new government’s razor-thin 61-59 majority in parliament has all but killed many controversial right-wing measures advanced by lawmakers in the last two Knessets.

Read the article in full at Times of Israel.