Israel’s grinding political deadlock has squeezed funding for programmes helping troubled youths, disadvantaged communities and the disabled, forcing state-backed social organisations to rely on crowd-funding to get by. Polls indicate the country’s March 2 election, the third in less than a year, will not produce a clear win for right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or his main rival Benny Gantz of the centrist Blue and White party. Former Bank of Israel governor Karnit Flug told AFP that a caretaker government without a majority in parliament, the Knesset, like the one currently led by Netanyahu, had no chance of passing a budget.
