Israeli minister races to salvage flailing coalition

By EMILY ROSE
Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s justice minister says he will give the government one final chance to approve a contentious bill extending legal protections to West Bank settlers. Gideon Saar’s offer marks a last-ditch effort to keep the fractured coalition in power. Saar said in a series of TV interviews late on Tuesday that he will resubmit the bill next Sunday, after it failed to pass earlier this week. Several members of the coalition joined the opposition in defeating the bill. Saar says his fellow coalition members must get in line or exit the government. That would likely plunge the country into a fifth election in just three years.