The Israeli government joined forces with the opposition last night to begin the process of voting itself out of office, ushering in a period of diplomatic and domestic political chaos that could last for as long as six months.
The move came after the main opposition party rejected a last-minute plea from the Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, for a broad "unity government". Palestinian leaders are now expressing fears that the Wye peace accords will be frozen until a new government is elected.
In a day of tremendous drama at the Knesset, Mr Netanyahu initially attempted to cobble together a majority to defeat an opposition no-confidence motion.
When he realised that too many members of his own coalition were now unwilling to support him, he sought to avoid downfall by such undignified means, and instead instructed his coalition colleagues to support a more protracted process: legislation for the dissolution of the Knesset.
The first reading of a bill to dissolve the Knesset was approved by 81 votes 30, and will now be finalised in Knesset committee over the next few days.
Simultaneously, Mr Netanyahu and the Labour Party leader, Mr Ehud Barak, will sit down together to agree on a date for new elections - sometime between next March and next June, more than a year ahead of schedule.
Just before the vote was held, Mr Netanyahu issued an eleventh-hour appeal for unity, imploring Mr Barak to join him in a broad coalition. "Let's take a time-out for 72 hours," he urged, "and see if we can work together. If we succeed, we know we'll be doing something that the people will value."
But Mr Barak said the appeal had come "a little too late", and that he doubted whether Mr Netanyahu and his colleagues were capable of making peace with the Palestinians. Mr Barak's supporters derided the prime minister's plea as a "humiliation" for him. But Mr Netanyahu had one eye on the election campaign ahead, during which he will doubtless remind the electorate that he sought to unite the country's political leadership, and that Mr Barak spurned him.
The demise of the Netanyahu coalition, 31-months in office, is a direct consequence of the prime minister's handling of October's Wye Plantation peace accord with the Palestinians. And it is not now clear what will become of that accord, under which Israel was supposed last Friday to hand over a slice of West Bank land to Mr Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority.
Mr Netanyahu froze the accords last week in protest at what he claimed were Palestinian violations - a claim rejected by the Palestinians and by the United States, and widely seen as having represented a desperate, and unsuccessful, attempt by him to mollify right-wing hardliners in his coalition and keep his government together.
At least four current or previous Likud cabinet ministers are contemplating standing for the prime ministership - against Mr Netanyahu. These include Mr Beni Begin, the hardline son of the late Likud prime minister Menachem Begin, who would run as the champion of the settlers; Mr Dan Meridor, a former justice minister who is set to try and capture the political centre; and Ms Limor Livnat, one of few highflying female politicians, whom Mr Netanyahu tried in vain to win over yesterday by promising her the finance minister's job in any future government.
Mr Meridor is hoping to team up with Lieut-Gen Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, the former army chief of staff who has told friends he plans to enter politics as a centrist. Such a partnership would be formidable, and deeply threatening to Mr Netanyahu and to Labour's Mr Barak. Mr Barak said yesterday he was now certain, and sorry, that Gen Lipkin-Shahak would not be joining Labour.