The coalition put together in extremis by Benjamin Netanyahu has made bold headlines in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv but it is fragile and already under pressure.
The prime minister struck a deal with the far-right religious Zionist Jewish Home party led by Naftali Bennett just as a midnight deadline Wednesday to Thursday was about to expire. This delivered him the requisite 61 seats in the 120-seat Knesset parliament, to govern. The two men do not see eye to eye.
On 17th March, Netanyahu defied predictions and emerged the victor in Israel’s legislative elections, defeating the Zionist Union led by Isaac Herzog. The context for the 40 days of negotiations to produce a fully right wing coalition was already clear in his campaigning.
A television interviewer asked: “If you are prime minister, there’ll be no Palestinian state?”
His answer: “An international initiative will be presented to revert to the 1967 borders, to divide Jerusalem. We need to form a strong, firm national government
