Israeli leader struggling to form coalition, despite victory




Which way Netanyahu goes will have broad implications. If he sides with the hard-line allies that he often calls his “natural” partners, Netanyahu will have a solid parliamentary majority of like-minded parties that could avoid much of the infighting that plagued the outgoing government and provide some welcome political stability at home.




On Monday, he is scheduled to meet Israel’s largely ceremonial president, Reuven Rivlin, and seek a two-week extension. Under Israeli election rules, if he fails to form a coalition during that time Rivlin then can assign someone else the task of doing so.





Tsahi Hanegbi, the deputy foreign minister from Netanyahu’s Likud Party, said the prospect of Herzog joining the coalition only was becoming a possibility due to the hard-ball approach of the right-wing parties.

“It is rising only as an extreme scenario whose chances of coming true are a result of the Jewish Home or Yisrael Beitenu, either both of them or one of them, stubbornly refusing to show flexibility,” he told Israel’s Army Radio Sunday.


Increased settlement construction, a prolonged absence of Palestinian peace talks and nationalist legislation that undermines Israel’s democratic nature would surely draw a strong rebuke and perhaps even calls for sanctions and boycotts. With his relations with President Barack Obama at a low point following clashes over Mideast peace and the Iranian nuclear talks, there is a real fear that Israel’s top ally may rescind its automatic protection of Israel at the United Nations and other international bodies.




“Sitting in the opposition is not a default choice but a preference,” he said. “Our place is in the opposition. We will replace the Likud government.”

But Herzog’s Labor Party, the main partner in the Zionist Union, has a long history of ousting its defeated leaders, so Herzog also may be tempted to jump at a chance to gain some influence and job security — most likely as Netanyahu’s foreign minister. Herzog is the seventh leader of the party since it last won a national election in 1999.

Herzog’s only hint of common ground with Netanyahu was a position paper issued by his party that backed Netanyahu’s opposition to the recent U.S.-led framework nuclear deal with Iran. On this crucial matter, it said “there is no coalition or opposition” in Israel.

So far, Herzog’s party rank-and-file seems to oppose joining Netanyahu and appears eager to watch a hard-line government fail. But there are also growing voices in Israel saying that Herzog’s Zionist Union does not have the luxury to make that kind of cold political calculation.

“Its presence in the coalition is critical to preserving Israel as a liberal democracy,” liberal columnist Carlo Strenger wrote in the Haaretz daily newspaper. “Ultimately, the idea of staying in the opposition is based on a deep illusion: It is that the liberal center-left is likely to regain power in the foreseeable future, and that Israel’s electorate just has to realize how destructive the political right’s policies are.”


Associated Press/ My Way