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Israel PM Netanyahu strikes coalition deal with rivals Israel PM Netanyahu strikes coalition deal with rivals
(about 4 hours later)
The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has reached an agreement with rival parties to form a government that appears set to address domestic issues while putting peacemaking with the Palestinians on the back burner. Binyamin Netanyahu emerged from seven weeks of deadlocked negotiations with his political rivals on Thursday to announce a coalition deal just days before Barack Obama is due to fly into the country.
The coalition will be the first government in years without ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties. A new, slimmer Israeli government of 22 ministers will be sworn in on Monday with an agenda that places domestic, social issues ahead of the regional security concerns that dominated the previous coalition.
The three main coalition partners are to sign an agreement on Thursday after weeks of tough negotiations. Under the long-wrought agreement Netanyahu will be prime minister, Yair Lapid, leader of the centrist Yesh Atid, will be finance minister and Neftali Bennett, head of a party linked to the West Bank settler movement, minister of trade and industry. Moshe Ya'alon of Netanyahu's Likud party is to be minister of defence, replacing Ehud Barak.
"It's apparently the end. Or really the beginning," the Yesh Atid leader, Yair Lapid, who is likely to serve as finance minister, wrote on his Facebook page. With the deal yet to be signed, Netanyahu told a party meeting on Thursday afternoon: "We have reclaimed the defence portfolio, and the foreign affairs portfolio remains in our hands. These are the ministries most vital to the management of the state."
Talks had stalled over several thorny issues, including the division of key cabinet portfolios and plans to reform the country's military draft. The government is expected to end a controversial system of giving automatic draft exemptions to ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students. Bennett told reporters outside his home: "I envision a government with an historic opportunity and I am very optimistic."
If all goes according to plan, the government will be sworn in by Monday, two days before Barack Obama visits Israel. Lapid posted more enigmatically on his Facebook page: "This is the end or the beginning."
Although Netanyahu's Likud-Yisrael Beitenu bloc emerged as the biggest faction with 31 seats, he has struggled to form a coalition with the necessary 61-seat majority of 120 seats in parliament. The fight for Israel's 33rd government has left its key players with battle scars and produced no clear victor – it is not the government Netanyahu had hoped for.
Netanyahu courted ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties, which have been his traditional partners, but coalition members were unwilling to sit in government with them. The combined force of pro-settler candidate Bennett and social champion Lapid have forced his ultra-Orthodox allies into opposition. Nor does the incoming defence minister share his voluble preoccupation with the Iranian threat as Barak did. The hugely influential chairmanship of the finance committee has gone to Bennett's Jewish Home party.
In recent decades, ultra-Orthodox parties have used their kingmaker status to secure budgets for their minority religious schools and seminaries. Tens of thousands of young ultra-Orthodox males are granted exemptions from military service in order to devote their lives, theoretically at least, to religious study. The benefits have sparked animosity among the wider Israeli public. But Netanyahu has secured a majority of 12 Likud ministers and retained the critical post of foreign minister, which he will fill while Avigdor Lieberman deals with the corruption charges against him.
Instead of the ultra-Orthodox, Netanyahu's bloc has teamed up with two parties led by charismatic newcomers who made big gains in the election. The appointment of former leader of the opposition Tzipi Livni to the role of justice minister with a mandate to push forward with peace negotiations had raised hopes for the resumption of talks with the Palestinians.
Yesh Atid, founded by former TV personality Yair Lapid, won 19 seats in the election on a message promising relief to Israel's struggling middle class and an end to draft exemptions. And yet the deal revealed on Thursday suggested that Lapid's hard-fought campaign to conscript Israel's ultra-Orthodox Haredim into the army has been won in exchange for major gains to the pro-settler lobby – notably the appointment of Uri Ariel as housing minister. The Jewish Home member served 10 years as the head of the settler Yesha council and has fought tirelessly for the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
As head of the second-largest party in parliament, Lapid will serve as finance minister, a position with great influence over the government's budget. It will also control the education ministry. But Dr Ilan Jonas, head of a leading Israeli political consultancy, believes the settlers' gains should not be over-estimated. A push by Ariel to lower Israel's rising cost of living with an expansion of the settlements could drive Lapid and Livni from the coalition and lead to the collapse of the government, he said.
The Jewish Home, a party linked to the West Bank settler movement led by technology millionaire Naftali Bennett, will control the housing and trade ministries. Netanyahu's bloc will retain control of the powerful defence and interior ministries. The most significant victory of the negotiations, Jonas suggest, was Netanyahu's success in convincing Lapid to accept the finance ministry. With absolutely no experience in economics, the former TV anchor whose popularity was won on a social justice ticket is loth to head up a ministry that will oversee the application of a harsh austerity budget. "It will be very difficult for Lapid to jump into the prime minister's seat from the role of finance minister," Jonas said.
The new coalition is well positioned to take on domestic issues. Bennett and Lapid formed a close alliance during the cross-party negotiations, with near-identical positions on the need to press the ultra-Orthodox to serve in the military and enter the workforce.
For years, religious seminary students have been given exemptions from the draft and have been allowed to collect welfare stipends into adulthood while continuing their studies. The system has led to widespread poverty in the ultra-Orthodox sector and bred public resentment.