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11th Hour Deal with Far-Right Party Brings Netanyahu Back For Fourth Term as Israel's PM

The coalition deal brings together the far-right Jewish Home, the fledgling center-right Kulanu party, and Netanyahu’s Likud in what has been billed as one of Israel’s most right-wing governments ever.
Photo via Reuters

After 42 days of fierce negotiating, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced late Wednesday night that he had finally secured the majority required to form a government, with less than two hours to go before a midnight deadline. The move has secured his fourth-term at the country's helm.

The 11th hour coalition deal brings together the far-right Jewish Home, the fledgling center-right Kulanu party, and Netanyahu's Likud with a total of 61 seats, in what has been billed as one of Israel's most right-wing governments since the state was founded.

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In what could be a sign of things to come, wrangling went on throughout Wednesday, as Netanyahu struggled to reach a deal with the far-right Jewish Home. The party upped its portfolio demands following the dramatic last-minute exit of outgoing foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman from the negotiating table two days before the deadline to form a government.

The dramatic withdrawal of Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party — which took six seats in the election — from coalition talks suddenly left Netanyahu's chances of forming a government hanging in the balance, as the total number of MPs from parties immediately open to forming a coalition with Likud plummeted from 67 to just 61 — a crucial difference in Israel's 120 member parliament.

The late-night preliminary deal between the Likud and Jewish Home party leaders was sealed at around 11:30pm local time, with an awkward looking handshake after the prime minister finally caved to Naftali Bennett of Jewish Home's demands for his party to control the Justice portfolio. While the details of the agreement are due to be ironed out on Thursday, the candidate likely to take the coveted ministerial post is Ayelet Shaked, who is well-known for her extremist views and a Facebook post in which she quoted another author who referred to Palestinian children as "little snakes."

Netanyahu's concessions to the far-right pro-settler Jewish Home party will dismay Israel's allies, particularly the Obama administration, which hoped for a moderating influence on the prime minister after he disavowed a two-state solution during the election campaign.

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Dr. Gayil Tashir, a political scientist at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said the conclusion of the negotiations were unsurprising.

"Israel voted for a right-wing government and that's what it got," she told VICE News. "With such extremists in government, a peace process [with the Palestinians] is not even on the cards, it's not on the agenda."

The government's stance on other key issues will become apparent over the next week as more ministers are formerly appointed. "Who gets these positions, particularly from the Likud party, will say a lot about how the government approaches other issues, democracy, policing, rule-of-law… and ultimately whether it is right-wing or extreme right-wing in orientation," Tashir told VICE News.

The fragile last-minute deal is a far cry from Netanyahu's dramatic election day victory, where a last-minute rightward swerve in the final days of campaigning saw him surge from second place in the polls to a clear six-seat lead — a result that his party members celebrated by spraying champagne and chanting "King Bibi," a reference to the nickname given to the prime minister by both friend and foe.

With such a precarious majority held, every player in the new government wields significant power, potentially stalling reform.

"Backbenchers will be able to leverage funding or demand whatever they want, because they know that every vote counts," explained Tashir. "But it's a double-edged sword, parties are also less likely to leave because they know it will cause a collapse of government."

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The new government will also have to deal with the juxtaposing aims of its different factions. Moshe Kahlon's fledgling center-right Kulanu party won 10 seats on the back of an economic platform to reduce the cost of living and housing prices, but demands by the ultra-orthodox parties to restore child benefits and payments to yeshiva students to 2013 levels will act as a budgetary block to pledged reforms. The religious parties may also lock heads with secular elements in the government when it comes to matters of state and religion.

If this wasn't enough, Israel's political system allows other parties to join the coalition at a later date and many Israelis already are speculating that Lieberman may even return from the wings, or that Issac Herezog's center-left Zionist Union might be tempted aboard at a later date.

On Wednesday night, Netanyahu hinted that such additions might already be in the offing.

"61 is a good number, 61 plus is even better," he said. "It starts with 61, we have a lot more work ahead of us."

Others, however, are less optimistic and predict another election is not far away.

"We'll have to see how the next six months play out," Rafi Smith, head of Smith Consulting polling agency, told VICE News. "But with such a small majority it's hard to see that the coalition will survive the next four years."

Related: 'Bibi Always Finds a Way': Residents of Israel's Har Homa Settlement Say Building Freeze Won't Last