Israeli president tasks Netanyahu with forming new government
Israel’s president on Wednesday nominated Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu to head the next government, after he won the backing of a
majority of members of parliament following an April 9 election, Reuters reported.
In office for the past decade, Netanyahu won a fifth term
despite an announcement by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit in February that
he intends to charge the prime minister in three corruption cases. Netanyahu
has denied any wrongdoing.
“At a time of great turmoil in our region, we have managed
not only to maintain the state’s security and stability, we have even managed
to turn Israel into a rising world power,” Netanyahu said at the nomination ceremony
after President Reuven Rivlin gave him the mandate to form a new government.
Netanyahu has 28 days, with a two-week extension if needed,
to complete the task. If, as seems likely, he succeeds, he will become in July
Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.
Netanyahu has said he intends to build a coalition with five
far-right, right-wing and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties that would give the
government, led by his Likud party, 65 seats. No party has ever won an outright
majority in the 120-seat Knesset.
PEACE PLAN
Among the most pressing issues awaiting the new government
will be U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan to end the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Trump’s senior adviser Jared Kushner said on Wednesday it
would be unveiled once the new Israeli government is in place and after the
Muslim holiday of Ramadan, which ends in early June. The plan, Kushner said,
would require compromise by all parties.
A right-wing coalition in Israel would, however, likely
object to any proposed territorial concessions to the Palestinians, who are
boycotting the Trump administration over what they see as its pro-Israel bias.
Such a coalition would also be less likely to pressure
Netanyahu to step down if he is indicted for corruption.
Netanyahu is under no legal obligation to resign if charges
are brought against him and has said he plans to serve Israel for many more
years. He can still argue, at a pre-trial hearing whose date has not been set,
against the formal filing of bribery and fraud charges against him.
The election, brought forward from November, was widely seen
in Israel as a bid by Netanyahu to win a renewed mandate in the hopes that it
would strengthen his hand in the legal proceedings against him.
“I am not afraid of threats and I am not deterred by the
media. The public has given me its full confidence, clearly and unequivocally,
and I will continue to do everything in order to serve you, the citizens of
Israel,” he said on Facebook on Tuesday.