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Israeli president tasks Netanyahu with forming new government

Israeli president tasks Netanyahu with forming new government
Israeli president tasks Netanyahu with forming new government

2019-04-17 00:00:00 - Source: Baghdad Post

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.





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