Netanyahu makes big concessions for fragile coalition in Israel

Benjamin Netanyahu has assembled one of the most rightwing coalitions in Israel's 67-year history, after handing positions and perks at the eleventh hour to the pro-settler Jewish Home party to secure the slenderest of governing mandates.

The prime minister's Israeli and Palestinian critics were quick to condemn the new government on Thursday, but analysts said that with a tiny one-seat majority, it was unlikely to prove as effective as its supporters hope, or as its detractors fear.

The brinkmanship involved in the coalition negotiation, which dragged on to within two hours of the period permitted by Israeli law, tarnished the aura of invincibility around one of Israel's longest-serving prime ministers.

With just 61 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, the coalition of five rightwing and Jewish ultra-Orthodox parties will probably struggle to pursue its ambitious legislative agenda. To survive it will need to bring in other parties or defectors from the opposition, or risk being held hostage by any of its own constituent parties or individual MPs.

"They will find it very difficult to govern and to make any decisions that don't have full consensus," said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute. "That's very bad news for Netanyahu, who called for an early election in order to improve his stability in governance, and is ending up with a much less governable coalition."

With the ink still drying on the new government's final coalition deal, officials in Mr Netanyahu's Likud party were already publicising the prime minister's wish to broaden his coalition to include Labor party leader Isaac Herzog, his centre-left opposition rival, in a national unity government.

However, Mr Herzog was quick to dismiss the notion. "We will not be a fifth wheel and we have no intention of saving Netanyahu from the hole he has dug for himself," he said on Thursday.

The new government is expected to be sworn in on Monday, and Mr Netanyahu has already ordered Likud MPs to support a vote to expand the number of ministers in his cabinet, reversing a reform by his previous government that limits their number to 18.

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"In a country where there is no constitution, judicial activism is pretty much the only check you have on government," said Mikhael Manekin, managing director of Molad, an Israeli think-tank.

The political wins for the pro-settler lobby come at a time when the peace process is on hold indefinitely and Israel's relations with the US and some European countries are souring.

Nonetheless, as part of its coalition agreement, Likud also promised to increase the budgets for education and for Ariel University, located in a settlement, and agreed to add armour plating to buses running in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The new government may also revive legislation mooted in its previous term that brought criticism from its critics and many international observers, including proposed laws limiting foreign funding for non-governmental organisations and enshrining Israel as a Jewish state.

Saeb Erekat, a Palestine Liberation Organisation official who was a negotiator in past peace talks with Israel, said on Thursday: "With the dust beginning to settle on the new Israeli coalition government, the face of a new form of racist, discriminatory Israel has been revealed."

But many Israelis said they did not expect his cabinet to survive through its term, at least not in its present form.

"The coalition in its current shape won't see the new year of 2017," said Amit Segal, chief political correspondent for Israel's Channel 2 news.

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