Peres taps Netanyahu to form Israel's new government

By Ethan Bronner and Alan Cowell

Friday, February 20, 2009
JERUSALEM: President Shimon Peres invited Benjamin Netanyahu, head of the conservative Likud Party, to form the next Israeli government Friday following inconclusive elections 10 days ago.

Almost immediately, Netanyahu launched an appeal to adversaries to overcome their differences and form a government of national unity to meet "huge challenges" including what he termed Iran's development of nuclear weapons and its sponsorship of "terrorism" in Lebanon and Gaza.

Netanyahu will have six weeks for try to put together a government.

Israel's elections last week ended with the Kadima Party led by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni edging past Likud to the top spot with 28 seats, compared with 27 for Likud and 15 for Avigdor Lieberman's far-right Yisrael Beiteinu Party, out of 120 seats in Parliament.

A stable government needs a commitment of at least 61 seats. In negotiations before Peres' announcement, Netanyahu secured a promised total of 65 seats from supporters including Lieberman's party, the ultra-Orthodox Sephardic party Shas, with 11 seats, and several smaller religious parties.

At a brief appearance with Peres on Friday, Netanyahu appealed directly to Livni and to Ehud Barak, leader of the smaller Labor Party, to meet him for discussions on forming a national unity government.

"Let us work together for the state of Israel," he said.

Livni has signalled that she is uninterested in joining any government that she does not head, and told supporters on Thursday that Kadima would probably go into the opposition.

Peres met on Friday with both Netanyahu and Livni, who hinted that her position had not changed, Reuters reported. "A large government has no value if it does not have a path," she said. Asked if she was ready to go into opposition she said: "If necessary, certainly," Reuters reported.

On Thursday, Livni said: "Today, the foundation was laid for an extreme right-wing government led by Netanyahu. This is not our way, and there is nothing for us in such a government."

She added that she "would not serve as a fig leaf for a government of paralysis."

Kadima favors continuing the peace talks with the Palestinian Authority that Livni has been leading, while Netanyahu believes that the talks have been largely fruitless and that emphasis should be placed on building the Palestinians' institutions and economy.

Lieberman's anti-Arab stands, including a demand that all Arab citizens sign a loyalty oath to the Jewish state, have alienated many in Livni's party. It is widely felt that a government with Netanyahu and Lieberman in charge would be narrowly based and unstable and would find little favor in Washington, leading to another election before long.

Netanyahu, widely known as "Bibi," is a politician of long standing in Israel. He served as Israel's delegate to the United Nations and went on to become deputy foreign minister.

After Likud's defeat in the 1993 election, he seized the party leadership and was prime minister from 1996 to 1999. When he lost the elections in 1999, he resigned his seat in Parliament and his leadership of Likud. He returned to the leadership to suffer a humiliating defeat in elections in 2006.