What do we think of Israels coalition

[BritishSword]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formed a unity government on Tuesday in a surprise move that could give him a freer hand to attack Iran's nuclear facilities and seek peace with the Palestinians.

The coalition deal, negotiated secretly over the past days and sealed at a private meeting overnight, means the centrist Kadima party will join Netanyahu's rightist coalition, creating a majority with 94 of parliament's 120 seats.

The alliance, which replaces plans announced just two days earlier for a snap election in September, will be one of the biggest in Israel's history - though an opinion poll found only 39 percent of Israelis supported it and 34 percent were opposed.

"This government is good for security, good for the economy and good for the people of Israel," Netanyahu told a joint news conference with Kadima leader Shaul Mofaz, a former defence chief who began secret talks on a deal last week.

The new coalition would, Netanyahu said, focus on redrafting the budget, on electoral reform and on what he called sharing out military duties across the population - his religious coalition partners had unsettled the government by opposing plans to end exemptions from the draft for ultra-Orthodox Jews.

Among other goals of the new government would, the prime minister said, be "to try to advance a responsible peace process" with the Palestinians: "Not all has been agreed but we have a very strong basis for continued action," he said, urging Palestinians to "come sit with us for serious negotiations".

Asked how the new alliance would address Israel's concern that Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons, Netanyahu replied: "Of course one of the important issues is Iran."

Environment Minister Gilad Erdan said the accord would help build support for any action against Iran's atomic programme, which Israel views as a threat to its survival despite Iranian insistence that it is seeking only nuclear energy, not bombs.

"An election wouldn't stop Iran's nuclear programme. When a decision is taken to attack or not, it is better to have a broad political front, that unites the public," he told Israel Radio.

PEACE TALKS AN "IRON CONDITION"

Mofaz has long blamed Netanyahu for the failure of peace talks with the Palestinians. He said on Tuesday that "entering peace negotiations was an iron condition for forming the unity government."

Peace talks have been suspended for 18 months in a dispute over Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank and Palestinians say they cannot resume unless such construction is frozen. Netanyahu has called for talks without preconditions.

The Palestinians responded cautiously.

In an interview with Reuters, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said it was too soon to comment directly on the new Israeli coalition. He was waiting for a reply from Netanyahu to a letter he sent last month and he was ready to engage if the Israeli leader proposed "anything promising or positive".

A spokesman for Abbas called on Israel to "use the opportunity provided by the expansion of its coalition government" to expedite a peace accord, demanding Israel halt building settlements on land the Palestinians want for a state.

"The new coalition government needs to be a coalition of peace and not a coalition for war," Nabil Abu Rdainah said.

The new coalition accord says the new administration will "work towards the resumption of the peace process and promoting talks with the Palestinian Authority".

But it also noted "the importance of maintaining defensible borders", a phrase Netanyahu has used in the past to deflect Palestinian demands for extensive Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, territory captured in a 1967 war.


The accord stunned the political establishment and drew swift censure from the centre-left Labour party, which surveys had predicted would make electoral gains at Kadima's expense.

"This is a pact of cowards and the most contemptible and preposterous zigzag in Israel's political history," Labour leader Shelly Yachimovich was quoted as saying in the media, while some commentators hailed Netanyahu's political prowess.

Interesting maneuver. What does it mean for our goals? What do you think of this.

[Zelhar]

This is not going to change anything material. Kadima is a leftist party of opportunists and it was going to lose half it sits if elections were held today, so they jumped into the coalition to spend some more time as parasitical politicians.