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Comment and Opinion

Washington Institute: The Shape of Netanyahu’s Emerging Coalition, by David Makovsky

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The preliminary outlines of Binyamin Netanyahu’s fourth coalition are beginning to take shape ahead of the May 7 deadline for forming Israel’s next government. While final coalition agreements with the individual parties have yet to be signed, it will likely be a right-of-center government comprising 67 members of the 120-seat parliament, and its projected composition offers early indications of Israel’s near-term priorities and direction.

Led by Netanyahu’s Likud faction (which won 30 seats in the March elections), the coalition will likely include the following parties: Kulanu (10 seats), Jewish Home (8), Shas (7), United Torah Judaism (6), and Yisrael Beitenu (Israel Is Our Home) (6). The resultant government is expected be more hawkish on foreign policy, more ultraorthodox in composition, and more populist in economic orientation. These dimensions will create challenges for Netanyahu, who is well aware that when it comes to foreign relations, it is easier to govern from the center than from the right.

ROLE OF THE RIGHT

Netanyahu’s past modus operandi was to win elections from the right, then try to edge toward the center when building his coalition. During last month’s campaign, however, declining poll numbers led him to believe he had to box himself in to garner enough votes. Accordingly, he made clear that he did not want a national unity government with the rival Labor Party, alleging that the policy gaps were too wide. Although this won him adherents on the right, it meant he would not be able to incorporate key leftward voices in his coalition.

In his past two governments, Netanyahu was careful to include a prominent leader and party from the center-left, especially when it came to the Palestinian issue. In 2009, it was a fifteen-member faction led by Labor’s Ehud Barak. And in 2013, he secured twenty-five coalition seats by naming Justice Minister Tzipi Livni as co-chief negotiator in the peace process and including Finance Minister Yair Lapid as another voice counseling moderation. This time, however, Labor leader Isaac Herzog has made clear that his party will not be a fifth wheel in a right-leaning government, an idea he also resisted during the previous government.

Yet the right’s apparent triumph may not be as complete as some believe. For example, members of the Jewish Home settler faction will no longer be in charge of the Housing Ministry as they were in the previous government, when they immediately created tension with Washington over settlement policy. Affordable housing inside sovereign Israel was a central issue in the campaign, so the party most associated with lowering the cost of living — Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu — has been pushing to take over the housing portfolio. Accordingly, Kulanu member Yoav Galant is now expected to head that ministry. During the election, Kahlon reiterated his belief that Israelis should not settle beyond the major blocs adjacent to the West Bank security barrier; the question is whether the new coalition’s settlement approach will reflect this view, in practice if not in stated policy. The previous housing minister, settler leader Uri Ariel, will reportedly take over the settlement portfolio in the Agriculture Ministry, but this move is a step down, so it is unclear what resources he will have at his disposal.

Read the article in full at the Washington Institute.