Israeli PM has until midnight to form government but no breakthrough in sight

Benjamin Netanyahu has until midnight to form a new ruling coalition or face the possible end of his decade of leadership of Israel.

As the hours ticked by, there was no sign of a breakthrough in talks with the far-right former defence minister Avigdor Lieberman. Missing the deadline could end the prime minister’s bid to lead the next government, a scenario he intends to avoid by preemptively triggering another election.

The ruling Likud party gathered in the newly elected parliament, the Knesset, on Wednesday afternoon to push legislation to dissolve it. That would kick off a potentially lengthy summer election campaign, even though the country voted in national polls last month.

Under Israeli election law, Netanyahu has until midnight (2100 GMT) on Wednesday to tell the president, Reuven Rivlin, whether he has put together an administration after his rightwing bloc came out ahead in elections in April.

Netanyahu threatens to call fresh election as coalition talks falter Read more

Failure to forge a coalition may take the task out of Netanyahu’s hands, with Rivlin potentially asking another legislator, either from the prime minister’s party or from the opposition, to try.

That presidential move, which would sideline Netanyahu, can be avoided with a coalition agreement deal or if parliament disbands and votes for an election, with a September date widely mentioned.

The political commentator Chemi Shalev, writing in the leftwing Haaretz newspaper, said a last-minute agreement was still possible, that Netanyahu would still be the favourite to win a new poll, and that his critics were fantasising about a world without him.

“It’s not an easy task, given his decade in power and the four more years he supposedly had coming. Young Israelis can’t even begin to imagine an Israel without him: Netanyahu as prime minister is all they’ve ever known,” Shalev wrote.

Lieberman has sought guarantees on a draft bill he championed that would force ultra-Orthodox religion students, who are largely exempt from conscription, to serve in the army. He said on Wednesday he was not backing down in what he termed a matter of principle over the conscription issue, and he denied Likud allegations that his real intention was to oust Netanyahu.

“I am not a vengeful man and I don’t hold a grudge,” said Lieberman, who last year resigned as defence chief in a dispute with Netanyahu over his policy on Gaza.

Without the support of Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu party, which has five seats in the 120-member Knesset, Netanyahu cannot put together a majority government of rightwing and religious factions led by Likud, but he also needs support from ultra-Orthodox politicians.

Political commentators said that as the prospects dimmed for a compromise with Lieberman, Netanyahu would focus his efforts on enlisting the 61 votes needed in parliament to approve a new election.

A new election could complicate US efforts to press ahead with Donald Trump’s peace plan in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even before it has been announced, Palestinians have rejected it as a blow to their aspirations for statehood.

The White House team behind the proposal, including Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, is in the Middle East to drum up support for an economic “workshop” in Bahrain next month to encourage investment in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. The group is due in Israel on Thursday.

Despite facing potential indictments in three corruption cases, Netanyahu had appeared to be on course for a fifth term as head of a rightwing bloc after he squeezed past the centrist challenger Benny Gantz, a former head of the Israeli armed forces.

Public attention had been focused less on coalition-building and more on moves Netanyahu loyalists were planning in parliament to grant him immunity and pass a law ensuring such protection could not be withdrawn by the supreme court.

Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing in the cases and is due to argue at a pre-trial hearing in October against the attorney general’s intention, announced in February, to indict him on bribery and fraud charges.

Reuters contributed to this report