JERSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu planned to sign agreements Thursday to form a government with Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett, two dynamic, first-time politicians who represent vastly different constituencies but teamed up to turn Israel’s coalition negotiations into a bitter six-week struggle of slights and squabbles.
The new coalition will include 68 of Parliament’s 120 members, from five factions, and will be led by 21 ministers, down from 30 in Netanyahu’s previous government. It excludes the ultra-Orthodox parties for only the third time since 1977, leaving a mix of right-wing nationalists and center-leftists.
Most analysts see it as a weak, fragmented group that will have trouble tackling tough issues.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders and others left out of the coalition vowed to form a vigorous opposition, predicting class warfare and denouncing the government as a bourgeois one dominated by settlers and “tycoons.”
Speaking to members of the combined Likud-Beiteinu group at the Parliament building Thursday, Netanyahu described the defense and foreign ministries as the most important, and suggested he would soon return the public focus to the Iranian nuclear threat and other security matters that are his forte.
“We kept power,” Netanyahu cited as his main accomplishment. “This term will be one of the most challenged in Israel’s history.”
