Forty days of tough negotiations - that’s what it took for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to form a new coalition government with two of the country’s rising political stars. Newcomers Yair Lapid of the centrist Yesh Atid party and pro-settler leader Naftali Bennett signed the coalition deal only days before US President Barack Obama’s visit in the region.
FRANCE 24 asked Ofer Bronchtein, a former advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Yithzak Rabin and the co-founder of the International Forum for Peace in the Middle East, what he thought of the country’s new government.
Can this government breathe new life into the moribund peace process with the Palestinians?
"That’s absolutely impossible with a government that includes Naftali Bennett. The leader of the Jewish Home party is against the creation of a Palestinian state, and he doesn’t believe in a future peace agreement. The international community and US President Barack Obama have repeatedly called for a freeze on settlement construction to put the peace process back on track. Bennett can’t accept that; it’s likely that such a policy would prompt him to leave the ruling coalition. If Netanyahu wanted to go ahead with a freeze on settlement construction, he would have to turn to his former Ultra-Orthodox allies."
Read more: Netanyahu’s ruling coalition ‘can collapse at any time’ - ISRAEL - FRANCE 24
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