Leader of Israel Centrist Party Kadima Agrees to Join Netanyahu’s Coalition
Source: NY Times
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the chairman of the opposition Kadima Party struck a deal early Tuesday morning to form a unity government, a surprise move that staves off early elections and creates a new coalition with a huge legislative majority.
According to the three-page agreement that Mr. Netanyahu and the opposition leader, Shaul Mofaz, signed after midnight, Mr. Mofaz will become a deputy prime minister, standing in for Mr. Netanyahu when he is abroad and joining all closed sessions of the cabinet.
A former defense minister and military chief who has been critical of the government’s aggressive focus on the Iranian nuclear threat, Mr. Mofaz will be “in charge of the process with the Palestinians,” according to a Kadima spokesman, Yuval Harel, who said that “part of the deal is to turn on the process.”
The unity agreement came hours after the Israeli Parliament took the first steps toward dissolving itself ahead of elections scheduled for Sept. 4 rather than at the end of the government’s term in October 2013. With his coalition divided over how to replace a law expiring Aug. 1 that exempted many ultra-Orthodox Jews from military service, Mr. Netanyahu had said in a speech to the convention of his right-leaning Likud Party on Sunday night that he wanted early elections to avoid the instability of a campaign atmosphere stretching over more than a year.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/world/middleeast/shaul-mofaz-agrees-to-join-benjamin-netanyahus-coalition.html
If the extremist minority parties that are usually necessary for a legislative majority are marginalized, it could portend some interesting developments for both Israeli-Palestinian relations and internal religious divisions.
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