Netanyahu forms new government just ahead of deadline

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held on to his job announcing that he had hammered together a new coalition government just ahead of a midnight legal deadline.

But with a knife-edge majority of just one seat in the 120-member parliament expectations were that he would have to expand the ruling alliance beyond his natural religious and rightist partners or battle for survival at every vote.

“I am leaving here to call the president and the speaker of the parliament to inform them that I have been able to build a government,” he said in remarks at the Knesset after marathon talks with Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett. “I am honoured to inform you that I have been successful in forming a government, which I will request is brought before the Knesset for its approval as soon as possible,” Rivlin’s office quoted the note as saying.

“The negotiations are over,” Bennett said on his official Twitter account, adding, “Now we get to work.”