Benyamin Netanyahu has been asked to form the new Israeli Cabinet by the President Shimon Peres after the snap elections earlier this month.

Netanyahu is the the leader of the far right wing Likud party, which won 27 seats, one behind the 28 won by the centrist Kadima party. The Israeli electoral process relies on the President to nominate the leader of the party which they think will most likely form a stable coalition government. This does not necessarily mean the leader of the party with the most votes as has been evidenced in the current elections.

Because of the inherent instability of the Israeli Knesset. It comes as no surprise that Netanyahu has called for unity between the parties. This will be hard to achieve however since Tzipi Livni leader of the Kadima party has stated that she would rather serve as opposition than serve in government alongside Netanyahu. Although an Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, reported that Ms Livni would consider joining a coalition which included the four largest parties, Likud, Labor, Kadima and Yisrael Beiteinu.

If Prime Minister Netanyahu manages to pull together a government, he will still face many challenges. The main campaign point of the Likud party throughout their campaign was the threat of Iran to Israel. Iran maintains that its uranium enrichment has and will continue to be solely for civilian energy. This more than anything has been deemed a threat to Israel as President Mahmoud Achmadinejad has repeatedly called for a destruction of the Jewish State.

Closer to home Israel has to continue to deal with the Palestinian Territories: the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. The Golan Heights have had aggressive settlement occurring for some time now which has escalated in the last several weeks. The conflict in Gaza although having moved towards a ceasefire has flared up multiple times in the last two weeks, and the opening of the Strip to movement has not yet been finalized.

Likud’s 1999 charter, “flatly rejects” any chance for a sovereign Palestinian state, however it supports Palestinian self-governance. This will affect the official American policy which has been maintained for decades of a ‘two state solution’. This policy is also backed by Kadima, who seem to be shaping up as the opposition of Netanyahu’s government. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, western backed leader of the West Bank has stated that unless the new Israeli government aims to work toward peace there would be no relations between the Palestinians and Israel.

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