Hawkish Netanyahu to become next Israeli PM

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

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Hawkish Israeli politician Benjamin Netanyahu was tasked on Friday with forming a new Israeli government, fuelling concerns that a right-wing coalition could torpedo the Middle East peace process.

At a ceremony at President Shimon Peres' residence, the Likud leader Netanyahu urged Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of the governing Kadima Party and Defense Minister Ehud Barak of the Labour Party to join his government.

Tzipi Livni, the moderate foreign minister also vying for Israel's top job, appeared to leave the door open Friday to teaming up with Netanyahu. However, her price for doing so may well be too high: a rotation arrangement in which both she and Netanyahu would serve as prime minister.

Call for unity government

President Peres' decision to tap Netanyahu - popularly known as Bibi in Israel - ended days of speculation and gave him six weeks to put together a ruling coalition.

The question now is whether Netanyahu will form a narrow government with his hard-line allies or a broad government along with Livni.

His choice will have serious ramifications for Mideast peacemaking.

"I call on the members of all the factions ... to set politics aside and put the good of the nation at the center," former PMNetanyahu said during a low-key ceremony at the president's residence in Jerusalem, according to the Associated Press.

Emerging from her meeting with Peres, the Kadima leader Livni said she would not join a hard-line government and was prepared to sit in the opposition "if necessary."

"I will not be able to serve as a cover for a lack of direction. I want to lead Israel in a way I believe in, to advance a peace process based on two states for two peoples," Livni said.

In his brief speech, Netanyahu did not directly mention Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and made no mention of the U.S.-backed two-state solution, focusing instead on what he said was the threat from Iran.

"Iran is seeking to obtain a nuclear weapon and constitutes the gravest threat to our existence since the war of independence. The responsibility we face is to achieve security for our country, peace with our neighbors and unity among us," Agence France-Presse quoted him as saying.

Palestinians wait commitment

Reacting to the nomination, the Palestinian Authority said it would not deal with the new Israeli government if it is not committed to the peace process.

"We will not deal with the Israeli government unless it accepts a two-state solution and accepts to halt settlements and to respect past accords," President Mahmud Abbas's spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said.

The choice of Netanyahu was cemented on Thursday when Avigdor Lieberman, who heads the hawkish Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) Party, endorsed Netanyahu.

Lieberman's party, which based its campaign on requiring Israel's Arab citizens to swear loyalty to the Jewish state or lose their citizenship, came in third place in the Feb. 10 election, after Kadima and Netanyahu's Likud.

With the Kadima leader Livni out, Netanyahu might have little choice but to forge a coalition with nationalist and religious parties opposed to peacemaking with the Palestinians and Israel's other Arab neighbors.

This could set Israel on a collision course with the U.S., the Jewish state's top international patron, and its new president, who has vowed to make Mideast peace a top priority. Netanyahu's hold on power would be more tenuous in a narrow coalition of rightists, where his allies could bring down the government in the face of any concession for peace.