News analysis: Netanyahu´s government gains political stability after gets parliament approval

Source: Xinhua | 04-01-2009 09:44

JERUSALEM, March 31 (Xinhua) -- When a swearing-in ceremony for Israel's 32nd government was held in the Knesset (parliament) on Tuesday evening, the incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to gain fruits from his recent persisting efforts for a broad-based coalition.

BIGGEST CABINET

Netanyahu presented to the lawmakers what he said a stable national unity coalition, which can be the largest cabinet in Israeli history with some 30 ministers and at least another six deputy ministers.

"Netanyahu had done everything in his power to create a stable coalition as possible amid concerns a narrow right-wing alliance would be unable to survive for long," Daniel Diker, a senior policy analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs told Xinhua on Tuesday.

According to coalition deals signed with Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party Chairman Avigdor Lieberman will be given the position of foreign minister and deputy prime minister.

Center-left Labor party leader Ehud Barak will retain his current position as defense minister and will take deputy prime minister as well, while ultra-Orthodox Jewish party Shas Chairman Eli Yishai would accept the minister of interior with the ceremonial role of deputy prime minister.

Daniel Hershkowitz, the chairman of national religious party Habayit Hayehudi, will be granted the science portfolio. "He actually sacrificed in a sense the benefits of important positions in order to bring other factions in." Diker said.