This will certainly be a blow for Jared Kushner, but Trump’s cozying up to Netanyahu might not have been for the reasons the Israeli prime minister hoped anyway
Mairav Zonszein
New York
@MairavZ
With no clear winner in Israel’s election this week — as the Blue and White party and the incumbent Likud party are so far basically neck-and-neck, with 32 seats and 31 seats out of 120 respectively — the next governing coalition in Israel may not be formed for several weeks. While it seems unlikely Netanyahu will remain prime minister, it is still premature to count him out. But what is clear – as could have been predicted before this second election, five months after Netanyahu failed to form a governing coalition –is that while Netanyahu’s career as prime minister may be over, a nationalist right-wing agenda prevails.
The Blue and White Party — led by former IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz and by Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu Party — may be Likud’s rivals, but they share that agenda. That means an end to settlements, an end to the military occupation of Palestinians, and work towards a negotiated two-state solution along pre-1967 borders is simply not on the agenda.
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Categories: Arab World, Asia, Israel