Israeli crisis deepens

In his bid to form a coalition government, Benyamin Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud Party, has signed an agreement with the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party that will give it five cabinet posts. Party leader Avigdor Lieberman is to become Israel's foreign secretary.

Likud won 27 seats in the elections in February, one less than Kadima. But Netanyahu was asked to form a government because the rightist parties together have 65 seats in the 120-member Knesset.

It will need further political horse trading to bring the smaller right-wing parties, Shas, Jewish Home and United Torah Judaism, on board. But if Netanyahu succeeds, then his will be the most right-wing government in Israel's history—beholden to parties based on the Jewish settlers in the Occupied Territories and with a racist advocate of ethnic cleansing as its international representative.

Link to con.