Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday emerged victorious after the nation’s third election in a year, despite a looming corruption trial, dismaying the Palestinians who were angered by his hardline campaign pledges.
Monday’s election left the veteran right-winger in prime position to form a government and end a year of political deadlock, after similar votes in April and September last year proved inconclusive.
The central election committee said it had counted 90 percent of the vote, with breakdowns of the result in the media showing Netanyahu’s Likud party with 36 seats in the 120-member parliament.
Photo: AFP
That would mark the party’s best-ever result under Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister and its first to be indicted in office.
Netanyahu’s bloc, which includes Orthodox Jewish parties, is likely still one or two votes short of a majority, but his party spokesman said it was confident of luring defectors.
Likud’s main challenger, the centrist Blue and White party, was projected to win 32 seats.
Counting its center-left allies, as well as the mainly Arab Joint List alliance, the anti-Netanyahu camp was expected to control 54 to 55 seats.
While there remains no guarantee that Netanyahu can form a coalition, he hailed Monday’s election as a “giant” success.
“This is the most important victory of my life,” he told supporters in Tel Aviv, where people danced, sang and shouted “Bibi, king of Israel,” using the prime minister’s nickname.
Netanyahu campaigned on his tough position toward the Palestinians and on expanding Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
He also pledged to annex the Jordan Valley, a key part of the West Bank that Palestinian see as crucial for their future state, if he won.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the exit polls showed that “settlement, annexation and apartheid had won.”
Blue and White’s leader, former military chief Benny Gantz, admitted “disappointment” with the result.
However, he stressed that regardless of the final tally Netanyahu is still due to go on trial on March 17 after being charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust.
“In two weeks, he will be in court,” Gantz said.
While Netanyahu will likely be tapped by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin to form a government, he has no immediate path to a 61-seat majority.
The projections indicate that the secular, nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party won six or seven seats and might again be able to play kingmaker, the same position it was in following the April and September votes.
Party leader Avigdor Lieberman served as defense minister in a previous Netanyahu government and his support would easily put Likud over the crucial 61-seat line.
However, after the September vote, Lieberman said he would only join a government of national unity — ruling out cooperation with the Orthodox parties allied to Netanyahu and the Arab camp that backed Gantz.
“There is no choice but to wait for the final results and only then conduct a situation assessment,” Lieberman said after the exit polls were released.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was