Israel election: can Benjamin Netanyahu win on both fronts?

The Israeli prime minister is contesting corruption allegations in court while simultaneously trying to form a government. Sean O’Grady considers his hopes for success on both fronts

At least the corruption trial is likely to provide a distraction from Netanyahu’s political difficulties, if it doesn’t end them for good (EPA)

Even by the sometimes colourful standards of Israeli politics, the current situation in Jerusalem is bizarre. Of course Benjamin Netanyahu, the man who has dominated the scene on and off for more than two decades, is at the centre of the action. For most political leaders, having to form a coalition government from a collection of fractious and fragmentary parliamentary groupings would be perplexing challenge enough. To do so at the same time as attending a trial where you find yourself arraigned on quite serious charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust? Well, you might say, only in Israel – or at least, only with “Bibi”.

Forming another government, which would be his sixth since 1996, is probably the less tricky task, and certainly the less hazardous to Netanyahu’s continued freedom. His Likud party did “win” the general election on 23 March, but only in the sense of being the biggest minnow in the Knesset. Of the 120 members of the legislature, Likud accounts for 30, seven fewer than at the previous election. The next largest party, the centrist Yesh Atid, is on 17 seats, and its leader, an ex-news presenter called Yair Lapid, is even less likely than Netanyahu to find willing partners. The other 63 seats (in fact a majority) are divided up between a further 11 political parties. Having governed in a short-lived and unstable partnership with the previous largest opposition grouping – the centre-right Blue and White alliance, led by Benny Gantz – Netanyahu seems likely to turn once more to traditional allies on the religious right. The implications for what passes for a peace process in the region are obvious, despite the arrival of a new incumbent in the White House.

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