Blue Star Chronicles

Israeli President Shimon Peres has named Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel Prime Minister. Read about it below and see photo and video below.

Benjamin Netanyahu

Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu has been given six weeks to form the next Israeli government at which point he will be Israel’s Prime Minister. Israeli President Shimon Peres has been consulting with advisers since the Israeli elections last week to determine who would better be able to form a government as is required by Israeli election laws. The elections last week seemed to be a referendum on the population of Israel’s desire to a more conservative government.

The elections were too close to call between right wing parties with liberal parties barely making a showing. The Likud Party doubled its seats in Knesset, Israel’s Parliament. The Kadima Party, a right of center party lead by Tzipi Livni won one more seat than Likud. However, Livni, Israel’s Foreign Minister, failed to put together a government in December 2008, leading to the elections last week.

Netanyahu vows to put together a good strong coalition government.

“I plan to form a government as soon as possible with our natural partners,” the former Israeli prime minister said. “We have a government in our hands, but we want a broader one.”

“With God’s help, I shall head the coming government,” he said. “I am sure that I can manage to put together a good, broad-based and stable government that will be able to deal with the security crisis and the economic crisis.”

Al Jazeera is reporting these events and reports that the Palestinian government is stating that regardless of who is elected in Israel, there will not be peace.

“There will be no progress - stagnation at the very best, if not escalation.”

Their stance is that the only road to peace between Israel and Palestine is for Israel to commit to a two state solution and to continue to give up land to Palestine.