Israel set for crucial talks on who should be next PM

Israel was set for crucial discussions yesterday on who should try to form the next government as last week’s deadlocked election threatened Benjamin Netanyahu’s long reign as prime minister. President Reuven Rivlin was to hold separate meetings with all the political parties voted into the latest parliament, to hear their recommendations on who should be the premier. The political parties will arrive in order of the number of votes received. That means ex-military chief Benny Gantz’s centrist Blue and White alliance will arrive first, since it won 33 seats out of parliament’s 120, two more than Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party. The mainly Arab Joint List alliance has won 13 seats, and ex-defence minister Avigdor Lieberman’s nationalist Yisrael Beitenu won eight.