The new alliance of right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the centre-right Kadima party has given his exhausted coalition a new lease of life. Since becoming the largest party in 2009, Likud relied on a variety of minority extremist parties to retain a majority in parliament, but with Kadima becoming part of the government, Netanyahu now has the backing of 94 out of the 120 members of parliament.
This will dramatically improve Netanyahu's ability to shape legislation and set the political agenda, as the new broad base of the coalition, with seven parties, will dilute the power of any one faction. The new deputy prime minister will be Kadima leader Shaul Mofaz, who will attend all closed sessions of the cabinet, including those that deal with security and diplomatic issues.
Under its previous leaders, Kadima has been firmly in favour of a two-state peace treaty with Palestine, arguing that the vital Jewish nature of Israel requires the Israelis to withdraw from the West Bank, and Gaza Strip. Its fervently nationalist agenda make it an easy fit with Likud, but its willingness to promote a two-state peace deal puts it at odds with most of Likud and its other allies, which prefer to try to achieve Israel's security by force.
The deal with Kadima has already infuriated Netanyahu's ultra-religious allies who had propped up his government in return for special deals. The religious Shas and ultra-orthodox United Torah Judaism Party have warned their government partners to expect a cultural civil war if they go ahead to enforce a court decision to force religious seminary students to serve in the military. This exemption has infuriated the secular majority of Israelis who regard the privileges granted to the ultra-religious as outrageous, so the new secularism that Kadima brings to the government will be popular.
