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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Labor joins Israeli coalition |
| 2009-03-25 |
| Israel's Labor party has voted to join a governing coalition led by Benyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister-designate and Likud's leader. The poll victory by 680 to 507 votes followed considerable debate and opposition at the centre-left Labor party's headquarters in Tel Aviv on Tuesday. It means that Netanyahu has secured enough support in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, to form a ruling coalition. With Labor's support, Netanyahu has 66 seats in the 120-seat Knesset - 27 from Likud, 13 from Labor, 15 from the nationalist Yisrael Beitenu and 11 from orthodox Jewish party Shas. Earlier in the day Ehud Barak, the Labor leader, had made a deal with Netanyahu to join the coalition - an unprecedented move to unilaterally act before gaining his party's support. "It has been a scene of mixed emotions here for many of the members of the Labor party - some are speculating that it will be then end, others that it will revive the party," Ayman Mohyeldin, Al Jazeera's correspondent at the conference, said. "The centre of this coalition is to the extreme right: Likud, Shas, Yisrael Beitenu ... What many people here are now saying is that Labor party has now shifted to the right," Mohyeldin said. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 Earlier in the day Ehud Barak, the Labor leader, had made a deal with Netanyahu to join the coalition - an unprecedented move to unilaterally act before gaining his party's support These Sayeret guys sure stick together. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2009-03-25 04:43 |