After six weeks of talks, finally a government

Preamble: After six weeks of wrangling, and hours before the deadline, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu headed to President Shimon Peres’s official residence in Jerusalem on Saturday night to announce that he had succeeded in cobbling together a coalition — comprising 68 of the Knesset’s 120 members. The partner parties: Likud-Beytenu (31 seats), Yesh Atid (19), Jewish Home (12) and Hatnua (6).

Netanyahu has spent the past few days filling the various ministerial posts, and trying to keep his Likud rivals happy — with some success. Hours of talks yesterday finally yielded a deal with Silvan Shalom, a prickly senior Likud figure, whom he really didn’t want to alienate.

The new Cabinet may not be ideal for Netanyahu, who’s heading into his second consecutive term as prime minister, and third term in all (he was PM from 1996-9), but it presents a fascinating lineup that could effect an inward shift in the government’s national focus.

Nowhere was this sea change more apparent than in the deal between the Jewish Home party and Yesh Atid, whose leaders, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, forged understandings on cost-of-living issues and ultra-Orthodox army enlistment. Striking from their absence from the coalition are the two ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas (11 seats) and United Torah Judaism (7), for whom the intended reforms on drafting Haredi males are anathema.