The attacks, many involving car bombs, erupted less than a week before Iraqis in much of the country are scheduled to vote in the country’s first elections since the 2011 U.S. troop withdrawal, testing security forces’ ability to prevent bloodshed.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but coordinated attacks are a favorite tactic of al-Qaida’s Iraq branch.

Iraqi officials believe the insurgent group is growing stronger and increasingly coordinating with allies fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad across the border. They say rising lawlessness on the Syria-Iraq frontier and cross-border cooperation with a Syrian group, the Nusra Front, has improved the militants’ supply of weapons and foreign fighters.

Nearly all of the deadly attacks reported by police officials were bombings.

They were unusually broad in scope, striking not just Baghdad but also the western Sunni city of Fallujah, the ethnically contested oil-rich city of Kirkuk and towns in the predominantly Shiite south. Other attacks struck north of the capital, including the former al-Qaida stronghold of Baqouba and Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit.

Windows rattled from the force of a blast in central Baghdad when a bomb struck the central commercial district of Karrada.

In another of the Baghdad explosions, a parked car bomb exploded in a bus station in the eastern suburbs of Kamaliya, killing four. Qassim Saad, an Arabic language teacher in an elementary school nearby, said his pupils began screaming as the explosion shattered windows and sparked panic.

He described a chaotic scene where security forces opened fire into the air upon arrival to disperse onlookers. Wooden carts carrying vegetables, fruit and other goods were overturned and stained with blood, and several nearby buildings and shops were damaged by the blast.

Like many Iraqis after major bombings, he criticized the government for not doing enough to prevent deadly attacks.

“I blame those who call themselves politicians in government (and) the security forces … for this bad security situation. They are doing nothing to help the people and are only looking out for their benefits,” he said.

A total of 10 were killed in the Baghdad attacks.

In Kirkuk, an oil-rich city about 290 kilometers (180 miles) from Baghdad, police said nine people were killed when six car bombs went off simultaneously. Three bombs exploded downtown — one in an Arab district, one in a Kurdish one, and one in a Turkomen district. The rest went off elsewhere in the city, which is home to a mix of ethnic groups with competing claims.

In addition to the bombings, drive-by shooters armed with pistols fitted with silencers shot and killed a police officer while he was driving his car in the two of Tarmiyah, 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Baghdad.

Hospital officials confirmed the casualty tolls. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to release details to reporters.

Although violence in Iraq has fallen from its peak in 2006 and 2007, bombings and other attacks remain common.

The blasts struck a day after a series of attacks left 10 people dead, including a Sunni candidate running in the upcoming provincial elections. The most serious attack Sunday happened when a booby-trapped body exploded among a group of policemen, who were trying to inspect the body that was left in the street.

Iraqis vote Saturday in what will be the country’s first election since U.S. troops withdrew in December 2011. The election, for local-level officials, will be a test of the strength of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s political bloc as well as the ability of security forces to keep the country safe.

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s prime minister resigned Friday due togovernment infighting that threatens to leave a void in the state’s highest ranks at a time of rising tensions and sporadic violence enflamed by the civil war in neighboring Syria.

Najib Mikati stepped down to protest the parliament’s inability to agree on a law to govern elections set for later this year, as well as for the Cabinet’s refusal to extend the tenure of the country’s police chief, who is about to retire.

Underpinning the political crisis are Lebanon’s hugely sectarian politics and the fact that the country’s two largest political blocs support opposite sides in Syria’s civil war. Lebanon and Syria share a complex network of political and sectarian ties, and many fear that violence in Syria will spread to Lebanon.

In a speech aired live Friday on Lebanese TV, Mikati said he hoped his departure would force other politicians to find solutions.

“Today I announce the government’s resignation, hoping that God willing it will provide an impetus for the primary political blocs in Lebanon to assume their responsibilities,” he said.

“There is no way to be loyal to Lebanon and protect it other than through dialogue that opens the way to the formation of a salvation government that represents all Lebanese political powers and takes responsibility for saving the nation,” he said.

There were signs of rising tensions before Mikati’s speech.

Gunmen who support and oppose Syrian President Bashar Assad clashed Friday in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, leaving six people dead and more than 20 wounded, according to state-run National News Agency. Clashes between the Sunni neighborhood of Bab Tabbaneh, which supports Syria’s rebels, and the adjacent Alawite neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen, which supports Assad, have broken out repeatedly in recent months.

Also in Tripoli, the Lebanese army said a soldier was killed and several others wounded during an army raid to capture several gunmen.

Mikati’s resignation follows months of political wrangling in the Lebanese parliament that has yet to agree on a law to govern parliamentary elections planned for June. The failure to agree on a law could delay the vote.

Also, the Hezbollah-dominated Cabinet has refused to extend the tenure of Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi, Lebanon’s police chief, who is considered a foe by the Islamic militant group.

In his speech, Mikati said Rifi’s departure would send the police department into “a vacuum.”

Lebanese President Michel Suleiman must accept Mikati’s resignation for it to be official, a step that is all but a formality.

This will open the way for a new round of political jockeying as the parliamentary blocs try to build coalitions to choose a new prime minister. Top posts will remain vacant until a new Cabinet is in place.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the U.S. was “watching the situation in Lebanon very, very carefully.”

“Our basic view of this is that we believe the Lebanese people deserve a government that reflects their aspirations and one that will strengthen Lebanon’s stability, its sovereignty and its independence,” she told reporters. “And we have grave concerns about the role that Hezbollah plays.”

Jordan: President Barack Obama warned Friday that an “enclave for extremism” could fill a leadership void in war-torn Syria, a chilling scenario for an already tumultuous region, especially for Jordan, Syria’s neighbor and a nation at the crossroads of the struggle for stability in the Middle East.

In a significant step toward easing regional tensions, Obama also brokered a phone call between leaders from Israel and Turkey that resulted in an extraordinary apology from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a deadly 2010 raid on a Gaza-bound Turkish flotilla. The call marked a diplomatic victory for the president and a crucial realignment in the region, given Israel’s and Turkey’s shared interests, in particular the fear that Syria’s civil war could spill over their respective borders.

Obama said he remains confident that embattled Syrian leader Bashar Assad’s government will ultimately collapse. But he warned that when that happens, Syria would not be “put back together perfectly,” and he said he fears the nation could become a hotbed for extremists.

“I am very concerned about Syria becoming an enclave for extremism, because extremists thrive in chaos,” Obama said during a joint news conference with Jordan’s King Abdullah II. “They thrive in failed states, they thrive in power vacuums.”

More than 70,000 people have been killed during the two-year conflict in Syria, making it by far the deadliest of the Arab Spring uprisings that have roiled the region since 2011. Longtime autocrats in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and Libya have been ousted, ushering in new governments that are sometimes at odds with the Obama administration and its Mideast allies.

Obama’s 24-hour stop in Jordan marked his first visit to an Arab nation since the 2011 Mideast protests began. Jordan’s monarchy has clung to power in part by enacting political reforms, including parliamentary elections and significant revisions to the country’s 60-year-old constitution. Still, tensions continue to simmer, with the restive population questioning the speed and seriousness of the changes.

Protecting Abdullah is paramount to U.S. interests. The 51-year-old king is perhaps Obama’s strongest Arab ally and a key player in efforts to jumpstart peace talks between Palestinians and Israel. Jordan has a peace treaty with Israel, and that agreement has become even more significant given the rise of Islamist leaders in Egypt, which was the first Arab country to ink a treaty with the Jewish state, in the 1970s.

Egypt’s new leaders have so far pledged to uphold the treaty, though there are strong concerns in Israeland the U.S. about whether that will hold.

By virtue of geography, Jordan’s future is particularly vulnerable to the turmoil in the Middle East. It shares borders with Iraq, Israel and the West Bank, in addition to Syria. More than 460,000 Syrians have flowed across the Jordanian border seeking refuge since the civil war began, seeking an escape from the violence.

The flood of refugees has overwhelmed the country of 6 million people, straining Jordan’s resources, including health care and education, and pushing the budget deficit to a record high $3 billion last year. Abdullah also fears the half-million refugees could create a regional base for extremists and terrorists, saying recently that such elements were already “establishing firm footholds in some areas.”

Obama announced that his administration planned to work with Congress to allocate $200 million to Jordan to help ease the financial burden.

Despite the influx, Abdullah firmly declared Jordan would not close its borders to the refugees, many women and children.

“This is something that we just can’t do,” he said. “It’s not the Jordanian way. We have historically opened our arms to many of our neighbors through many decades of Jordan’s history.”

Obama had come to Jordan from Israel, where he spent three days coaxing Netanyahu to apologize to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for Israel’s role in the deaths of nine Turkish activists during a naval raid on a Gaza-bound international flotilla. The 20-minute phone call took place just before Obama departed, in a trailer on the airport tarmac near a waiting Air Force One, and resulted in the restoration of normal diplomatic relations between the two countries.

“The timing was good for that conversation to take place,” Obama said, adding that the phone call was the first step in rebuilding trust between Israel and Turkey.

The president opened the last full day of his Mideast trip with a series of stops around Jerusalem and Bethlehem, all steeped in political and religious symbolism.

Accompanied by Netanyahu and Israeli President Shimon Peres, Obama laid wreaths at the graves of Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism who died in 1904 before realizing his dream of a Jewish homeland, and former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995.

Obama and his hosts arrived at the Herzl grave site under cloudless skies. Obama approached Herzl’s resting place alone and bowed his head in silence. He turned briefly to ask Netanyahu where to place a small stone in the Jewish custom, then laid the stone atop the grave.

“It is humbling and inspiring to visit and remember the visionary who began the remarkable establishment of the State of Israel,” Obama wrote in a guestbook. “May our two countries possess the same vision and will to secure peace and prosperity for future generations.”

At Rabin’s grave a short walk away, Obama was greeted by members of the late leader’s family. He initially placed a stone on Rabin’s wife’s side of the grave, then returned to place one atop Rabin’s side. In a gesture linking the U.S. and Israel, the stone placed on Rabin’s grave was from the grounds of the Martin Luther King memorial in Washington, the White House said.

Friday’s stop at Herzl’s grave, together with Obama’s earlier viewing of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the ancient Hebrew texts, were an attempt by the president to emphasize his view that the rationale for Israel’s existence rests with its historical ties to the region and with a vision that predated the Holocaust. Obama was criticized in Israel for his 2009 Cairo speech in which he gave only the example of the Holocaust as reason justifying Israel’s existence.

Obama was to make a stop Saturday at Petra, Jordan’s fabled ancient city, before flying back to Washington.

Abdullah Ensour, a former liberal lawmaker known for fiery criticisms of the government when he was in parliament, was selected as part of a reform program aimed at defusing political unrest to stave off an Arab Spring-style uprising.

But he is also committed enough to Abdullah’s plan for cautious reforms to be the king’s choice for prime minister in October, when the sitting government was dissolved prior to parliamentary elections. Those elections were boycotted by the country’s largest opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, producing a legislature that has a heavy contingent of conservative tribal lawmakers traditionally loyal to the king but also a surprisingly large opposition bloc of about 50 Islamist, leftists, and others.

Mohammed al-Haj, head of the Islamist Centrist Party which won the largest bloc of 16 seats in elections on Jan. 23, said at least 80 out of 150 lawmakers voted for Ensour. “We gave him the chance to remain in office and pick his Cabinet from inside or outside parliament,” said al-Haj.

King Abdullah II formally confirmed Ensour’s appointment. Abdullah has in the past selected prime ministers, but he relinquished that right as part of the reform package announced last year.

A government official said Ensour will name his Cabinet this week, ahead of a regional tour by U.S. President Barack Obama that includes a stopover in Jordan.

Once the Cabinet is sworn in by the king, it will seek a parliamentary vote of confidence necessary to install it, said the official, speaking anonymously as he was not allowed to comment on matters related to cabinet formation.

In the letter that appointed Ensour, King Abdullah said the prime minister would remain in office for the next four years. Jordanians in street protests since the start of the Arab Spring have been critical of the king for changing his prime ministers frequently — at least four times in the past two years.

The king said the Cabinet should pursue further liberalization and decentralization. He did not mention any specific changes, but the king has repeatedly referred to a controversial election law that the opposition says favors the conservative tribal candidates, and which was the cause of the Brotherhood’s boycott.

Abdullah also said the Cabinet should target the government bureaucracy, known for nepotism, corruption and inefficiency. “We also want a white revolution in the public sector to improve its performance and skills, ensure transparency and better service to citizens,” he said.

He also called for immediate plans to improve the ailing economy of his resource-barren nation, which depends on U.S. aid to keep its economy afloat. Jordan is saddled by poverty, unemployment, a record budget deficit of $3 billion last year resulting from a rising energy bill and the cost of hosting more than 420,000 Syrian refugees.

BEIRUT: She was an English language tutor with an easy smile and an independent streak. He was a gym receptionist who wanted to better himself.

They met for English lessons, swapped views on life and fell in love. Three months ago, a notary married them before their friends and family — but not in the eyes of the Lebanese government.

The government has not recognized the marriage of Kholoud Sukkarieh and Nidal Darwish because a religious official did not register it. The case has sparked a fierce debate in Lebanon over civil marriage and how its legalization would affect the country’s tenuous sectarian system.

Public figures have spoken up, with the president suggesting a new law and the top Sunni cleric threatening Muslims who support it with damnation. Underlying these arguments is the deep sectarianism of Lebanon, where religious affiliation is often tied to where one lives, how one speaks and which TV station one watches. Many Lebanese seem to have a sixth sense for divining others’ sects based on dress, hometown and other factors.

Reflecting these divides — and perpetuating them, some argue — is a political system in which posts are allocated to specific religious groups. The parliament and Cabinet must be half Muslim and half Christian, while an unwritten agreement ensures, for example, that the president is a Christian, the prime minister is a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of parliament is a Shiite Muslim.
All significant political parties have well-known sectarian affiliations that are usually more important than their policies in attracting voters.

Defenders of this system say it is the only way that 4.2 million people from 18 recognized sects can share their tiny country without killing each other. Indeed, many of the sensitivities and arrangements trace back to the country’s brutal 15-year civil war and the agreement that ended it in 1990.

Others note that Lebanon’s system allows more freedom than the dictatorships in other Arab countries — exempting it from the recent uprisings against autocratic regimes.

Still, tensions are always high. Consider these recent news items:
— For weeks, Lebanese politicians have been arguing about revising a law that determines how sects’ votes are counted.
— On Jan. 24, a Christian allegedly shot and killed a Shiite and his son during a dispute over gravel, causing residents of the Shiite man’s village to block a major thoroughfare with burning tires.
— That same day, a hardline Muslim cleric took busloads of supporters to a ski resort in a Christian area, causing a tense stand-off and brief fisticuffs with residents. The army intervened.

Critics of the sectarian system, including the newlyweds, say it exacerbates such tensions and limits rights by viewing people primarily as members of a religious community.

“The underlying issue is how the Lebanese citizen relates to the state,” said Nadim Houry of Human Rights Watch. “Does he relate only through his religious community, which he was born into, or does he relate as a citizen with a set of rights directly from the state?”
The couple’s attempt to register their civil marriage is a push for latter.

“We dream of a country that is not sectarian and where people don’t just have rights from their sect,” said Sukkarieh, the bride. “We’re working to get rid of the sectarian system.”

Under conventional Lebanese law, marriages must be between members of the same sect and registered by a religious authority.
If people from different sects wish to marry, their only options are for one partner to convert or to marry abroad. This option is so common that Lebanese travel agents offer “civil marriage” packages, usually to Cyprus.

The persistent violence and the moribund peace plan offered by President Bashar Assad, now backed up by the appeal to refugees and his political opponents to return, underlined the intractable nature of the 22-month civil war that has killed more than 60,000 people and left the international community at a loss to find a way to end the bloodshed. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said two cars packed with explosives blew up near a military intelligence building in the town of Quneitra on Thursday, killing eight. Most of the dead were members of the Syrian military, the Observatory said. The Syrian government has not commented on the attacks.

There was no claim of responsibility for the blasts. Car bombs and suicide attacks targeting Syrian troops and government institutions have been the hallmark of Islamic militants fighting in Syria alongside rebels trying to topple Assad.

Quneitra is on the cease-fire line between Syria and Israel, which controls most of the Golan Heights after capturing the strategic territory from Syria in the 1967 war. More than half million Syrians have fled to neighboring countries of Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey during the 22-month civil war. They include opposition activists and defectors, including army officers, who have switched to the rebel side, fighting to topple Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for more than four decades.

The state-run SANA news agency said the government will help hundreds of thousands of citizens return whether they left “legally or illegally.” Syrian opposition figures abroad who want to take part in reconciliation talks will also be allowed back, SANA reported late Thursday.

If they “have the desire to participate in the national dialogue, they would be allowed to enter Syria,” SANA said, citing an Interior Ministry statement.

The proposed talks are part of Assad’s initiative to end the conflict that started as peaceful protests in March 2011 but turned into civil war. Tens of thousands of activists, their family members and opposition supporters remain jailed, according to international activist groups.

The opposition could not immediately be reached to comment the appeal. Its representatives have repeatedly rejected any talks that include Assad. The opposition — including the rebels fighting on the ground — insists Assad must step down. Their demand is backed by the international community, but Assad clings to power, vowing to crush the armed opposition.

SANAA, Yemen:  Al-Qaida’s No. 2 in Yemen died of wounds sustained in a U.S. drone attack last year in southern Yemen, the country’s official news agency and a security official said Thursday.
Saeed al-Shihri, a Saudi national who fought in Afghanistan and spent six years in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, was wounded in a missile attack in the southern city of Saada on Oct. 28, according to SABA news agency.
The agency said that he had fallen into a coma since then. It was not clear when he actually died.
A security official said that the missile had been fired by a U.S. -operated, unmanned drone aircraft. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
Yemen had previously announced al-Shihri’s death in a Sept. 10 drone attack in the province of Hadramawt. A subsequent DNA test however proved that the body recovered was not that of al-Shihri.
On Oct. 22, al-Shihri denied his own death in audio message posted on Jihadi websites.
Also known by the nom de guerre Abu Sufyan al-Azdi, he denounced at the time the Yemeni government for spreading the “rumor about my death … as though the killing of the mujahideen (holy warriors) by America is a victory to Islam and Muslims.”
Al-Shihri went through Saudi Arabia’s famous “rehabilitation” institutes after he returned to his home country, but then he fled to Yemen and became deputy to Nasser al-Wahishi, the leader of an al-Qaida group.
Al-Shihri’s death is considered a major blow to al-Qaida’s Yemen branch, known as al-Qaida in The Arabian Peninsula. Washington considers it the most dangerous of the group’s offshoots.
Al-Qaida in Yemen has been linked to several attempted attacks on U.S. targets, including the foiled Christmas Day 2009 bombing of an airliner over Detroit and explosives-laden parcels intercepted aboard cargo flights last year.
In 2011, a high-profile U.S. drone strike killed U.S.-born Anwar al-Awlaki, who had been linked to the planning and execution of several attacks targeting U.S. and Western interests, including the attempt to down a Detroit-bound airliner in 2009 and the plot to bomb cargo planes in 2010.
Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest nation, has fallen into lawlessness during a yearlong uprising starting in 2011, when millions of Yemenis took to the streets demanding the ouster of their longtime authoritarian ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Al-Qaida militants exploited the unrest and took control of large swaths of land in the south until last spring, when the military, backed by the U.S., managed to drive hundreds of militants out of major cities and towns.
Since then, the group has carried out deadly attacks targeting mostly security and military officials, including suicide bombings that targeted military and security compounds.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees say that the rocket landed in the village of Abu Taltal in Aleppo province after midnight Wednesday. The groups frequently report government bombardment of rebel-dominated regions.

The Observatory said a father, mother and four children whose ages raged between two and 11 were killed. The LCC said the family name was Hazrouni. Syria’s crisis began in March 2011 and has killed more than 60,000 people, the U.N. says.

While Netanyahu appeared positioned to serve a third term as prime minister, the results marked a major setback for his policies and could force him to make new concessions to restart long-stalled peace talks with the Palestinians.
More than 99 percent of the votes had been counted by Wednesday morning and results showed the hawkish and dovish blocs were split about evenly.

Netanyahu’s most likely partner was Yesh Atid, or There is a Future, a party headed by political newcomer Yair Lapid that showed surprising strength. Lapid has said he would only join a government committed to sweeping economic changes and a resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians.

Addressing his supporters early Wednesday, Netanyahu vowed to form as broad a coalition as possible. He said the next government would be built on principles that include reforming the contentious system of granting draft exemptions to ultra-Orthodox Jewish men and the pursuit of a “genuine peace” with the Palestinians. He did not elaborate, but the message seemed aimed at Lapid.

Shortly after the results were announced, Netanyahu called Lapid and offered to work together. “We have the opportunity to do great things together,” Netanyahu was quoted as saying by Likud officials.
Netanyahu’s Likud-Yisrael Beitenu alliance was set to capture about 31 of the 120 seats, significantly fewer than the 42 it held in the outgoing parliament and below the forecasts of recent polls.

With his traditional allies of nationalist and religious parties, Netanyahu could put together a shaky majority of 61 seats, results showed. But it would be virtually impossible to keep such a narrow coalition intact, though it was possible he could take an additional seat or two as numbers trickled in throughout the night.

The results capped a lackluster campaign in which peacemaking with the Palestinians, traditionally the dominant issue in Israeli politics, was pushed aside. Netanyahu portrayed himself as the only candidate capable of leading Israel at a turbulent time, while the fragmented opposition targeted him on domestic economic issues.

Netanyahu’s goal of a broader coalition will force him to make some difficult decisions. Concessions to Lapid, for instance, will alienate his religious allies. In an interview last week with The Associated Press, Lapid said he would not be a “fig leaf” for a hard-line, extremist agenda.

Lapid’s performance was the biggest surprise of the election. The one-time TV talk show host and son of a former Cabinet minister was poised to win 19 seats, giving him the second-largest faction in parliament. Presenting himself as the defender of the middle class, Lapid vowed to take on Israel’s high cost of living and to end the contentious system of subsidies and draft exemptions granted to ultra-Orthodox Jews while they pursue religious studies. The expensive system has bred widespread resentment among the Israeli mainstream.
Thanks to his strong performance, Lapid is now in a position to serve as the kingmaker of the next government. He will likely seek a senior Cabinet post and other concessions.

Yaakov Peri, a member of Lapid’s party, said it would not join unless the government pledges to begin drafting the ultra-Orthodox into the military, lowers the country’s high cost of living and returns to peace talks. “We have red lines. We won’t cross those red lines, even if it will cost us sitting in the opposition,” Peri told Channel 2 TV.
Addressing his supporters, a beaming Lapid was noncommittal, calling only for a broad government with moderates from left and right. “Israelis said no to the politics of fear and hatred,” he said. “And they said no to extremism and anti-democracy.”
There was even a distant possibility of Lapid and more dovish parties teaming up to block Netanyahu from forming a majority.
“It could be that this evening is the beginning for a big chance to create an alternative government to the Netanyahu government,” said Shelly Yachimovich, leader of the Labor Party, which won 15 seats on a platform pledging to narrow the gaps between rich and poor.
Although that seemed unlikely, Netanyahu clearly emerged from the election in a weakened state.
“We expected more seats in the parliament,” Danny Danon, a senior Likud member, told the AP. “But the bottom line is that Benjamin Netanyahu is the next prime minister of Israel.”
Under Israel’s system of proportional representation, seats in the 120-member parliament are allocated according to the percentage of votes a party gets. As leader of the largest party, Netanyahu is in the best position to form a coalition and be prime minister.
The results were shocking, given the steady stream of recent opinion polls forecasting a solid victory by Netanyahu and his allies. Netanyahu appeared to suffer because of his close ties to the ultra-Orthodox and perhaps from complacency. Many voters chose smaller parties, believing a Netanyahu victory was inevitable.
Tensions with the United States, Israel’s most important ally, also may have factored into the thinking. President Barack Obama was quoted last week as saying that Netanyahu was undermining Israel’s own interests by continuing to build Jewish settlements on occupied lands.
Netanyahu has won praise at home for drawing the world’s attention to Iran’s suspect nuclear program and for keeping the economy on solid ground at a time of global turmoil. In his speech, Netanyahu said that preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons would remain his top priority.
But internationally, he has repeatedly clashed with allies over his handling of the peace process.
Peace talks with the Palestinians have remained stalled throughout his term, in large part because of his continued construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians want a halt to settlement construction before talks begin. Netanyahu says talks must start without any preconditions.
Obama has had a turbulent relationship with Netanyahu, and the two leaders could find themselves on a collision course in their new terms. The Obama administration said that regardless of the results of the election, the U.S. approach to the conflict would not change.
“We will continue to make clear that only through direct negotiations can the Palestinians and the Israelis … achieve the peace they both deserve,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney.
In London, British Foreign Secretary William Hague urged Obama to make the Middle East peace process his top priority. “We are approaching the last chance to bring about such a solution,” Hague warned.

Netanyahu himself has only grudgingly voiced conditional support for a Palestinian state, and his own party is now dominated by hard-liners who oppose even that. A potential coalition partner, Naftali Bennett of the Jewish Home Party, which won 11 seats, has called for annexing large parts of the West Bank, the core of any future Palestinian state.
While Lapid advocates a softer line toward the Palestinians, his campaign focused on economic issues and it remains unclear how hard he will push Netanyahu on the issue.

Lapid’s positions also fall short of Palestinian demands. Most critically, he opposes any division of Jerusalem. The Palestinians seek the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, for a future state.

The Palestinians viewed the election results grimly.

“If he brings Lapid into his government, this would improve the image of the Netanyahu government in the eyes of the world. But it won’t make him stop building settlements, particularly in east Jerusalem,” said Mohammed Ishtayeh, a senior adviser to President Mahmoud Abbas.

In all, 32 parties contested the election, and 12 won enough votes to enter parliament, according to the exit polls. Netanyahu now has up to six weeks to form a government.

Israeli media says that with 99.8 percent of votes counted on Wednesday morning, each bloc has 60 of parliament’s 120 seats. Commentators said Netanyahu, who called early elections expecting easy victory, would be tapped to form the next government because the rival camp drew 12 of its 60 seats from Arab parties who’ve never joined a coalition.
A startlingly strong showing by a political newcomer, the centrist Yesh Atid party, turned pre-election forecasts on their heads and dealt Netanyahu his surprise setback.