Israel: If Benjamin Netanyahu is ousted how will a government of such divergent opinions last?
A huge change for Israel or more of the same? ITV News Senior International Correspondent John Irvine outlines the deal's implications on Wednesday's ITV News At Ten
It is as shaky a political edifice as you can get.
Eight parties with ideologies that span the entire ideological spectrum here in Israel have found common cause – getting rid of Benjamin Netanyahu.
But once they have done that, what next?
Will the glue that holds them together today simply evaporate and what divides them come to the fore tomorrow?
And they haven’t got rid of Mr Netanyahu just yet.
This government won’t exist until it is sworn in, and that Knesset ceremony might not take place for almost a fortnight.
Between now and then the new coalition must hope its majority of one holds fast.
Mr Netanyahu will be doing everything in his power to make sure it does not.
He has to lure away just one for the new political endeavour to stumble even before it’s up and running.
The new prime minister in waiting, Naftali Bennett, is a religiously observant right-winger, a former leader of the West Bank settler movement who doesn’t think the Palestinians should ever have their own sovereign state.
Ideologically he has far more in common with Mr Netanyahu than anyone inside his coalition.
His partners in government include not only left-wing parties that support the two-state solution but also an Islamist, homophobic Arab-Israeli party.
He has already said that members of the coalition will have to put their dreams on hold if the government is to hold together.
So they won’t be able to address any of the big issues, like the future of the Palestinians.
They are so fundamentally divergent on such questions the government wouldn’t last fiveminutes.
So their ambitions will have to be more modest – infrastructure projects, the economy, etc.
When they talk about a government of change what they really mean is a change in PM, and only that.