1 / 2FILE - In this May 23, 2016 file photo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman sit in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem. Netanyahu is facing the possibility of having to fight a second election this year, as he struggles to form a coalition government. With a looming deadline, Israel's newly elected parliament began drafting a bill on Monday to dissolve itself.
Netanyahu has until late Wednesday to present his new coalition or else Israel's largely ceremonial president can task someone else with the job. But the prime minister seems to have no intention of letting that happen and is threatening another election instead. Though Netanyahu's Likud party increased its power to 35 seats in parliament in the Apr. 9 vote, it cannot muster a 61-seat majority without Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party.
Ultra-Orthodox parties consider conscription a taboo, fearing that military service will lead to immersion in secularism. They insist that years of exemptions that have generated widespread resentment among the rest of Jewish Israelis remain in place. A staunch nationalist, he has faced long-standing accusations of racism for branding Arab lawmakers as enemies of the state and advocating for population swaps in a future peace deal that would leave many Arab citizens outside Israel's borders.