Netanyahu Gets the First Crack at Forming a New Government in Israel

After a fourth inconclusive election in two years, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now has a possible path to stay in office even as he stands trial on corruption charges.

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was asked by the president on Tuesday to try to form a new coalition government, offering a possible path for him to remain in office even as he stands trial on corruption charges. It won’t be easy and success is by no means guaranteed given the abiding divisions that have led to a political impasse, which has only gotten worse year by year. While the country remains split along the traditional fault lines of secular and religious, right-wing and left-wing and Jewish and Arab, the main rupture has increasingly come to revolve around the polarizing figure of Mr. Netanyahu himself. He got the nod to form a new government one day after the opening of the evidentiary stage of his trial on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.