Opposition leader Isaac Herzog (Zionist Union) was already negotiating his party’s joining of the coalition and a two-year budget is likely to motivate him to seal the deal.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gained the nickname “King Bibi” in 2012, after he appeared on the cover of Time magazine with that headline on an article that said the premier had consolidated his political power with no successor in sight.
While Netanyahu’s royal status has had its ups and downs in the four years since, Sunday marked a high point for the prime minister; following his agreement with Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon on a two-year budget for 2017-2018, “King Bibi” is poised to reign as elected prime minister until 2019 – and longer than Israel’s first premier, David Ben-Gurion.
Netanyahu is currently the second-longest serving prime minister of Israel after Ben-Gurion, who served 4,575 days, or about 12-and-a-half-years, and also was an unelected prime minister from May 1948 until February 1949 when the first Knesset was sworn in.
