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Netanyahu Weakened in Israeli Elections

Rebuke

As centrist party makes surprise showing.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won a third term in the country's general election Tuesday, but was left weakened by the rise of a centrist party whose support was seen as a rebuke to Netanyahu's coalition. Placing second behind Netanyah's right-wing Likud was a new party led by TV celebrity Yair Lapid, made appeals to Israel's middle class and called for integration of the country's ultra-Orthodox population into the army and economy. Lapid avoided the subject of a peace process with the Palestinians, but his success was a stand against Netanyahu's bellicose reputation on the issue. "The citizens of Israel today said no to the politics of fear and hatred," Lapid said Tuesday night.

Read it at The New York Times