Rebuke

Netanyahu Weakened in Israeli Elections

As centrist party makes surprise showing.

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.