JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel formed a new government just ahead of the legal deadline Wednesday night and will start his fourth term with the slimmest parliamentary majority possible, made up of right-leaning and religious politicians.
The result is a government that Israeli experts said is unlikely to last long or do much.
Shortly before 11 p.m., Netanyahu appeared with the head of the Jewish Home faction, Naftali Bennett, at Israel's parliament building and announced they had sealed the deal. By 11:15, President Reuven Rivlin had been officially notified.
"I congratulate you on completing the formation of the government. I have received your letter of confirmation, and look forward to the convening of the Knesset as soon as possible, to approve the government," Rivlin said.
Netanyahu had until midnight to speak to Rivlin. Otherwise, the president would have been required to ask another politician to try to form a government.
After Netanyahu's Likud Party won March 17 elections with 30 seats, he began forming a coalition government so he could serve a fourth term as prime minister. But the six-week negotiating process turned out to be much more difficult than anticipated, as rival coalition partners and members of the Likud jockeyed for influential Cabinet ministries.
To complete the coalition, Netanyahu was forced to make major concessions to the more conservative Jewish Home party, including agreeing to appoint Ayelet Shaked as justice minister. Shaked has sought to limit the powers of the Israeli Supreme Court and to change the composition of its judges, arguing that it wields too much authority.
"What you see here is a big political mess that, I think, shows Netanyahu has been too confident," said Eytan Gilboa, a professor at Bar-Ilan University who specializes in politics and communications. Of the new coalition, he added, "Nobody in his right mind believes that this will hold for even a short time."
With a government dominated by hard-liners that support increased West Bank settlement construction and oppose peace moves with the Palestinians, Netanyahu could have a hard time rallying international support, experts said.
Netanyahu already had drawn the ire of U.S. President Barack Obama after he said during his campaign that he would not allow the establishment of a Palestinian state on his watch. Although Netanyahu has since tried to backtrack, the White House has reacted with skepticism.
The U.S. and other Western nations oppose settlement construction, and the Palestinians are trying to push forward with a war-crimes case against the settlements at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. U.S. officials have said they could have a hard time defending Israeli policies if the government isn't committed to a two-state solution with the Palestinians.
In addition, controlling just 61 of 120 parliamentary seats, the narrow coalition also could struggle to press forward with a domestic agenda, analysts said.
"A coalition of 61 will be very fragile, and Netanyahu will find it very difficult to make major reforms. That's the ironic outcome of the election," said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, an independent research center.
Netanyahu said late Wednesday that he would install "a strong and stable government for the people of Israel" by next week, yet also hinted he would court additional coalition partners in the near future.
"Sixty-one is a good number, and 61-plus is an even better number," he said. "But it starts at 61 and we will begin."
He added: "We have a lot of work ahead of us."
Many Israeli analysts said the last-minute deal-making and the narrow government it produced were an illustration of problems in Israel's fractured political system, in which 10 parties won seats in parliament despite a raised electoral threshold.
Netanyahu's final push to create a coalition came after Monday's surprise announcement that Israel's ultranationalist foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, would not join the new government, which experts said was as much about personality clashes as about policy disputes.
"It's more like a soap opera than serious politics," said Gideon Rahat, a professor of political science at Hebrew University.
"In every other country, if the largest party has 30 seats, this is ridiculous, this is not a victory," added Rahat, referring to the number of seats that Netanyahu's Likud Party won. "In the Israeli context it's become a large victory, but 30 seats is having a quarter of the legislature -- in normal countries such a result is the best loser. We have a problem with our government system and this fragmentation."
Many details of the new government, which is to be sworn in next week, remained unclear Wednesday. Joining Likud and Jewish Home in the coalition are Kulanu, a new center-right faction focused on the economy, and two ultra-Orthodox parties, United Torah Judaism and Shas.
Shas and United Torah Judaism are bent on reversing changes enacted by the last government.
Those changes include the ending of an unpopular system that granted the ultra-Orthodox exemptions from compulsory military service, welfare subsidies to study full time instead of entering the workforce, and generous budgets for a religious school system that largely ignores key subjects like math, English and computer studies.
Those benefits had bred widespread resentment among the secular majority. Bringing them back could generate renewed public anger.
Netanyahu's last partner, Kulanu, is a centrist party focused on bringing relief to Israel's struggling middle class. Although its leader, Moshe Kahlon, will serve as finance minister, the party could struggle to enact any real economic changes because of the slim parliamentary majority, analysts said.
Yair Lapid, whose Yesh Atid party spearheaded the outgoing government's changes, said there was little to celebrate Wednesday night.
"A narrow, suspicious and sectoral government is on its way," he said, vowing to "do everything" to stop "the clearance sale of the country" to parties with narrow interests.
Information for this article was contributed by Jodi Rudoren of The New York Times; by Joel Greenburg of Tribune News Service; and by Josef Federman and Ian Deitch of The Associated Press.
A Section on 05/07/2015