Benjamin Netanyahu

Benjamin Netanyahu, taking office as Israeli prime minister amid heckling by leftist and Arab lawmakers, offered Tuesday to seek a "permanent arrangement" for limited Palestinian self-rule. "We do not wish to rule another people," the conservative leader declared in a speech to the Knesset, Israel's parliament.

Hours after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared victory in the Gaza Strip, the hawkish contender to succeed him paid a visit to wounded soldiers and insisted that the enemy had not been defeated. "We have a strong people and a strong military that dealt a harsh blow to Hamas, but unfortunately the work is still not done," Benjamin Netanyahu said before television cameras outside a hospital last week. "Hamas still controls Gaza." That was only the warmup.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's long-shot effort to form a majority bloc in parliament and become Israel's next prime minister appeared to be fading Thursday, despite final returns upholding her centrist party's narrow first-place finish in national elections. After a second day of postelection lobbying, Livni had failed to win the support of any other party to thwart a rival leadership bid by conservative opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu.

Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud party, Friday accepted the task of forming Israel's new government and becoming the country's next prime minister. He appealed to his top rival, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, to join him in a coalition government. President Shimon Peres officially assigned Netanyahu the role of building a government despite the fact that Livni's Kadima party captured more of the popular vote in parliamentary elections this month.

Incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brought a nationalist religious party into what is shaping up to be a narrow, hawkish coalition, taking a major step Monday toward securing the parliamentary majority he needs to form a government. As Netanyahu wrapped up the deal with the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, he also launched formal talks with the centrist Labor Party in hopes of moderating his emerging government.

Israel's Labor Party voted Tuesday to join the incoming government of Benjamin Netanyahu, lending a moderate voice to a coalition dominated by hard-liners and easing concerns of a head-on confrontation with Washington over Mideast peacemaking. Chants of "Disgrace! Disgrace!"

In the weeks since he was chosen to form Israel's next government, Benjamin Netanyahu has labored to dispel the perception that he's on a collision course with the country's most powerful ally. Never mind his history of spats with Washington, or that he refuses to embrace the goal of an independent Palestinian state, a cornerstone of American policy reaffirmed by President Obama last week.

Sketched on yellowing parchment, the 29 blueprints presented to Israel's prime minister Thursday lay out the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz in chilling detail, with gas chambers, crematories, delousing facilities and watchtowers drawn to scale. "There are those who deny that the Holocaust happened," Benjamin Netanyahu said as he accepted the documents as a gift for Israel's Holocaust memorial, where they will go on display next year. "Let them come to Jerusalem and look at these plans, these plans for the factory of death."

Palestinian and Israeli leaders have agreed to meet with President Obama on Tuesday in New York, a three-way encounter the administration has been trying for weeks to broker, the White House announced Saturday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will meet Obama on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly session, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement. Each will also meet one-on-one with Obama.

Re "The Mideast on rewind," editorial, Feb. 11 The Times yields to no person when it comes to moral relativism. There is a difference between Israel and Iran: One of those nations is an aggressive, murderous regime that supports terrorism; the other is vilified for its occasional desire to defend itself from those attacks. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's de facto submission to Hezbollah and Hamas has not merely cleared the way for Benjamin Netanyahu's return; it has necessitated that return.