"Israel's president today asked prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to form a new government giving a long time leader the difficult task of breaking a post election deadlock that's paralyzed the country's political system after a defensive campaign Netanyahu called for a broad unity government with his chief rival former military chief Benny Gantz but he faces an uphill struggle with his his future clouded by a likely corruption indictment and his opponents opposed to sitting with him. president Reuven Rivlin announced his decision late today after a second meeting aimed at brokering a unity deal between Netanyahu and dance ended without an agreement standing alongside Rivlin Netanyahu said it was clear that neither his Likud party nor cancers blue and white could put together a coalition on its own and the only option was to band together that Gantt's appeared to re buffer Netanyahu citing the Israeli leaders legal problems according to final election results announced today blue and white finish first with thirty three seats in the one hundred twenty seat parliament just ahead of Likud's thirty two seats even with amid the support of smaller allies both parties are short of the required sixty one seat majority a total of fifty five lawmakers have recommended that Netanyahu lead the next government while fifty four have lined up but top behind Gantz Rivlin said that after exploring all options he concluded Netanyahu had the better chance of forming a government Netanyahu now has a preliminary twenty eight day period to try to brokerage E. L. as odds of success however appear to be"