美国有线新闻 CNN 以色列大选在即 总理内塔尼亚胡面临挑战（在线收听）

CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: With less than a week to go before a major election in Israel, we're spelling out its significance today on CNN 10. I'm Carl Azuz. It's great to see you this Wednesday.

Israel is America's closest ally in the Middle East. Its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was first elected to the job in 1996. He's served on, and off, and on again since then. And if this years vote goes his way again, he'll become Israel's longest serving prime minister ever. But he's facing a number of difficult challenges this time around. One of them is that the nation's attorney general says he plans to charge Prime Minister Netanyahu with corruption. The Israeli leader denies doing anything wrong and calls the investigation a politically motivated witch hunt.

In fact, he's made it a major campaign issue. His main opponent in the election, former military chief of Staff Benny Gantz, calls it ridiculous that an Israeli prime minister could serve while being charged with a crime. But if either one of these men is to serve after the election, he'll need to have the support of Israel's Knesset — its parliament. There are 120 seats in the Knesset and the prime minister needs a majority — at least 61 of those seats — on his side. That's not always easy to put together. Unlike the U.S. Congress which is dominated by Democrats and Republicans, there are more than 40 political parties running for Israel's Knesset.

Most of those won't actually make it in, but analysts say 10 to 14 different parties will. And the biggest one's likely to have around 30 seats. So what the prime minister has to do to have 61 or more of those seats on his side is get several of these different parties to work together. That coalition building process can take weeks, but once its all worked out after the April 9th election, the governing resumes.