It was a chilly, reserved reception at the President’s House on March 25, when Israeli President Reuven Rivlin charged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the task of forming a new government. It was a sign that the coalition negotiations were getting off on the wrong foot.

There was nothing festive about the ceremony. Netanyahu was simply granted the task again, making it the fourth time in his career. Rivlin’s body language relayed the sense that he would much rather have given the job to someone else. But it wasn’t only the president, who looked worried. The prime minister himself seems to show that despite his sweeping victory in the polls — probably by much more than he could have imagined — this new term brought with it all the same old problems of cobbling a coalition together. In fact, Netanyahu finds himself without a clear agenda as he heads toward a right-wing coalition with the ultra-Orthodox. And the task of forming that coalition appears to be a complicated one.

In February 2013, when former President Shimon Peres charged him with forming a coalition, Netanyahu announced that his new government’s first task would be to stop the Iranian nuclear program. It was practically the only task of the government he had formed with the former Labor Party Chairman Ehud Barak back in 2009. This time, however, having defeated the Zionist Camp led by Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni, he finds himself facing a new political reality, without an agenda and without a plan.

In his speech at the President’s House, Netanyahu spoke in generalities about his government’s mission, saying, “The next government will be faced with two challenges: Building up our security and improving our social welfare.” He made a commitment to act in the spirit of the social protests and the agenda set forth by his intended Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, by lowering the cost of housing and dismantling the monopolies. He promised to keep fighting the nuclear agreement taking shape with Iran, but at the same time, he also sent a conciliatory message to Washington.