NETANYAHU FORMS RIGHT-WING RELIGIOUS GOVERNING COALITION IN ISRAEL

Thu 22 December 2022:

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s designated prime minister, has succeeded in forming a right-wing religious government coalition.

Following his November 1 election win, Netanyahu secured a mandate to form a government backed by ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties and an extreme-right bloc that ran under the Religious Zionism alliance.

The leader of the right-wing conservative Likud party informed President Isaac Herzog of the new government on Wednesday evening shortly before a key deadline to form a governing coalition was due to expire.

It was not immediately clear when the new government would be sworn in. Netanyahu told Herzog he intended to do so “as soon as possible”.

“I have managed (to form a government),” he said on Twitter. A Herzog spokesperson confirmed the statement had been received.

Netanyahu completed his comeback seven weeks after elections left a complicated parliamentary landscape out of which to craft a government.

Netanyahu, who is fighting corruption allegations in court, had already served as Israel’s premier longer than anyone in the country’s history – including a stint between 1996 and 1999 and a 12-year tenure from 2009 to 2021.

He was prime minister from 1996 to 1999 and then again from 2009 to 2021, led his Likud party to take the greatest number of seats in November’s elections, the country’s fifth in four years.

However, with only 32 seats, Likud needed coalition partners to get a 61-seat majority in the Knesset.

Controversial moves

Among his most controversial moves to form his coalition has been a promise to give an expanded security ministry to the head of the ultra-nationalist Jewish Power party, Itamar Ben Gvir, who has a long history of using incendiary rhetoric against Palestinians.

The government roles Netanyahu has promised to hardliners such as Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, from the far-right Religious Zionism party, have shocked Palestinians and liberal Israelis.

Ben-Gvir and Smotrich oppose Palestinian statehood and support extending Israeli control over the occupied West Bank.

Ben-Gvir is expected to serve as security minister with authority over the police, while Smotrich’s Israeli settler party will have control over planning in the occupied West Bank, giving it wide powers over the lives of Palestinians and opening the door to an expansion of illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.

Also in the coalition is Avi Maoz – head of a small, religious, anti-LGBTQ faction – who has been placed in control of parts of Israel’s national education system and appointed a deputy minister in charge of “Jewish identity”.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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