The most religious and hardline government in Israel’s history has taken the oath of office.
Benjamin Netanyahu was sworn into office on Thursday,29 December. He took the helm of the most far-right and religiously conservative government in Israel’s history, promising to implement policies that could spark domestic and regional unrest and alienate the country’s closest allies.
Netanyahu took the oath of office shortly after parliament expressed confidence in his new government. His return marks his sixth term in office and continues his more than a decade of dominance over Israeli politics.
His new government has pledged to prioritize settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, provide massive subsidies to its ultra-Orthodox allies and push for a sweeping reform of the judicial system that might endanger the country’s institutions.
Netanyahu’s Political History
Netanyahu is the country’s longest-serving prime minister. He was in office from 2009 to 2021 and had one other term in the 1990s. Last year, after four botched elections, he was ousted by a coalition of eight parties that opposed his rule exclusively while he was on trial for corruption.
“If one loses the election, it doesn’t imply that democracy is doomed, instead it signifies the essence of Democracy,” he said.
Following the dissolution of that coalition in June, elections held in November gave Netanyahu and his ultra-nationalist and ultra-Orthodox allies a majority in parliament.
“I constantly hear the opposition’s cries about how the nation and democracy are doomed”, Netanyahu said after taking the podium in parliament, before the formal induction of the government on Thursday afternoon. His speech was repeatedly interrupted by heckling and taunts from opposition leaders, who at times chanted “weak “Opposition members: losing elections does not mean the end of democracy; it is the essence of democracy,” he said.
Netanyahu is in charge of a coalition government that includes two ultra-Orthodox parties, his nationalist Likud party, and a hard-line religious ultranationalist party that is dominated by settlers from the West Bank.
His supporters are pushing for radical reforms that might alienate a sizable portion of the Israeli populace, increase the possibility of conflict with the Palestinians, and put Israel at odds with some of its most ardent backers, including the United States and the Jewish community in America.
The platform of Netanyahu’s government was made public, and it stated that settlement construction in the occupied West Bank would continue as well as that “the Jewish people have exclusive and indisputable rights” over all of Israel and the Palestinian territories.
This includes approving the legalisation of numerous illegal outposts and declaring that the entire region will be annexed, actions that would draw harsh criticism from the international community, dash any hopes for the establishment of a Palestinian state, and feed charges that Israel is an apartheid state if millions of Palestinians are denied citizenship.
Previous Netanyahu administrations have been staunch supporters of Israel’s West Bank settlement enterprise, which is expected to be accelerated under the new administration.
In 1967, Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and east Jerusalem, all of which the Palestinians want for a future state. Israel has built dozens of Jewish settlements in which approximately 500,000 Israelis live alongside approximately 2.5 million Palestinians.
The new government has also expressed concern about the impact on minority and LGBTQ rights
Several thousand people demonstrated outside parliament, waving Israeli and Pride flags and chanting, “We don’t want fascists in the Knesset.” Later in the day, another protest was planned in Tel Aviv.
Opposition’s remarks
Yair Lapid, the outgoing prime minister who will now take over as opposition leader, told parliament that he was leaving the new government with “a country in excellent condition, with a strong economy, improved defensive capabilities and strong deterrence, and one of the best international standings ever.”
“Try not to destroy it. “We’ll be back soon,” Lapid said.
