The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Netanyahu forms Israel's most powerful far-right government

2022-12-21T22:35:42.493Z


The former Israeli prime minister and leader of the conservative Likud communicates to President Isaac Herzog that he has formed a coalition with three far-right parties and two ultra-Orthodox parties. He will be the most right-wing Executive in the history of the country


50 days after achieving a clear electoral victory, Benjamin Netanyahu communicated this Wednesday by telephone to the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog, that he has managed to form an Executive with the radical right and the ultra-Orthodox, despite not having finalized the coalition agreements.

In the purest style of political negotiations in the country, he did so at 11:30 p.m. (10:30 p.m., Spanish peninsular time) ―half an hour before the deadline to communicate the agreement or request a last four-day extension― and after an intense last-minute give and take with two of its main partners.

The ministers will have until January 2 to be sworn in.

Bibi, as she is popularly known, will lead a coalition of six parties: the one that presides (the conservative Likud);

three from the extreme right who concurred in a single list (Religious Zionism, Jewish Power and Noam);

and two ultra-Orthodox, Sephardic Shas and Ashkenazi United Torah Judaism.

He hold 64 of the 120 seats in Parliament.

It will be the sixth legislature of Netanyahu, the leader who has been in charge of the Jewish State for the longest years: 15, even above the founding father, David Ben-Gurion.

It will also be the most right-wing government in the country since its creation in 1948, a title that others received in the last three decades only to be surpassed years later.

Today, 62% of Israelis define themselves as right-wing (70% between the ages of 18 and 24), 22% more than at the end of the nineties.

Of the 110 seats held by the Jewish parties, 106 are in the bracket that runs from the center to the extreme right.

The ultra-right will have unprecedented power in the new Executive.

The coalition agreements stipulate that the leader of Religious Zionism, Bezalel Smotrich, will start as finance minister and after two years he will be able to exchange the portfolio of Interior with the head of the Shas list, Arieh Deri.

In addition, a position has been created for him

:

"special minister" in Defense, through which he will absorb prerogatives that affect the lives of Palestinians under occupation and which is now managed by a military organization.

“The only way to describe it is as an extension of civil governmental authority to the West Bank, which effectively means annexation, even though it is purposely not described as such,” criticizes Michael J. Koplow of the Israel Policy Forum, American Jewish organization in favor of a negotiated solution to the conflict in the Middle East.

Smotrich has already advanced that he will base part of his economic management on religion.

“A lot of economic theories have been tried, right?

Capitalism, socialism... There is one thing they did not prove: 'If you carefully obey,' he said, quoting a verse from Deuteronomy in which God promises abundance to those who fulfill his commandments and serve him.

"

The more Israel promotes the Torah,

Judaism, the commandment to settle on the land, goodness and solidarity, the more abundance the Lord will provide us," he added, in an interview with the ultra-Orthodox newspaper

Mishpacha

.

Bezalel Smotrich, on the left, speaks in Parliament with his party colleague Orit Strook, on the 13th. GIL COHEN-MAGEN (AFP)

Itamar Ben Gvir, leader of Jewish Power and a star of the most radical religious nationalism, will remain in charge of National Security, an expanded version of the Ministry of Public Security, responsible for the police.

With a violent anti-Arab speech, he will have direct authority over the border police deployed in the West Bank.

Ben Gvir lives in one of the most radical settlements, Kiryat Arba, and until recently displayed in his living room a portrait of Baruch Goldstein, the settler who in 1994 murdered 29 Palestinians by opening fire indiscriminately during prayers in the mosque of Hebron.

Even Avi Maoz, the head of the Noam list, a minuscule homophobic party that alone would never have surpassed the 3.25% of votes needed to obtain parliamentary representation, will be the equivalent of secretary of state, with the power to review external educational programs on topics such as gender equality, preparation for the army or the Arabic language.

express legislation

These are some of the suits that Netanyahu has sewn to measure for his new partners to return to power, including express parliamentary procedures.

One of the most controversial is that of Aryeh Deri.

The future Minister of the Interior and Finance was convicted of a tax offence, but the out-of-court agreement reached last January saved him from going to jail.

As this penalty prevents his appointment as minister, Parliament will vote next Monday on the final version of an amendment ―approved in first reading this Tuesday― that limits the prohibition of assuming a portfolio to those who go to prison.

The second rule to the letter responds to a requirement of Ben Gvir: the assumption of powers that today correspond to the Chief of Police.

This Tuesday, the still Minister of Public Security, Omer Bar-Lev, did not bite his tongue: “This man was a terrorist operative [convicted of belonging to Kaj, a party outlawed and declared a terrorist], whose vocation was racism.

The Israeli police will be managed by a threatening and belligerent man who lacks responsibility and experience and who wants to turn it into a political body, ”he said during the angry parliamentary session in which the proposal passed the first reading.

The opposition accuses Netanyahu of leading a democratic erosion that endangers the separation of powers in order to repeat as prime minister,

Aware of the fears that the new coalition arouses in the White House and in sectors of American Judaism - more liberal than Israel -, Netanyahu has given interviews to the country's media in recent days in which he has launched the message that he is the one in charge and not Ben Gvir or Smotrich.

"They join me, not I them," he clarified last Thursday on national public radio.

Jewish groups in the US have made their concern public and the influential newspaper

The New York Times

has published an editorial in which it describes the new government as a "significant threat to the future of Israel".

Efraim Ganor, an Israeli commentator for the

Maariv newspaper,

focuses on the mistrust of Netanyahu that has permeated the negotiation.

“The fact that neither [of the partners] have been willing to form coalition agreements until all their demands are closed and in writing is proof of that.

Nothing like this had ever happened, and it says something about the level of trust they place in it, ”he writes this Wednesday.

Mistrust is one of the main reasons why

King Bibi

spent the almost last two years in opposition.

The broad alliance (from the right to the pacifist left, including an Islamist-inspired Arab party) that ousted him from power only had in common that they rejected the leader or felt that he had betrayed him when they governed together.

In fact, the first law that the new Parliament has approved, this Tuesday, is aimed at aborting a possible internal rebellion in the Likud.

It prevents four deputies from forming an independent faction in the Knesset.

Likewise, in the prime minister's office there are already two rounds of lie detector tests following the leak of a conversation between a deputy and Netanyahu's wife, Sara, the newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Yisrael Hayom

.

Follow all the international information on

Facebook

and

Twitter

, or in

our weekly newsletter

.

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Keep reading

I'm already a subscriber

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-12-21

You may like

News/Politics 2024-02-26T04:24:27.412Z

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-28T06:04:53.137Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.