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Benjamin Netanyahu completed a dramatic return as Israel’s prime minister on Thursday after being sworn in as leader of what is likely to become the most right-wing government in the country’s history.
Netanyahu and his government were sworn in on Thursday for his sixth term as prime minister, 18 months after he was removed from power.
He returns with the support of several far-right figures who were once sent to the fringes of Israeli politics, having assembled a coalition shortly before last week’s deadline.
Members of Netanyahu’s Likud party will fill some of the most important cabinet positions, including foreign minister, defense minister and justice minister.
But a number of politicians from Israel’s far-right political spectrum were set to be appointed to ministerial posts, despite controversy over their positions in the run-up to November’s elections, which were won by a Netanyahu-led bloc of ultra-nationalist and ultra-religious parties.
Itamar Ben Gvir, an extremist convicted of supporting terrorism and inciting anti-Arab racism, will take on a recently expanded public security role, renamed Minister of National Security, overseeing on the police in Israel and some police activities in the occupied West Bank.
Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionist Party, has been appointed finance minister and has also been given the power to appoint the head of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), an Israeli military unit whose duties include border controls. crossings and permits for Palestinians.
During his campaign, Smotrich had proposed a series of drastic legal reforms, which many critics saw as a clear way to undermine the independence of the judiciary. This includes removing the ability to charge an official with fraud and breach of trust — a charge Netanyahu faces in his ongoing corruption trial.
Netanyahu has pleaded not guilty, calling that trial a “witch hunt” and an “attempted coup,” and has called for changes in Israel’s legal system.
Aryeh Deri, leader of the ultra-Orthodox Sephardic party Shas, will become interior minister and health minister.
As the new ministers prepared to be sworn in at the Knesset, the country’s parliament, about 2,000 protesters gathered outside to protest Netanyahu’s return to office, the Jerusalem police spokesman said.
The shift to the right in the Israeli government has raised eyebrows at home and abroad. On Wednesday, more than 100 retired Israeli ambassadors and State Department officials expressed concern about Israel’s incoming government in a signed letter to Netanyahu.
The ex-diplomats, including former ambassadors to France, India and Turkey, expressed “deep concern at the serious damage to Israel’s foreign relations, its international status and its core interests abroad resulting from what appears to be the policy of the incoming government will be. ”
The letter pointed to “statements from potential senior officials in the government and the Knesset”, reports of policy changes in the West Bank and “some possible extreme and discriminatory laws” as areas of concern.
US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides congratulated Netanyahu on Thursday, writing on Twitter: “To the rock solid relationship between the US and Israel and the unbreakable ties.” Nides is married to Virginia Mosely, DailyExpertNews US Executive Vice President for Editorial.
Biden administration officials have largely avoided addressing the far-right components of the new Israeli government. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week that the US will “engage and judge our partners in Israel based on the policies they pursue, not on the personalities who happen to make up the government.”
Netanyahu’s meager November victory came in Israel’s fifth election in less than four years, amid a period of protracted political chaos in which he has remained a dominant figure.
In his speech to the Knesset on Thursday, Netanyahu said that of the three main tasks assigned to his government, the first will be to “thwart Iran’s attempts to acquire nuclear weapons”. The second priority would be to develop the country’s infrastructure, including launching a bullet train, and the third would be to sign more peace agreements with Arab nations “to end the Israeli-Arab conflict.”
Netanyahu was already Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, having previously held the position from 2009 to 2021 and before that for a term in the late 1990s.
Israel also got its first openly gay speaker of parliament on Thursday. Amir Ohana, a former justice and public security minister, is a member of the Knesset representing Netanyahu’s Likud party.
Some ultra-Orthodox lawmakers who had refused to attend his Knesset swearing-in seven years ago were among those who voted for him on Thursday.
Ahead of the parliamentary vote on the new government, outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid tweeted: “We are giving you a state in excellent condition. Don’t try to screw it up, we’ll be right back. The transfer files are ready.”
With additional coverage Kareem El Damanhoury