Weeks of negotiations conclude with what will be the highest right-wing and anti-Arab government in the country’s history.
Benjamin Netanyahu informed the Israeli president that he had managed to form a coalition, paving the way for the swearing-in of the highest right-wing, anti-Arab government in the country’s history.
“I succeeded [in forming a government],” Netanyahu said on Twitter, minutes before the deadline set by Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
The announcement came after Netanyahu reached a coalition pact with the Religious Zionism Party, an ultranationalist led by Messianic settler Bezalel Smotrich, who was granted sweeping powers in the occupied West Bank.
The agreement includes a plan to carry out “judicial reform,” a euphemism for weakening the Supreme Court and other checks and balances, according to resources cited in Israeli media.
It would also require a restrictive definition of who is Jewish and eligible for automatic citizenship under Israel’s Law of Return.
The radical government will have to be sworn in until January 2. The coalition will also come with other far-right figures whose stated goals are to weaken the judicial formula and further entrench the profession of the Palestinian territories.
In a sign of looming policies, parliament on Wednesday passed a law that would dramatically expand the police authority of new national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the incendiary leader of the Jewish Power party and a follower of the former anti-Arab rabbi. Meir Kahane.
In a bid to appease foreign criticism, Netanyahu has said in recent interviews that his Likud party and its coalition partners will set policy. However, on some important issues, there is little difference in ideology between some of the Likud and Ben-Gvir lawmakers.
Kahane advocated replacing the Israeli formula with one based on Jewish law. Ben-Gvir, who was convicted of inciting racism and supporting terrorism, said during the crusade that he had deserted some of Kahane’s posts; However, for many it was a ploy to avoid disqualification and attract more voters.
Veteran political analyst Yossi Alpher predicted the emerging government would be an “imminent disaster” for the country if Netanyahu could rein in or rein in radical parties to which he granted unprecedented powers in negotiations.
Even if, as prime minister, he tried to rein in those parties, the country could still be on the road to a “long-term disaster,” Alpher said, adding: “We’ve never been in such a situation. “He predicted the possibility of an erosion of the rule of law in Israel and even more settler violence against Arabs.
According to Debbie Gild-Hayo, a lawyer with the Israel Civil Rights Association, the bill opens the door to the death of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank at the hands of militarized police units.
It also exposes liberal government Jewish belligerents, Arab citizens and the LGBTQ network to abuse in Israel, he said. “Because the bill’s designations are broad, it provides unlimited force to the minister,” he added.
The bill passed through a vote of 63 to 53 and can only be amended before its time and 3rd readings.
Ben-Gvir, who campaigned on a plan to expel “disloyal” Israeli citizens, vowed to use his office to create “order” in the face of what the right has called a serious internal security crisis in Israel’s Arab communities, some of them Bedouin. .
Ben-Gvir said he had broader powers for this and had a popular mandate from the electorate to bring it to light.
He argued in the Knesset that Israel’s long-standing formula of granting certain key powers to the police commissioner, which purports to be apolitical, rather than the minister, was not democratic.
“Only in police states does the police commissioner paint alone,” he told Knesset members. Opposition politicians who criticized his plans were called “dark people” who had no concept of democracy.
In reality, the bill that takes powers away from the commissioner and puts them in the hands of Ben-Gvir is one of the maximum “dangerous” manifestations of a deteriorating Israel by Netanyahu’s return to power, according to lawmakers from the centrist opposition Yesh Atid. party.
Netanyahu is criticized for allegedly caving in to the radical right to the security law that changes the judiciary. This could undo corruption cases that could put him behind bars.
Among the adjustments announced through his Likud party and its partners would be a law that would give the Knesset the power to overturn Supreme Court decisions. This may mean that victims of imaginable police abuse would have no protection.
“The minister can simply undermine the precept of equality in a country where Arabs are perceived as an internal enemy, damage police investigations, influence who can protest, abuse law enforcement that opposes Bedouins and deny coverage of gay pride parades,” Gild-Hayo told me. .
“Minorities, liberals and belligerent parties of the will are threatened by this law. “