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Benjamin Netanyahu Takes Oath As Israel PM, Comes Back To Power After 18 Months

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Benjamin Netanyahu took oath as Israel’s Prime Minister on Thursday, taking the reins of the purely right-wing and conservative government in Israel’s history. However, his aim to execute certain policies could lead to domestic and regional turbulence and sideline the country’s nearest allies.

Netanyahu was sworn into office minutes after parliament approved a vote of confidence in his new government. His coming back to the position is his sixth time in the office, taking forward his legacy of more than a decade-long hegemony over Israeli politics.

His government has vowed to give prime importance to settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, increase massive subsidies to his ultra-Orthodox allies and press for sweeping reform of the judicial system that could put the country’s democratic institutions in danger. The ambitious plans have provoked people who erupted in mayhem across Israeli society, including the military, LGBTQ rights groups, the business community and others.

Netanyahu is the country’s longest serving prime minister, having been in the office from 2009 until 2021 and a small tenure in the 1990s. After four unsuccessful elections, a combination of eight parties united only in opposition to his reign forced him from office last year.

Even after coming back to power, trial for fraud charges and violation of trust and accepting bribes in three corruption cases is going on against him. He rejects all charges against him, calling him a victim of a witch hunt organized by an unkind media, police and prosecutors.

The mixed yet weak coalition that led to the fall of Netanyahu came down in June, and Netanyahu and his ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox allies won a parliamentary majority in November’s election.

“I hear the constant cries of the opposition about the end of the country and democracy,” commented Netanyahu standing at the podium in parliament before the government’s formal swearing-in on Thursday afternoon.  The opposition frequently interrupted his speech by shouting in between and occasionally shouted “weak”.

“Opposition members: to lose in elections is not the end of democracy, this is the essence of democracy,” he said.

Netanyahu leads a government which contains a hard-line religious ultranationalist party dominated by West Bank people, two ultra-Orthodox parties and his nationalist Likud party.

His friends are pushing for radical changes that would alienate a sizable portion of the Israeli populace, escalate the confrontation with the Palestinians, and put Israel at odds with some of its most ardent backers, notably the United States and the Jewish community in America.

According to Netanyahu’s political program, settlement building would continue in the occupied West Bank and “the Jewish people have exclusive and undeniable rights” over all of Israel and the Palestinian territories. This entails legalizing a number of rogue outposts and pledging to annex the entire region, a move that would elicit strong international criticism because it would dash any hopes for a Palestinian state and strengthen claims that Israel is an apartheid state if millions of Palestinians are not given citizenships.

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