KBarely two months after the election, Israel’s parliament approved the government of the victor, Benjamin Netanyahu. 63 out of 120 MPs voted in favor of the new government in a vote of confidence on Thursday. It is the most right-wing government Israel has ever had. Amir Okhana of Netanyahu’s right-wing conservative Likud party was elected the new speaker of the parliament. Then the swearing-in of the individual coalition members began.
Former long-term Prime Minister Netanyahu is back in power after a year and a half. In Israel’s history, no one has been in office longer than the 73-year-old politician. It is already the sixth government that he is forming.
Accompanied by angry heckling from the opposition, Netanyahu presented the most important goals for the next four years in the plenum. Everything will be done “so that Iran does not destroy us with a nuclear bomb”. His government will also work for rapprochement agreements with other Arab states.
The new government has 64 out of 120 seats in parliament. Half of them belong to Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, the other half to the extreme right-wing Religious-Zionist Alliance and two strictly religious parties. Netanyahu’s camp had won a clear majority in the November 1 parliamentary elections. It was the fifth election in three and a half years.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz congratulated Netanyahu on taking office. “For the upcoming tasks, I wish you every success, a happy hand and much success,” said the SPD politician, according to a statement on Thursday after the new government was sworn in in Jerusalem. Israel and Germany have a special and close friendship, Scholz continued. This basis of the partnership between the two countries will be maintained.
