After being granted the mandate from president Yitzhak Herzog on Sunday to form the next government, Binyamin Netanyahu promised he will be the prime minister of all Israelis, not just those who voted for him.
“There are many who welcome the election results, but some predict it will herald the end of democracy. This is not the first time such things have been said. It was not true then, and it is not true today,” he said.
Mr Herzog, during the ceremony, said he is “not oblivious to the fact that there are ongoing legal proceedings against Mr Netanyahu, and I do not trivialise this at all.”
Mr Netanyahu is accused of fraud and breach of trust in three separate corruption cases, and bribery in one of them, in a trial that is expected to continue for at least another two years. He denies all the charges against him, claiming he is a victim of a witch hunt by the left, the media, the judiciary and law enforcement agencies in order to keep him from power.
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After four inconclusive elections in fewer than four years, parties representing 64 members of the Knesset parliament recommended Mr Netanyahu for prime minister compared to only 28 for current prime minister Yair Lapid, leader of the centrist Yesh Atid.
Right-wing
Mr Netanyahu (73) is already Israel’s longest-serving leader. He has 28 days to present his government but hopes to wrap up negotiations with his coalition partners on policy guidelines and the allocation of ministerial portfolios before the end of the month.
The four parties recommending that Mr Netanyahu receive the mandate were his own Likud, two ultra-Orthodox parties-Shas and United Torah Judaism- and the far-right Religious Zionist Party.
The new government is set to be the most right-wing and controversial in Israel’s history.
The election campaign was characterised by the surge in popularity of Itamar Ben-Gvir, number two on the Religious Zionist Party list, known for racist anti-Arab comments and turning up at the sites of numerous terrorist attacks with supporters chanting “Death to the Arabs.”
Despite the fact that he has been convicted dozens of times for disturbing the peace and belonging to a Jewish terrorist organisation in his youth, Mr Ben-Gvir is set to become Israel’s new public security minister with control of the police.
Even though he claims to have moderated his views, last week Mr Ben-Gvir attended the annual memorial service for his political mentor, Rabbi Meir Kahane, who led the Kach party which was outlawed for racism.
Ben-Gvir was booed when he told the crowd he no longer supports expelling all Israel’s Arabs.
US state department spokesperson Ned Price criticised Ben-Gvir for attending the event. “Celebrating the legacy of a terrorist organisation is abhorrent. There is no other word for it. It is abhorrent.”
The new government plans to curtail the power of the judiciary by introducing an “override clause” allowing the Knesset to cancel any Supreme Court decision with a vote of 61 of the 120-member Knesset.
