Benjamin Netanyahu is set to be sworn in as Israeli prime minister, marking a personal return to power for the man who is already the country’s longest-serving premier, and the arrival of a new far-right government that has sparked fears among Palestinians and left-wing Israelis.
The 73-year-old Netanyahu, who was prime minister between 1996 and 1999, and then between 2009 and 2021, is expected to address a session of the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, later on Thursday, before a vote of confidence in the new government is held.
If that passes – and Netanyahu, along with his coalition partners, has a majority in the Knesset – then a swearing-in ceremony for Netanyahu and his ministers will follow.
Netanyahu’s win in the November 1 parliamentary elections was expected to end years of political unrest in Israel, with governments repeatedly falling, and elections held five times in less than four years.
Much of that was the result of intense political opposition towards Netanyahu himself, who is on trial for corruption, an allegation he denies.
However, it has taken weeks of jostling and the introduction of new legislation to keep his far-right and ultranationalist coalition partners happy, as well as his own Likud party.
The result has been a coalition that has explicitly called settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, illegal under international law, its top priority.
That reflects the positions of far-right leaders who have been given top posts, such as Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich, and Jewish Power leader Itamar Ben-Gvir, who previously expressed support for Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish Israeli man who killed 29 Palestinians in a shooting at Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque in 1994.
That is likely to further inflame relations with the millions of Palestinians who live under Israeli occupation.
Palestinians have already faced their deadliest year since 2006, according to the United Nations, after Israel’s outgoing centrist government launched a brief conflict in Gaza in August, as well as near-daily raids in the West Bank that have led to dozens of killings and arrests.
