Tasking Netanyahu with creating the next coalition, President Isaac Herzog noted that Israel’s longest-serving prime minister had received enough recommendations from like-minded parties to secure 64 of the 120 seats in parliament.
This puts the conservative politician on the path to one of the most stable governments in recent years, after an 18-month hiatus in which he was replaced by a fragile and unusual alliance of centrist, liberal, nationalist and Arab politicians.
“I intend to work to expand the zone of consensus between us,” Netanyahu said in televised remarks at Herzog’s residence, adding that he will represent all Israelis “without exception.”
According to him, there is already a general agreement on the Jewish identity of Israel, but individual liberties must also be defended, in apparent allusion to its Arab minority of 21%, as well as to the laity.
Reiterating two of his most entrenched convictions, he promised more free-market reforms to lower the cost of living, saying: “We must act decisively against Iran’s belligerence and, above all, thwart its attempts to acquire nuclear weapons, which have direct designs against our existence”.
Having achieved normalization of relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco in 2020, Netanyahu said he will now work on “more peace agreements, peace through force, peace for peace, with other Arab countries.” , thus, to a large extent, ending the Arab-Israeli conflict.”
The incoming government appears to be the most right-wing in Israel’s history, as it encompasses the ultranationalist Religious Zionism party, whose leaders oppose the creation of a Palestinian state, want the annexation of the occupied West Bank and were against the LGBT community in the past.
Dismissing what he called “scaremongering” about the health of Israeli democracy, Netanyahu said the country would continue to be a “beacon” for the region.
Netanyahu has 28 days to hammer out a coalition, with a possible 14-day extension. But he is likely to finish the talks this week, having started them semi-formally just after the Nov. 1 election. (Written by Dan Williams; Edited in Spanish by Carlos Serrano)
Source: Ambito
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