After almost two months of painstaking negotiations, Israel’s new government was presented on Thursday. The coalition will be the most religious and the most right-wing ever to rule Israel, according to political observers.
Among the incoming ministers are two controversial politicians, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who both made headlines for their hard-line policies.
In order for Smotrich, leader of the far-right party group “Religious Zionism”, to be able to get a post in the Ministry of Defense, a change in the law has been hammered through which allows two ministers to be attached to the same portfolio.
In addition, the Knesset parliament has voted to strengthen the power of the Minister of National Security, a post that goes to the ultra-nationalist Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the nationalist party “Otzma Yehudit” (in Swedish roughly “Jewish Power”).
Ben-Gvir has also been part of the “expressly racist and ultra-nationalist party Meir Kahane, which is today banned in Israel and has been classified as a terrorist organization by the United States” and the EU, writes the BBC.
The US has warned
In addition, politicians convicted of crimes, without a custodial sentence, must be able to become ministers. The change in the law is believed to be mainly aimed at allowing Aryeh Deri from the religious party “Shas” to get a government post, despite the fact that he was guilty of tax crimes.
On Wednesday, the coalition’s agreed policy was presented. A priority area will be to continue settlements in the occupied West Bank and eventually annex the region where 2.7 million Palestinians live.
Today, around 500,000 Israelis live in what large parts of the international community call illegal settlements. Israel’s construction is considered an obstacle to peace with the Palestinians. The US has already warned the incoming government not to make the situation worse.
Legal reforms
The new government’s political program also contains, among other things, letters that support discrimination against LGBTQ people and women on religious grounds.
There are also controversial legal reforms that would enable parliament to change rulings in the Supreme Court with a simple majority. Something critics say will undermine the balance of power and democracy.