Benjamin Netanyahu was sworn in as Israel’s prime minister for a sixth term on Thursday, PTI reported. The 73-year-old has the support of 63 members of the 120-seat Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, while 54 legislators voted against him in a confidence vote.
Netanyahu’s allies in this term include far-right parties, whose stated policies have attracted criticism both home and abroad.
The government will include representatives of the Religious Zionism and Jewish Power parties, which oppose the Palestinian statehood. Leaders of both the parties have also had confrontation with Israel’s judicial system, the Arab minority in the country and LGBT right activists, Reuters reported.
The confidence vote in the Israeli Parliament was held on Thursday to confirm the majority Netanyahu and his allies had won in the general elections in November. This was the fifth election in the country in less than four years.
Netanyahu, who was prime minister for 12 consecutive years, had been ousted from his position after a coalition of eight-party came together in 2021. Right-wing leader Naftali Bennett and Centrist Yair Lapid were chosen as prime ministers on a rotational basis.
After the confidence vote on Thursday, Netanyahu said that the three “national goals” of his government would be to prevent Iran from going nuclear, launch a bullet train that runs across the length of the country and bring more Arab countries into the Abraham accords fold, PTI reported.
The Abraham Accords, ratified in September 2020, was signed by Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, and is mediated by the USA. It was the first Arab-Israeli peace deal in 26 years, since Jordan entered such an agreement in 1994.
Netanyahu also announced the appointment of 31 ministers and three deputy ministers in his Cabinet.
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