Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has begun his sixth term in office. Israel’s 37th government was sworn in Thursday morning in Jerusalem, amid raucous protests from opposition Knesset members and hundreds of demonstrators outside.
After he spoke about his government’s priorities, which included preventing a nuclear Iran’s threat to Israel, Netanyahu was shouted down. “Knesset members, I don’t have to hear your shouts to know we have some disagreements,” he responded, “but some things we agree upon.”
“Losing elections isn’t the end of democracy – it’s the essence of democracy,” he said. At the top of the new coalition’s platform is a controversial goal to expand the Jewish presence throughout the country, including the biblical lands of Judea and Samaria, known to the world as the West Bank, which is considered “occupied” territory by many nations.
The prime minister finalized agreements this week with religious party leaders in his government, then his Likud Party issued a policy statement Wednesday, saying the new coalition would “advance and develop settlement in all parts of the land of Israel – in the Galilee, Negev, Golan Heights, and Judea and Samaria.”
The statement has caused concern in Washington, at the United Nations in New York and at the European headquarters in Brussels, where the two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians is still the preferred (and only) diplomatic track.
Alex Traiman, Jerusalem bureau chief of Jerusalem News Syndicate, believes the new Israeli government is expressing the will of the voters. “I think it’s good that the coalition platform is created from the beginning and everybody understands what this government stands for, which is very much in line with what the voters for this right-wing government stand for,” Traiman told CBN News.
Most of the world considers the West Bank settlements, where more than a half million Jews live, to be illegal. Most Israelis believe they have the right to live there under international laws and accords signed both before and after the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel won all the territories mentioned in the new government’s platform, along with the Gaza Strip and a large part of the Sinai Peninsula, in battle. Traiman noted that without interference from Washington, even more Israelis would live in Jewish communities on the West Bank. (SOURCE)
