Bibi’s back

As 2022 came to a close and after five General Elections in Israel since 2019, Benjamin Netanyahu once again took the helm of Israel’s government just 18 months after losing power in the wake of a series of stalemated elections. Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu is an Israeli politician who has been serving as the prime minister of Israel since December 2022, having previously held office from 1996 to 1999 and again from 2009 to 2021. Netanyahu has faced international criticism over his decades-long policy as prime minister of expanding Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, deemed illegal under international law. In 2019, Netanyahu was indicted on charges of breach of trust, bribery and fraud, following a three year investigation, due to which he relinquished all his ministry posts other than the prime minister position. Already Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, Netanyahu’s approach to foreign policy, and to the conflict with and occupation of the Palestinians, is to some extent a known quantity. Netanyahu’s new coalition has been dubbed as the “ most right-wing and extreme government in Israel’s history”. The new extreme right coalition has already brought Israelis to the streets in protest and prompted strong statements of concern from former Israeli diplomatic and security officials. Even the current chief of staff of Israel’s Defense Forces has weighed in with security concerns. Netanyahu, 73, heads a government including his Likud party along with five far-right and orthodox religious factions. He told the Knesset that his government has three prime objectives: stopping Iran’s nuclear programme; developing Israel’s infrastructure with an emphasis on connecting peripheral settler communities to the country’s centre; and bolstering law and order. Netanyahu is currently facing trial on fraud, graft and breach of trust charges, and is being accused of engineering a coalition with the far-right parties that will change the law to allow him to evade accountability. At least two of his ministers have been convicted of serious crimes in the past. Despite the comfortable majority in the Knesset vote of confidence, Netanyahu’s coalition has been under fire due to fears that it will undermine civil freedoms and human rights while imposing an extreme far-right religious agenda on the political process and the handling of the Palestinian issue. Extremists amongst his ministers, they pointed out, have already made candid promises to their extremist supporters to curb freedoms and rights. After Netanyahu was sworn-in, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak described the extreme right coalition government as “ carrying out a coup in Israel before our eyes, with its racism, corruption, neutering of the justice system, politicisation of the police and undermining of the chain of command in the (Israel Defence Forces).” Netanyahu is said to enjoy good rapport with prime minister Narendra Modi and also former US president Donald Trump. With the settlement of Israelis in occupied West Bank and other parts of occupied Palestine likely to increase, the middle east could experience another bout of tension and hopefully this will not explode into another violent conflict.