Netanyahu once again prime minister with most far-right government in Israel’s history

Judy Woodruff:

Benjamin Netanyahu was sworn in as prime minister today in Israel, but his Cabinet and his government's platform are controversial.

John Yang has the story.

(APPLAUSE)

John Yang:

Inside the Israeli Knesset today, Benjamin Netanyahu celebrated his return as prime minister.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister:

This is the 6th time I am presenting a government headed by me for the Parliament's approval. And I am as excited as the first time.

John Yang:

Outside, hundreds of demonstrators protested it.

Iiftach Talmy, Israeli Protester:

I came to demonstrate against the government that is about to rise up in Israel, horrible government. A lot of criminals are sitting there. And they wish to destroy the Israeli democracy.

John Yang:

After two months of intensive negotiations, Netanyahu assembled Israel's most far right ultranationalist government ever.

One of the most controversial coalition figures? Itamar Ben-Gvir, previously convicted of inciting racism and supporting a Jewish terrorist group. He's been appointed minister of national security overseeing the national police.

The hard-line tilt of the new government worries some Israelis.

Assaf Rappaport, Israeli Business Owner:

Our fear, our biggest fear is that Israel is actually following Russia, following Poland, following Hungary in a way.

John Yang:

Among the policies the coalition partners agreed to? Giving lawmakers veto power over Supreme Court decisions, allowing businesses, including physicians, to discriminate against serving LGBTQ people based on religious beliefs, and perhaps the most controversial, declaring the Jewish people's exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the land of Israel, including the West Bank.

With tensions already running high, Palestinian officials anticipate the most challenging period ever in Israeli-Palestinian relations.

Mohammad Shtayyeh, Palestinian Prime Minister (through translator):

We passed through many extremist governments. But this government is the most extremist. This government is the most threatening. This government is the most insolent.

And I know for a fact that the international community will not deal with many members of this government. Therefore, to us, we are against all the governments that practice killing and oppression our people.

John Yang:

As a new chapter in Israel begins, with Netanyahu extending his record as the longest-serving prime minister.

There are all sorts of potential implications of this new Israeli government within Israeli politics, Israeli society and between Israelis and Palestinians.

David Makovsky is a longtime Israel watcher. He's director of the Project on Arab-Israel Relations at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

David, welcome.

How different is this coalition government from the other coalitions that Netanyahu formed?

David Makovsky, Senior Fellow, Washington Institute for Near East Policy: The winning strategy for Netanyahu and the reason why he's won five terms until now is, he's identified with this idea of Bibi the stabilizer, which is, bring economic prosperity.

Israel's high-tech industry has helped power Israel. Its GDP is now equal with Germany and ahead of France and England. And that's just not him, by the way. There's other Israeli prime ministers that have been involved. Talk tough on the Palestinian issue, maybe, but, at the same time, be very careful not to be an adventurist and not getting people killed in Israel.

And, also, be vigilant on the Iranian nuclear program and try to keep good ties with the United States. That has been his winning formula. He's kind of thrown his playbook out the window. And instead of going with kind of a center-right independence and the like, he's moved over to a more populist, I would even say radical right.

And his belief that well, what can I do? The center-left boycotts me because they say — because I'm on trial for corruption. These are the only partners I have. So, I have to come to the dance with the ones I brought.

John Yang:

A lot of attention given to his — the coalition's stated policies on settlements in the West Bank.

There's a map we have showing in sort of purple the established settlements. These are the authorized settlements. In green are the outposts…

David Makovsky:

Right.

John Yang:

… the sort of unauthorized outposts.

Talk us through the implications of this for Israeli-Palestinian relations.

David Makovsky:

Look, the Clinton administration, the George W. Bush administration, the Obama administration, which, I should disclose, I was part of the negotiating team, were all based on a similar idea, which is that most of the settlers live near Israeli cities, which is sometimes called the Green Line, for the most part.

And those what we call the block settlements, the clusters, 85 percent of the Israeli settlers over the line live, like, largely adjacent to that line. But most of the West Bank would go — about 92 percent would go to the Palestinians.

It's either side of what we call the security barrier. What…

John Yang:

Would go in an anticipated two-state solution.

David Makovsky:

In an anticipated two-state solution.

But what happened was, the first iteration was the Trump peace plan in the year 2020, which said, no, every settlement, we will call Israel, which doesn't allow for a contiguous Palestinian entity. And now one of Netanyahu's junior coalition partners wants to take it to the next level and says, well, there are these unauthorized outposts that are in wildcat settlements the Cabinet has never voted on. Let's legalize all them.

So, if you add 78 settlements on the Palestinian side, so to speak, and now another 70-plus settlements, it's like, oh, about 150 settlements, there's not room for a two-state solution.

John Yang:

President Biden congratulated Mr. Netanyahu today, the boilerplate language of looking forward to working with him, but he also said that the United States will continue to support the two-state solution and oppose policies that endanger its viability or contradict our mutual interests and values.

Signs of a rocky relationship between Washington and Jerusalem?

David Makovsky:

I think it was an opening salvo, but, for the most part, Biden's style is to view foreign policy as relationship between leaders.

And I don't expect to have, like, a slug match between the two of them. I think he will send Jake Sullivan or Tony Blinken, the secretary of state, or — and Sullivan, the national security adviser, one of them, to prepare a White House meeting. And I think the principle is, we want to hold the prime minister to a set of principles that really undergird not just our shared interests, but also our shared values.

And that means no change in the status quo on the Temple Mount, which I should say is in — is in the coalition guidelines, no unilateral annexation of the West Bank, no mass legalization of outposts. And there's more of these. And make sure that the Palestinian Authority doesn't collapse in the West Bank.

John Yang:

You mentioned earlier that Netanyahu is on trial on corruption charges. How is that going to affect how we governs?

David Makovsky:

This is the $64,000 question.

When the center and the left said, we're not going with you, and the hard right says, we will go with you, he sees there they're going to extricate him from his trial. They don't trust him because they don't think he's hard right. And they're saying, we're not going to do that up front. But after you have delivered for us, then we would pass some legislation.

So the question is, how beholden is he and also how embittered is he, that he believes that it's an elite judiciary coming up with these charges against him, they're out to get him? So some say he uses it politically. Others say it has really embittered him, and he's going to go with this hard right all the way because they are like his get-out-of-jail-free card.

John Yang:

This coalition is also calling for changes in society, in Israeli society…

David Makovsky:

Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

John Yang:

… saying that there can be — people can not serve or discriminate based on religious beliefs, not just LGBTQ…

David Makovsky:

Yes. Right.

John Yang:

… but also have separate events for gender.

David Makovsky:

He knows LGBT is very popular in Israel, that, for the first time, Israel's Knesset speaker, like Nancy Pelosi would be in our country, is an openly gay Likud right-wing guy who works with Netanyahu.

So, he said, we're not doing that. But yet he put it in the coalition agreements for religious parties who say, hey, well, we don't want to treat someone. And Bibi said, that's not our way.

I mean, if I have had to summarize it on a couple sentences, I would say this. The success of Israel is finding the equilibrium between liberal democratic institutions and also being a homeland as a Jewish state. And the equilibrium has not always been perfect, but they have strived for that bounce.

You have now have — what's new here is a coalition of people who want to move Israel away from its moorings, the bearings of a liberal democracy. They want to recalibrate things, whether it's the courts. They want to throw out a professional attorney general and bring in like an in-house lawyer.

They want to override the Supreme Court laws with a bare majority, or they want to change the personnel in the military. The military has been sacrosanct, but they want to change that personnel because they see them as curbs on expansion of settlements.

I think it's going to be a tough challenge. Fasten your seat belts, because, on this plane, it's going to be turbulent.

John Yang:

David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, thank you very much.

David Makovsky:

Delighted to be with you.