Ramallah // The last-minute formation of a pro-settlement, right-wing Israeli government that includes ultrareligious hardliners was met with frustration in Palestinian political circles and pessimism among ordinary West Bankers.
Benjamin Netanyahu had to settle for a narrow majority to form his fourth and most right-wing government to date, after an agreement was forged with the pro-settler Jewish Home party. The party’s leader, Naftali Bennet, who will become education minister, extracted major concessions before throwing Mr Netanyahu a lifeline of eight seats for his coalition. This helped secure him 61 seats in the 120-seat Knesset.
Mr Netanyahu’s scrambling to make the constitutional deadline came after Avigdor Lieberman of the Yisrael Beiteinu party pulled out of the government and committed to opposition. Mr Lieberman, once viewed as the most right-wing member of Mr Netanyahu’s cabinet, gave up his position of foreign minister. The new coalition was not “national” enough, he said.
Talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been frozen since April 2014, and the coalition’s hardline nature leaves little hope for a resumption of the peace process. The full extent of the new government’s decision-making will only be determined after the entire composition of Mr Netanyahu’s cabinet is revealed in the coming days.
For now, the prime minister wants to increase the size of his cabinet from 18 to 22 ministers – to secure his Likud party colleagues more positions – and needs to pass a law in parliament to do so.
For Palestinians, whatever the final make-up is, the outcome seems clear: Mr Netanyahu has very little interest in reaching a just solution to the continuing conflict in the territories.
“Such a coalition ... promotes an anti-peace agenda and the language of racism, extremism and violence,” said Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) executive committee member.
Mr Netanyahu’s choice of ministerial spots is a giveaway: he placed the education and justice ministries in the hands of Jewish Home, which has its roots in the settler movement. Mr Bennet, who will become education minister, has openly called for the expansion of settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem and the annexation of about 60 per cent of the West Bank to Israel, thereby shattering any hopes for an independent Palestinian state.
Mr Bennet’s appointment will likely mean instilling his own religious, hardline views in the government education curriculum. His party’s website lists as an urgent priority the promotion of “love for the land and [Jewish] people” throughout state schools. It also wants to introduce a so-called “Jewish-Zionist education” unit in public schools, according to Natasha Roth, writing for the blog +972.
Just last week, Israeli authorities advanced plans for 900 new units in the settlement of Ramat Shlomo in East Jerusalem, according to Israeli watchdog Peace Now. This was part of a March 2010 plan to build 1,600 settler homes there.
In 2014, Netanyahu’s government set a 10-year record for the number of tenders issued for settlements, and construction increased by 40 per cent over 2013.
The new government will also be at the mercy of two religious parties, which have called for exclusion from mandatory military service and increased government spending for the Haredim or ultra-Orthodox.
Moshe Kahlon, the man expected to become finance minister, has insisted he will cut public expenditure, however, and that may be put him on a collision course with the pro-settlement members seeking more public spending.
Some pundits posit that it is these divergent interests of the coalition parties that make it inherently self-destructive, and Palestinians may take comfort in the fact that the government may not last long. With such a composition, it may take very little to pull the coalition apart.
Mr Netanyahu also appointed Mr Bennett’s party colleague, Ayelet Shaked, to the justice ministry.
In July, the then-legislator posted an article on Facebook by the late Israeli journalist and former speech writer for Mr Netanyahu, Uri Elitzur, that justified the killing of Palestinians.
“Appointing Shaked, who openly advocated for the genocide of the Palestinian people and stated that ‘the entire Palestinian people is the enemy’, as the new justice minister is not only a threat to peace and security, but generates a culture of hate and lawlessness within Israel,” said the PLO’s Ms Ashrawi.
The notoriously hardline settler Uri Ariel, who is slated to become agriculture minister, will be responsible for an agency that provides funds for and leases West Bank land to settlements.
For now, the foreign minister position remains vacant, as Mr Netanyahu strives to bring the Zionist Union’s Isaac Herzog on board. It is difficult to see how Mr Herzog would join such a coalition, given that he has already called it a “national failure” in a Facebook post.
For some Palestinians, this coalition, compounded by the legacy of Mr Netanyahu’s past three governments, is enough to foresee a continuation of the same stalemate of the past few years, complete with more settlements and land confiscation.
“The Al Aqsa mosque is being desecrated, children are being arrested, trees are being uprooted,” said Hidaya Bayadseh, a seamstress from Ramallah. “These things all happened during Netanyahu’s reign and nothing will change with his new government.”
As Mr Netanyahu’s coalition will be at the whims of the settler movement and religious parties, things are looking increasingly bleak for Palestinians, especially in light of their own internal schisms that have pitted Hamas and Fatah against one another.
One of the ways to deal with this new government is for the two Palestinian factions to come together, said senior Fatah official Mohammad Shtayyeh. “This Israeli coalition is characterised by extremism,” he said. “It will make every attempt to dilute Jerusalem’s Palestinian identity – through increased settlement – and keep Gaza under siege. We must achieve reconciliation.”
In mid-March, during the final days of Mr Netanyahu’s election campaign, the prime minister admitted that a Palestinian state would not be formed on his watch. In the aftermath, Palestinians vowed to cease security coordination with Israel. But so far this has not happened.
“There needs to be a clear game plan. Palestinians usually take a reactionary stance to changes in the Israeli political arena, instead of having their own strategy,” said Khalil Shaheen, a Ramallah-based political analyst. “The only practical step is confronting Israel diplomatically on the international arena, especially at the UN and the ICC.”
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