Ben-gvir named police minister under coalition deal
JERUSALEM: Israeli far-right politician Itamar Ben-gvir is to become police minister under a coalition deal with Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party that is set to create the most right-wing government in the country’s history.
The agreement comes ater Netanyahu’s right-wing alliance won a comfortable victory in this month’s parliamentary election, Israel’s fith in less than four years.
Netanyahu is still continuing talks with three other parties on forming the new government.
“We took a big step (last night) towards a full coalition agreement, toward forming a fully, fully right-wing government,” Ben-gvir said in a statement issued early on Friday.
Ben-gvir, who was convicted in 2007 of racist incitement against Arabs and backing a group considered by Israel and the United States to be a terrorist organisation, will have an expanded security porfolio that will include responsibility for Border Police in the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian Authority’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said the deal involving Ben-gvir would have a “potentially catastrophic impact on the Israeli-palestinian conflict” and hinder the revival of negotiations between the two sides, which stalled in 2014.
In addition to the expanded security porfolio, Ben-gvir’s party will also take ministries in charge of development in the Negev and Galilee regions, the heritage ministry and a deputy position in the Economy Ministry as well as the chairmanship of the Knesset Public Security Commitee.
The agreement, which gives Ben-gvir a position in the Israeli government security cabinet, comes ater months of tensions in the West Bank following a deadly army crackdown.
It also comes just days ater a coordinated bombing atack on two bus stops in Jerusalem that killed an Israel-canadian student and wounded at least 14 others.
As a setler living in the West Bank, which Israel occupied in a 1967 Middle East war, Ben-gvir has long been a fierce opponent of Palestinian statehood.