Coalition results in Israel’s most right-wing government in history

FAR-RIGHT politician Itamar Ben-Gvir will be Israel’s national security minister under a coalition deal with Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, in what is set to be the most right-wing government in the country’s history.

The agreement comes after Netanyahu’s right-wing alliance won a comfortable victory in this month’s parliamentary election, Israel’s fifth 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,” said Ben-Gvir, leader of the Jewish Power party.

Ben-Gvir, convicted in 2007 of racist incitement against Arabs and backing a group considered by Israel and the US to be a terrorist organisation, will have an expanded security portfolio to include Border Police in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian Authority’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said the appointment would have a “potentially catastrophic impact on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” and hinder the revival of negotiations between the two sides.

Mairav Zonszein, senior Israel analyst at International Crisis Group, said Ben-Gvir’s expanded security portfolio could be a “game changer” in the West Bank, which is under the effective control of the Israeli military.

“Israel is moving more and more powers normally held by the defence ministry or military to civilian ministries,” she said. Granting Ben-Gvir authority over Border Police in the West Bank “blurs the boundaries between Israel and the West Bank”.

Hazem Qassem, a spokesperson for the Islamist Hamas group that governs Gaza, said Ben-Gvir’s deal with Netanyahu meant the new government in Israel would be “more fascist and extreme”. The militant Islamic Jihad group also predicted further tension.

The agreement comes after months of tensions in the West Bank following a deadly army crackdown after a spate of fatal attacks in Israel by Palestinian militants.

It also comes days after a bombing attack on two bus stops in Jerusalem that killed an Israel-Canadian student and wounded 14 others.