The Israeli Knesset continues its special session to vote on the new government, while Naftali Bennett, Yamina party leader and potential prime minister, said his government would support settlements and maintain a ceasefire with the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas); But it will confront it forcefully if it threatens the Israelis.
Bennett, who will head the government alternately with the leader of the There is a Future party, Yair Lapid, added that his government will support settlements in all areas of the West Bank, especially in Area C.
Bennett stressed that his government would fight the nuclear agreement with Iran, and would not allow it to acquire a nuclear weapon, refusing to revive the nuclear agreement with Tehran, and promised to represent “the coalition for change in Israel as a whole.”
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Netanyahu indicated that members of the new government oppose construction in settlements and support the establishment of a Palestinian state, stressing that his alliance will bring down the left-wing government faster than many imagine.
The Israeli Knesset (Parliament) witnessed chaos during its special session to vote on the government of Naftali Bennett, as many members protested and boycotted his speech.
The Speaker of the Knesset ordered the expulsion of a number of religious Zionist representatives from the hall, in turn, because of their boycott of Bennett, who continued to deliver his speech.
The plenary session of the Israeli parliament will see a vote on the new government, which could end the 12-year rule of current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
High-tech millionaire Naftali Bennett, leader of the hardline Yamina party, will alternate in the leadership of the new coalition government.
He will be followed in the role by the famous former TV presenter Yair Lapid, leader of the centrist opposition party “There is a future”, for a term of two years each, according to the coalition agreement between them.
Bennett will be the first to lead the government until August 27, 2023, and then Lapid will lead it until November 2025, according to the newspaper, “Haaretz.”
The session includes speeches by Bennett, Lapid and Netanyahu, who will lead the opposition parties, as well as a vote to elect a new Knesset speaker, Mickey Levy from the “There is a Future” party.
The new government coalition consists of 8 parties extending in their political orientations from the far right to the far left, including for the first time the Palestinians of 48.
Netanyahu, 71, failed to form a government after the fourth elections in Israel in two years, on March 23.
If Lapid and Bennett’s government fails to win a majority in the Knesset, it is likely that Israel will move to hold its fifth elections in less than two years, after inconclusive elections held on March 23, but which were culminated in the new coalition agreement.