The Israeli Knesset (parliament) will vote, Thursday, December 29, to grant confidence to the government of Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, 73, with continued sharp criticism from opponents of the government, which is said to be the “most extremist” in the history of Israel.
The Israeli “broadcasting” authority (official) said that Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin informed the Knesset on Monday that “the discussion and vote regarding the formation of the government will take place in a special session of the Knesset on Thursday morning, subject to the approval of the Knesset Committee.”
The Knesset Committee specializes in preparing for parliamentary sessions in which voting takes place.
In order to obtain the confidence of the Knesset, the votes of at least 61 out of 120 members of the Knesset must be mobilized, and the Netanyahu camp has 64 votes that guarantee him obtaining this confidence.
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Late on Wednesday evening, Netanyahu informed Israeli President Isaac Herzog of being able to form a government, minutes before the end of his mandate to accomplish the task.
Warnings are mounting inside and outside Israel about the possible policies of the next right-wing government, especially against the Palestinian people.
The announcement of the date of the Knesset session comes at a time when sharp criticism of the next right-wing government continues by opponents.
In response to the request of the far-right “Religious Zionism” party, which is partner in Netanyahu’s government, to consider that incitement to racism will not cause the possibility of running for the Knesset elections to be disqualified, the former speaker of the Knesset and his current member of the “There is a Future (center)” party Mickey Levy said: “You make a state Israel is an apartheid state.
“The people of the world will look at us as a racist, black and appalling country,” Levy added, in deliberations of a parliamentary committee on Monday.
He also rejected the party’s request to amend the Israeli Law of Return to allow only the children of Jews and not their descendants, as is the case today, to obtain Israeli citizenship through immigration to Israel.
Levy said, “We will take millions out to the streets (in protest) if you dare to amend the Law of Return and the Law of the Grandson. You will divide this people, and these two laws will harm all Jewish communities in the world and we will lose half of our people who live in the Diaspora.”
However, Knesset member of the Likud party (right), led by Netanyahu, Eliyahu Revivo responded to him in the same session, saying: “We will amend the law and we will not consult you. The people elected us. You are acting arrogant and arrogant. We will enact laws while you will continue to speak.” According to the Knesset website.
At the same session, Knesset member Ram Ben-Barak of “There is a Future” warned that “there are fears that this state will collapse, and therefore we all have to come to our senses.”
The outgoing Prime Minister, Yair Lapid, continued to sharply criticize the next government.
“We have already seen governments established in Israel. What is happening here is not an ordinary event. What we have is the weakest prime minister ever, and a government in chaos,” Lapid said in a tweet on Monday.
“This is not a complete right-wing government, it is a complete government of madness. We have no intention of sitting quietly while the State of Israel is dismantled from within… (This is) an extremist, religious and nationalist government,” according to Lapid.
Referring to the religious and hard-right parties, Lapid added, “They have realized that Netanyahu is weak and will continue to plunder him, the Likud, and the state.”
Netanyahu responded to him in a tweet, saying: “Lapid, losing elections is not the end of democracy, it is the essence of democracy.”
Netanyahu added, “I call on you to act responsibly, to accept the decision of the people, and to transfer power in an orderly manner so that we can fix everything that you have destroyed in the past year and a half.”
And if the proposed government wins the confidence of the Knesset, then at the end of this week, Netanyahu will become prime minister and Lapid will become the head of the opposition.
For the first time, Netanyahu served as prime minister between 1996 and 1999, and then for 12 consecutive years between 2009 and 2021.
