Israel's Netanyahu Back with Extreme-right Government

Benjamin Netanyahu, 73, already served as prime minister longer than anyone in Israeli history. Menahem KAHANA / AFP/File
Benjamin Netanyahu, 73, already served as prime minister longer than anyone in Israeli history. Menahem KAHANA / AFP/File
TT
20

Israel's Netanyahu Back with Extreme-right Government

Benjamin Netanyahu, 73, already served as prime minister longer than anyone in Israeli history. Menahem KAHANA / AFP/File
Benjamin Netanyahu, 73, already served as prime minister longer than anyone in Israeli history. Menahem KAHANA / AFP/File

After a stint in opposition, Benjamin Netanyahu will return to power in Israel on Thursday, leading what analysts describe as the most right-wing government in the country's history.

Senior security and law enforcement officials have already voiced concern over its direction, as have Palestinians.

"It becomes for Netanyahu's partners a dream government," Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute think-tank, told AFP.

"And one side's dream is the other side's nightmare," he said, adding: "This government is expected to take the country in a completely new trajectory."

Netanyahu, 73, who is fighting corruption allegations in court, already served as prime minister longer than anyone in Israeli history, including a record 12-year tenure from 2009 to 2021 and a three-year period in the late 90s.

He was ousted from power in the spring of 2021 by a motley coalition of leftists, centrists and Arab parties headed by Naftali Bennett and former TV news anchor Yair Lapid.

It didn't take him long to come back.

Netanyahu will present his new government to the Israeli parliament for a ratification vote at 11:00 am (0900 GMT).

Following the election on November 1, Netanyahu entered into negotiations with ultra-Orthodox and extreme-right parties, among them Bezalel Smotrich's Religious Zionism formation and Itamar Ben Gvir's Jewish Power party.

Both have a history of inflammatory remarks about the Palestinians.

They will now take charge respectively of Israeli settlement policy in the West Bank, and of the Israeli police, which also operate in the territory occupied by Israel since 1967.

- 'Thirst for power' -
Even before the government was sworn in, the majority parties passed laws that would allow Aryeh Deri, a key ally from the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, to serve as a minister despite a previous guilty plea to tax offences.

They also voted to expand powers of the national security minister, a portfolio set to be handed to Ben Gvir who will have authority over the police.

The assignment comes despite Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara's warning against the "politicization of law enforcement".

On Monday, in a phone call to Netanyahu, armed forces chief Aviv Kochavi expressed his concerns regarding the creation of a second ministerial post in the defense ministry for Smotrich, who will oversee management of civilian affairs in the West Bank.

Israel's ally the United States has also spoken out.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that Washington would oppose settlement expansion as well as any bid to annex the West Bank.

But in a statement of policy priorities released Wednesday, Netanyahu's Likud party said the government will pursue settlement expansion.

About 475,000 Jewish settlers -- among them Smotrich and Ben Gvir -- live there now in settlements considered illegal under international law.

Analysts said Netanyahu offered the extreme-right vast concessions in the hope he might obtain judicial immunity or cancellation of his corruption trial. He is charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust, allegations he denies.

Denis Charbit, professor of political science at Israel's Open University, told AFP the government "is the addition of Netanyahu's political weakness, linked to his age and his trial, and the fact that you have a new political family of the revolutionary right that we had never seen with this strength in Israel".

Smotrich and Ben Gvir "have a very strong thirst for power" and their priority remains the expansion of West Bank settlements, Charbit said.

- 'Explosion' -
Ben Gvir has repeatedly visited Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third-holiest site in Islam. It is also Judaism's holiest, known as the Temple Mount.

Under a historical status quo, non-Muslims can visit the sanctuary but may not pray there. Palestinians would see a visit by a serving Israeli minister as a provocation.

"If Ben Gvir, as minister, goes to Al-Aqsa it will be a big red line and it will lead to an explosion," Basem Naim, a senior official with the Hamas movement which rules the Gaza Strip, told AFP.

Israel and Hamas fought a war in May 202l. This year, other Gaza militants and Israel exchanged rocket and missile fire for three days in August.

In the West Bank, violence has surged this year and many are afraid of more unrest.

"I think that if the government acts in an irresponsible way, it could cause a security escalation," outgoing Defense Minister Benny Gantz said on Tuesday, expressing fear over the "extremist direction" of the incoming administration.



Iran, US Hold ‘Productive’ Talks in Oman, Agree to Resume Next Week, Tehran Says

This handout picture provided by the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs shows Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi (L) meeting with Oman's Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi in Muscat on April 12, 2025. (Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs / AFP)
This handout picture provided by the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs shows Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi (L) meeting with Oman's Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi in Muscat on April 12, 2025. (Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs / AFP)
TT
20

Iran, US Hold ‘Productive’ Talks in Oman, Agree to Resume Next Week, Tehran Says

This handout picture provided by the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs shows Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi (L) meeting with Oman's Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi in Muscat on April 12, 2025. (Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs / AFP)
This handout picture provided by the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs shows Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi (L) meeting with Oman's Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi in Muscat on April 12, 2025. (Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs / AFP)

Iran and the US held "productive" talks in Oman on Saturday and agreed to reconvene next week, Tehran said, a dialogue meant to address Tehran's escalating nuclear program with President Donald Trump threatening military action if there is no deal.

"I think we are very close to a basis for negotiations and if we can conclude this basis next week, we’ll have gone a long way and will be able to start real discussions based on that,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told state television.

Araghchi said the talks - a first between Iran and a Trump administration, including his first term in 2017-21 - took place in a "productive, calm and positive atmosphere".

"Both sides have agreed to continue the talks ... probably next Saturday ... Iran and the US side want an agreement in the short term. We do not want talks for (the sake of) talks," Araghchi added.

There was no immediate US comment on the talks.

Saturday's exchanges were indirect and mediated by Oman, as Iran had wanted, rather than face-to-face, as Trump had demanded. Each delegation had its separate room and exchanged messages via Oman's foreign minister, according to Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei.

Araghchi said his delegation had a brief encounter with its US counterpart headed by Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, after they exited the talks.

"After the end of more than 2-1/2 hours of indirect talks, the heads of the Iranian and American delegations spoke for a few minutes in the presence of the Omani foreign minister as they left the talks. It (the encounter) was based on our political etiquette," Araghchi said.

"The current focus of the talks will be de-escalating regional tensions, prisoner exchanges and limited agreements to ease sanctions (against Iran) in exchange for controlling Iran's nuclear program," an Omani source told Reuters.

Baghaei denied this account but did not specify what was false.

Oman has long been an intermediary between Western powers and Iran, having brokered the release of several foreign citizens and dual nationals held by Tehran.

Tehran approached the talks warily, skeptical they could yield a deal and suspicious of Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to bomb Iran if it does not halt its accelerating uranium enrichment program - regarded by the West as a possible pathway to nuclear weapons.

While each side has talked up the chances of some progress, they remain far apart on a dispute that has rumbled on for more than two decades. Iran has long denied seeking nuclear weapons capability, but Western countries and Israel believe it is covertly trying to develop the means to build an atomic bomb.

"This is a beginning. So it is normal at this stage for the two sides to present to each other their fundamental positions through the Omani intermediary," Baghaei said.

Signs of progress could help cool tensions in a region aflame since 2023 with wars in Gaza and Lebanon, missile fire between Iran and Israel, Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping and the overthrow of the government in Syria.

HIGH STAKES

However, failure would aggravate fears of a wider conflagration across a region that exports much of the world's oil. Tehran has cautioned neighboring countries that have US bases that they would face "severe consequences" if they were involved in any US military attack on Iran.

"There is a chance for initial understanding on further negotiations if the other party (US) enters the talks with an equal stance," Araghchi told Iranian TV.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on key state matters, has given Araghchi "full authority" for the talks, an Iranian official told Reuters.

Iran has ruled out negotiating its defense capabilities such as its ballistic missile program.

Western nations say Iran's enrichment of uranium, a nuclear fuel source, has gone far beyond the requirements of a civilian energy program and has produced stocks at a level of fissile purity close to those required in warheads.

Trump, who has restored a "maximum pressure" campaign on Tehran since February, ditched a 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and six world powers in 2018 during his first term and reimposed crippling sanctions on Tehran.

Since then, Iran's nuclear program has leaped forward, including by enriching uranium to 60% fissile purity, a technical step from the levels needed for a bomb.

Israel, Washington's closest Middle East ally, regards Iran's nuclear program as an existential threat and has long threatened to attack Iran if diplomacy fails to curb its nuclear ambitions.

Tehran's influence throughout the Middle East has been severely weakened over the past 18 months, with its regional allies - known as the "Axis of Resistance" - either dismantled or badly damaged since the start of the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza and the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria in December.