Israel's Netanyahu seals coalition deals with rightist, religious allies

JERUSALEM - Israel’s Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu has finalised coalition deals with allied parties, their spokesmen said on Wednesday.

They are part of the final steps towards his political comeback.

Mr Netanyahu will head one of the most right-wing governments in Israel’s history.

Mr Netanyahu, whose bloc of nationalist and religious parties

won a clear election victory last month,

is expected to swear in his new government on Thursday after his Likud party finalises two remaining deals.

But even before starting his record sixth term in office, Mr Netanyahu has sought to quell fears at home and abroad that his emerging government will endanger minority rights, harm the judiciary and exacerbate the conflict with the Palestinians.

The coalition deals with the pro-settler Religious Zionism and ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism parties have yet to be formally published. But leaked clauses, recent legislation and statements by future coalition members over the past few weeks have drawn wide criticism.

Legislation ratified on Tuesday will ultimately enable Religious Zionism to take up a post of second minister within the Defence Ministry. This would grant it broad authority over expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank – land Palestinians seek for a state.

US-brokered Israeli-Palestinian peace talks collapsed in 2014 and their revival appears unlikely.

Some members of Religious Zionism have advocated for the annexation of the West Bank, to which Israel cites biblical and historical ties.

Further legislation to be brought to a vote on Wednesday

will grant new powers over the police for Mr Itamar Ben-Gvir,

head of the far-right Jewish Power party, as national security minister.

Prospective coalition members’ pledges to curb Supreme Court powers, anti-gay statements and calls to allow a business to refuse services to people based on religious grounds, have alarmed liberal Israelis as well as Western allies.

In statements and interviews abroad, Mr Netanyahu has repeatedly said that he will safeguard civil rights, will not allow any harm to the country’s Arab minority or to the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) community and pursue peace. REUTERS