Veteran Israeli politician Benjamin Netanyahu returned as the country's prime minister after the parliament voted in favor of his government on Thursday.
Amir Ohana of Netanyahu's right-wing conservative Likud party was elected as the new of parliament speaker before the swearing-in of individual coalition members began.
In a speech met with angry calls from the opposition, outlined his government's most important goals for the next four years, saying that everything would be done "so that Iran does not destroy us with a nuclear bomb."
The 73-year-old leader, returning to power at the helm of his sixth government after a hiatus of one and a half years, said he would also work toward rapprochement with more Arab states.
Netanyahu, fighting corruption charges in court, has already served as premier longer than anyone in Israeli history, leading the country from 1996-1999 and from 2009-2021.
"This is the sixth time I'm presenting a government that I'm heading to get parliament's support, and I'm excited like the first time," Netanyahu told the Knesset ahead of his swearing-in ceremony.
He also voiced hopes of "expanding the circle of peace with Arab countries" following U.S.-brokered normalization agreements with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.
Former Israeli intelligence minister Eli Cohen, an architect of the normalization agreements, was named as foreign minister.
Netanyahu was ousted in June 2021 by a motley coalition of leftists, centrists and Arab parties headed by right-winger Naftali Bennett and former TV news anchor Yair Lapid. It didn't take him long to come back.
Following his Nov. 1 election win, Netanyahu entered into talks 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 Palestinians.
Smotrich will now take charge of Israeli settlement policy in the West Bank, and Ben-Gvir will be the national security minister with powers over the police, which also operates in the territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
Senior security officials have already voiced concern over the new government's direction — as have Palestinians.
"It becomes for Netanyahu's partners a dream government," said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute think-tank.
"And one side's dream is the other side's nightmare. This government is expected to take the country on a new trajectory."
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that Washington would oppose settlement expansion and any bid to annex the West Bank.
But in a statement of policy priorities released Wednesday, Netanyahu's Likud party said the government would pursue settlement expansion.
About 475,000 Jewish settlers — Smotrich and Ben-Gvir — live there 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.
Smotrich and Ben-Gvir "have an extreme thirst for power," and their priority remains the expansion of West Bank settlements, said Denis Charbit, professor of political science at Israel's Open University.
The government is the result 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," Charbit added.
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," said Basem Naim, a senior official with Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.
Israel and Hamas fought a war in May 2021.
In the West Bank, violence has surged this year and many fear more unrest.
"I think that if the government acts irresponsibly, it could cause a security escalation," outgoing Defense Minister Benny Gantz said on Tuesday, expressing fear over the "extremist direction" of the incoming administration.
