Ben Gvir, Minister of Police in the new ruling coalition in Israel
The Palestinian Authority: Netanyahu's understandings with right-wing parties threaten catastrophic results
Clashes between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli forces in the West Bank village of Kafr Qaddum.
A.F.B
Yesterday, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates warned that Israeli Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu's understandings with right-wing parties threaten "catastrophic" results on the conflict arena, after Netanyahu's conservative Likud party signed the first coalition agreement with the far-right Jewish Power Party. According to him, Itamar Ben Gvir is granted the Ministry of Police, and a seat in the security cabinet.
The Palestinian ministry said in a press statement that it considers "extremely dangerous the repercussions of the agreements that Netanyahu signs with the extreme right, especially their potential catastrophic consequences on the conflict arena."
She added that these understandings threaten "what remains of the relationship between the Palestinian and Israeli sides, and in particular the powers granted by Netanyahu to Ben Gvir and his followers, in everything related to the occupied Palestinian territory and settlements and random outposts therein."
The ministry renewed its warning of the repercussions of these coalition agreements on any international and regional efforts made to achieve calm, stop escalation, and confidence-building measures on the way to reviving negotiations between the two sides.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry called on the international community to "assume its responsibilities to follow up on these developments, and to put pressure on the next Israeli government, to ensure that its extremist racist policies on the Palestinian issue are not implemented."
Netanyahu's conservative Likud party said in a statement yesterday that it had signed its first coalition agreement with the far-right Jewish Power party.
The agreement does not represent the formation of a complete and final new government in Israel, but it grants the extremist nationalist Itamar Ben Gvir the police ministry, and a seat in the security cabinet.
Under the agreement, Ben Gvir will assume the internal security portfolio with broad powers, including the responsibility for legalizing random outposts in the West Bank.
"We have taken a big step towards forming a completely right-wing government," Ben Gvir said in the statement.
And the expected government, it seems, will be the most right-wing in the history of Israel, which will put Netanyahu under pressure to maintain the diplomatic balance between his coalition and his Western allies.
Representatives of religious Zionism demand that the party leader, Bezalel Smotrich, assume the position of Minister of Defense, so that the party can influence policy related to the West Bank, and demands the Likud party at the same time to keep the high position.
Coinciding with Netanyahu's understandings, dozens of Palestinians were injured yesterday, in clashes with the Israeli army forces, which erupted in various parts of the West Bank, during the weekly marches condemning the settlements, according to Palestinian sources.
The sources stated that the most intense confrontations broke out in the vicinity of Jabal Sabih in the town of Beita and Beit Furik in Nablus, and resulted in a number of injuries with rubber bullets and suffocation, while similar confrontations took place in the town of Kafr Qaddum in Qalqilya and the vicinity of Ramallah.
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