Middle East Monitor / November 9, 2022
Outgoing Israeli Defence Minister, Benny Gantz, warned Wednesday of rising extremism inside Israel, Anadolu News Agency reports.
“The extremism in society and in the government is what bothers me,” Gantz said in statements cited by The Jerusalem Post newspaper.
Opposition leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, is set to form the upcoming government in Israel after his right-wing alliance won last week’s legislative elections.
Netanyahu’s camp won 64 seats in the 120-seat Knesset (Israel’s parliament) against 51 seats for members of the current government led by Prime Minister, Yair Lapid.
One of his allies, Bezalel Smotrich, the head of the extremist Religious Zionism Party, wants to hold the Defence portfolio in the upcoming government.
Smotrich is known for his extremist views, including the annexation of the West Bank and the dismantling of the Israeli Civil Administration, which rules the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territory.
