The news of Israel’s former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returning to power has been welcomed by several world leaders and has left Palestinian terrorist groups rattled.
The final vote count showed the Netanyahu-led alliance winning 65 seats in Tuesday’s election, giving him a comfortable majority in the 120-seat parliament. Netanyahu’s own Likud emerged as the biggest party with 31 seats, and he is expected to get support from like-minded right-wing parties to form the next government.
The clear outcome breaks a political deadlock that resulted in five elections since 2019 in Israel. Attempts by centrist and left-wing parties to form an ‘Anyone-But-Bibi’ government failed to build stable ruling coalitions, paving the way for Israel’s longest-serving prime minister to return to office after a gap of seventeen months.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Hungary’s leader Viktor Orbán, and Italy’s newly-elected PM Giorgia Meloni were among the first world leaders to congratulate Netanyahu.
President Joe Biden, who congratulated Brazil’s President-elect Luiz da Silva hours after the result was announced, has so far not reached out to Netanyahu.
Writing in The Washington Free Beacon, Adam Kredo noted Biden’s White House’s cold response to the Israeli election result:
Asked on Thursday afternoon if President Joe Biden has any plans to phone Netanyahu following his victory this week in the Israeli elections, a White House spokesman told the Washington Free Beacon , “We don’t have any call to preview at this point.”Biden called Brazil’s newly elected far-left president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, on Monday, just a day after that country’s elections. This discrepancy is fueling accusations the Biden administration is taking a chilly approach to its diplomacy with Netanyahu, who made history by being elected as Israel’s prime minister for the third time.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the Free Beacon that the president’s delay in calling Netanyahu “is not an accident.””President Biden rushed to call Lula, a committed anti-American Chavista, but is finding every possible excuse not to call the next Prime Minister of Israel. That is not an accident,” Cruz said. “Biden has spent his entire administration undermining America’s allies and boosting America’s enemies. The next Republican Congress is going to leverage aggressive oversight and legislation to reverse that recklessness.”
Texas Senator Ted Cruz and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were among the leading Republicans to congratulate the former Israeli prime minister on his comeback.
The Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist group fired rockets from Gaza into southern Israel as Netanyahu’s election victory was confirmed on Thursday evening.
The Israeli response was swift, with the Israel Defense Forces destroying an underground Hamas rocket factory. “The Israeli army confirmed it had struck targets in the Gaza Strip Friday morning, responding to earlier rockets fired by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group,” the Israel TV channel i24News reported late Thursday. “According to the military, the attack targeted an underground facility used by Hamas to develop rockets.”
Other Palestinian groups and terror outfits appear just as outraged at Netanyahu’s return. “The prospect of Benjamin Netanyahu returning to power at the head of one of the most right-wing coalitions in Israeli history has prompted concern among Palestinians,” Reuters reported Friday.
The news agency reported the Hamas’ and PLO’s responses:
“No doubt the result of such a coalition will increase the hostile attitude towards the Palestinian people and make occupation measures more extreme,” Bassam Salhe, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, told Reuters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which has fought several wars with Israel over the last decade, predicted the results meant more potential violence.”It is clear that the Israelis are leaning towards more extremism, which also means aggression against our people would increase,” Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem told Reuters.”Netanyahu-led governments that launched several wars against our Palestinian people, and the presence of the most extreme figures in a coalition means that we are going to face more of the Zionist terrorism,” he said.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY