Tel Aviv: Naftali Bennett was on Sunday sworn in as Israel’s new Prime Minister, ousting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from power after an uninterrupted 12 years at the helm of affairs.
Bennett, the 49-year-old leader of the right-wing Yamina party, took oath of office after parliament (Knesset) voted on Sunday on the new government led by him. The new government has 27 ministers, nine of them women.
The new government – an unprecedented coalition of ideologically divergent political parties drawn from the Right, the Left and the Centre, along with an Arab party – has a razor-thin majority in a 120-member house.
Earlier, Bennett presented his new government’s ministers in the Knesset (Israeli parliament) in a speech constantly interrupted by supporters of 71-year-old Netanyahu.
Amid incessant heckling from rival blocs lawmakers, Bennett said that he is proud of the ability to sit with people of different opinions.
At the decisive moment we took responsibility, he said. The alternative to this government was more elections, more hate, which would have broken up the country.
It is time for responsible leaders from different parts of the nation to stop this madness, he asserted.
