Knesset Launches Netanyahu’s New Term as Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu took the oath of office shortly before midnight Wednesday after the Knesset voted 69-45 in favor of the new government.

by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu, Arutz Sheva
March 31, 2009

Netanyahu takes oath of office
 

Binyamin Netanyahu took the oath of office as Prime Minister shortly before midnight Wednesday after the Knesset voted 69-45 in favor of the new government. Five Labor party Knesset members abstained from voting in a protest move against the coalition agreement engineered by party chairman and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

The swearing-in declared faith in serving the public and agreeing to abide by Knesset decisions. The same oath was taken by 30 Cabinet ministers, who will be part of the country’s largest ever Cabinet.

Immediate past Finance Minister Ronnie Bar-On (Kadima) ridiculed the new government in a lengthy speech in which he charged that the bloated Cabinet will cost taxpayers eight billion shekels ($2 billion a year.)

He also chided the new Prime Minister for violating the same principles he adopted and fought for the past several years, particularly his former opposition to raising child support payments, which Shas demanded as the price of its joining the Likud-led coalition.

The Kadima party’s opposition to the Shas demand cost it a chance to form the government last September and forced new elections after party leader Tzipi Livni failed to convince enough parties to join a government to replace the one by Ehud Olmert. He continued in office in the wake of Livni's failure.

She took her seat in the Opposition Wednesday night, bitterly attacking Labor party chairman Barak for joining the government, despite his having promised after the February election of the new Knesset that he would sit in the Opposition.

Also voting against the government was the Ichud Leumi (National Union), which stood by its demand that Prime Minister Netanyahu declare he is against the establishment of a new Arab state within Israel’s current borders.

The Jewish Home party, whose views are similar to Ichud Leumi but which did not demand that Prime Minister Netanyahu put in writing a specific promise to reject a Palestinian Authority state, joined the coalition.

Netanyahu now heads the 32nd government since the re-establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and takes office for the second time, having presided over the government 10 years ago until opposition from the national religious parties brought down his coalition. He lost the ensuing election to Ehud Barak, who served as prime minister for only 18 months after a no-confidence vote toppled his government because of extensive concessions to the Palestinian Authority PA. Yasser Arafat, who then was chairman of the PA, immediately launched the Oslo War, also known as the Second Intifada, after having rejected Barak offer to hand over to the PA nearly all of Judea, Samaria and Gaza.