New appointments aimed at easing coalition tension

Renegade Yisrael Beytenu MK Eli Avidar will be appointed a minister and Meretz MK Yair Golan a deputy minister in an effort to resolve conflicts within Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s governing coalition, sources in the coalition confirmed Thursday.

Avidar rebelled after he was not given the development of the periphery, Negev and Galilee portfolio he sought from his party leader, Avigdor Liberman. He did not accept Liberman’s request that he serve as a second minister in the Finance Ministry, a post that went to his Yisrael Beytenu colleague Hamed Amer. With a razor-thin majority in the Knesset, the coalition could not afford Avidar acting independently, as he did on a bill that would enable the splitting of the Likud.

The most likely post for Avidar to receive is minister of intelligence services, which is expected to be vacated with the likely appointment of current minister Elazar Stern as head of the Jewish Agency for Israel.

Until then, he will be in charge of strategic planning in the Prime Minister’s Office

Representatives of the coalition and opposition have been meeting all week in an effort to resolve a dispute over committees in the Knesset. According to a tentative agreement, Golan will vacate the Knesset Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs Committee chairmanship for a Likud MK.

Golan will instead become deputy economy minister under Orna Barbivay (Yesh Atid). Barbivay caused an uproar this week when she posted a video on TikTok of herself throwing a pint of Israeli-made Ben &

Jerry’s ice cream into the trash instead of supporting the Israeli licensee in its battle against the US company’s decision to boycott Judea and Samaria.

In the ministry, Golan will work to help companies avoid being harmed by both the coronavirus and potential boycotts. He wants to be involved in efforts to prevent further boycotts and warn of the dangers of policies that could further anger progressives in the US, he told The Jerusalem Post.

Along with shifting Golan, the coalition is expected to give the opposition extra slots on the Knesset Finance Committee and Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and as additional deputy Knesset speakers, who help decide the parliament’s agenda.

The Knesset is expected to vote next week on an amendment to Basic Law: The Government

that would facilitate the rotation between Bennett and Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid. As part of that law, Ra’am (United Arab List) Party head Mansour Abbas will be allowed to be appointed as a deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Office.

In a new dispute in the coalition, Ra’am MK Saeed Alharomi is demanding the firing of the head of the National Authority on Bedouin Development, Yair Maayan. Alharomi opposes Maayan because he enabled demolitions of illegal construction in Alharomi’s village.

One possibility is for Maayan to become the head of the Companies Authority, which would be shifted from the Prime Minister’s Office to the Finance Ministry under Liberman, who is a neighbor of Maayan in the Gush Etzion community of Nokdim.