As he leaves Kulanu, Gallant appointed immigration minister

Cabinet ministers approved on Tuesday the appointment of former housing minister Yoav Gallant as the new immigration minister.

The move enables Gallant to remain at the cabinet table despite having lost his Knesset seat and the housing portfolio on Monday as part of his exit from the Kulanu party.

Gallant has signaled for months his intention to switch to Likud, and is preparing to run in the ruling party’s primaries ahead of the April 9 elections.

On Monday, Kulanu chief Moshe Kahlon, the finance minister, met with Gallant in Jerusalem, and the two agreed that Gallant, a former IDF general, would leave the party, according to a joint statement put out by the two.

“According to the agreement between Minister Kahlon and Minister Gallant, he will finish his term as minister of housing and as a member of the Knesset,” the statement said.

According to a coalition source, Gallant had told Kahlon of his decision to resign as a Kulanu MK in order to run in the Likud primaries, but the Kulanu chairman told him such a move would also require him to give up his cabinet portfolio.

While the prime minister has the final say on cabinet appointments, coalition agreements state that he must accede to a request from a party head to fire one of their own ministers.

The switch in ministries reflects the change in parties: The Housing Ministry is held by Kulanu, while the Absorption Ministry is in Likud’s hands since the withdrawal in November of the Yisrael Beytenu faction from the coalition.

Keeping Gallant at the cabinet table also allows Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to keep him in the security cabinet, the high-level ten-member committee of ministers that makes decisions on war and peace. Gallant, who has 35 years of military experience, is the only ex-general on the committee.

At the Absorption Ministry, Gallant replaces Yariv Levin, who is also the tourism minister and has held the ministry in an acting capacity since Netanyahu left the post last week amid criticism that a prime minister should not simultaneously hold the defense, foreign, health and immigration portfolios.

Gallant will only be in the job for five to six months, holding the post until the April 9 election and for however long afterward it takes the election’s winners to negotiate the next coalition and government — conceivably more than two months.

Kahlon will now serve as acting housing minister.

Meanwhile Tuesday Netanyahu announced that MK Yitzhak Vaknin of Shas would be appointed religious affairs minister, replacing David Azoulay who died of cancer in October.

When Gallant submitted his resignation letter from the Knesset to Speaker Yuli Edelstein, Edelstein told him, “Welcome to Likud, this is home.”

Gallant, who began his military career in the elite Shayetet 13 naval commando unit, is a highly regarded military strategist and was former defense minister Ehud Barak’s choice for IDF chief of staff in 2010.

Initially approved by the government, his appointment was subsequently canceled when questions arose over his appropriation of public lands for the construction of his home in the rural Galilee village of Amikam, some 20 minutes’ drive from Haifa.

He joined the newly created Kulanu ahead of the 2015 elections.

Gallant participated last month in a closed-door gathering of the Likud Central Committee, one of the most senior forums of the party.

Addressing the gathering, Gallant said he supported Netanyahu’s decision to appoint himself defense minister in November when Avigdor Liberman resigned from the position.

Shabtai Yossef, a member of the Likud Central Committee, greeted Gallant at the event, reportedly saying, “Mr. Minister, we welcome you. You are flesh of our flesh, an organic part of Likud. Only [Gallant] can bring this number of people here.”

Others made similar statements that appeared to indicate Gallant’s imminent defection to the ruling party, a Hadashot news report said at the time.

According to the report, in recent months Gallant has been meeting with various Likud officials, and the Central Committee event last week was organized specifically for his benefit.

Publicly, Gallant has repeatedly denied in recent weeks that he was thinking of switching allegiances. At a conference in Jerusalem in November, he was asked if he will join Likud and answered, “If it is dependent on me, I will remain with Kulanu.”

Following Monday’s meeting, Kahlon thanked Gallant for his time with the party and said he had made a significant contribution as both a Knesset member and a minister.

“The social revolutions that we have led over the last four years are a key element in our national strength. I thank Gallant for our work together and wish him success in his future endeavors,” he said in the joint statement.

Gallant said he had been “privileged to serve the Israeli public as a minister and as a member of the cabinet,” stressing that he planned to “continue to contribute to the State of Israel, especially… Israel’s security and the defense of the country and its inhabitants.”

Kulanu will also part with lawmakers Rachel Azaria and Michael Oren, who both said this week that they will not seek a second Knesset term with the party.