From hilltop to Justice Ministry and back again: 5 things to know for June 4

1. Hilltop youth candidate for justice minister: With Union of Right-Wing Parties MK Bezalel Smotrich’s comments on longing for the good old days when the kingdom of Israel was ruled by religious law not playing too well in the press, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeks to put out the fire.

• Tweeting that “the State of Israel will not be a halachic state,” was just the first step. Hours later, Yedioth Ahronoth leads its front page with a quote from “officials close to Netanyahu” (code for Netanyahu himself) saying that Smotrich can “forget about” being appointed justice minister
• The paper’s Yuval Karni points out that the last thing Netanyahu needs it to provide more ammunition to new rival Yisrael Beytenu chair Avigdor Liberman, who plans to attack the Likud leader’s record on bowing to the demands of the ultra-Orthodox.
• Not missing a beat, Liberman tells the paper, “This isn’t some loony hilltop youth, but a candidate for justice minister [under Netanyahu].”
• “If there is anything that spooks and frightens the secular-right or ‘traditional-to religious-lite’ public, it is talk of religious coercion and a state of halacha,” Karmi writes. However, he points out that Netanyahu cannot distance himself too far from Smotrich because with Liberman seemingly out of the picture, his condensed base is now really just the national religious and Haredi camps.
• Given that Smotrich’s dreams of the Justice Ministry appear to be diminishing, Yedioth says the leading candidates to replace Netanyahu — who is currently replacing Shaked briefly — are Likud MKs Ze’ev Elkin, Tzipi Hotovely and Ofir Akunis. No information was given regarding their qualifications for the job.
• For his part, Smotrich plays down the Yedioth report: “Oh please, as if before yesterday [when I made the halachic state comments] Netanyahu really wanted to give me the justice portfolio, and not to, say, Shelly Yachimovich,” he tweets, trolling the premier for his desperate 11th hour offer to get the Labor party to join his coalition. “This [report] has a Khan al-Ahmar level of reliability,” he adds, further mocking Netanyahu, who vowed nearly 200 days ago to demolish the Bedouin village “very soon.”

2. Separate but legal: With the Smotrich story still swirling through the news cycle, the Kan public broadcaster reported on how Netanyahu accepting the demand of the United Torah Judaism party to allow for gender segregation in public spaces.

• Likud insists that the draft agreement revealed by Kan was never finalized, but Liberman and Netanyahu’s other rivals pounced on the day’s second opportunity to call the premier (who is rumored to be an atheist) a crazy religious zealot.
• “The fact that Bibi surrendered to the demands of United Torah Judaism to introduce a law on segregating men and women in public spaces is nothing short of madness,” Blue and White No. 2 Yair Lapid tweets.

3.  Matanyahu and Netanyahu: But it wasn’t all losses for Netanyahu yesterday as he managed to get the Knesset to elect his nominee for State Comptroller, Matanyahu Englman.

• The 67-45 vote indicates that not only did Liberman’s party back the premier’s candidate, but that two other MKs from the would-have-been opposition crossed the aisle to vote in favor of Matanyahu.
• Army Radio reports cites a Likud official, who says Netanyahu’s party managed to convince MKs from Labor as well as Blue and White to back Netanyahu in the secret ballot.
• Right-wing publicist Yotam Zimri points out that on Twitter that if all the rumors about growing disconnect within Likud about Netanyahu’s recent conduct held any water, we would have seen more MKs jump in bed with the opposition in order to torpedo the candidacy of the Netanyahu favorite. “Or they’re so scared of him that they don’t want to cross him even anonymously,” responds one user to the tweet.

3. He’s coming back (apparently): Only in Israeli media is it acceptable to begin headlines with the phrase “it so seems.” As if to say, we’re not entirely sure if this report is accurate, but we’ll lead with it anyways. The latest example of this could be found in the Israel Hayom report on former prime minister Ehud Barak, who is “seemingly” planning a return to politics.

• Israel Hayom says his plan is to (seemingly) throw his hat in the Labor leadership primaries, returning to the party he led and then later gutted in order to continue serving as defense minister in Netanyahu’s government.
• However, Globes reports that his intention is actually to start a new party along with former Hatnua chairwoman Tzipi Livni, which will seek to form additional alliances with centrist and left-wing parties in an attempt to defeat Netanyahu.
• Haaretz political correspondent Chaim Levinson jokes on Twitter that this is the evergreen story of every election season, which features reports speculating on the various degrees of seriousness with which Barak is considering a political comeback. In the end though, Barak has sat out the last several races.

4. Jewish Home-less: After Sara Netanyahu slammed the door on the possibility of her unexplained enemy Ayelet Shaked joining Likud, the recently fired justice minister is having a hard time deciding where her next political home should be.

• Israel Hayom breaks down her options, which don’t appear to be all that great. One possibility would be returning to the New Right, which failed to cross the electoral threshold in the last election. But there, even if the party improves, it is unlikely that it will receive enough seats to demand a senior government position for her,according to Israel Hayom.
• Option B would be returning to the Jewish Home, where she rose to political fame. However, officials in the national religious party — which ran in the last election as part of the URWP amalgam — tell Israel Hayom there is no way that they’ll let someone who deserted their party return and receive anything above the number three spot. Meaning — there too, Shaked would not likely receive a senior post.
• A Facebook page affiliated with the pro-cannabis, far-right Zehut party has put out a poll asking members what they think of Shaked joining their ranks. Yedioth reports that party chairman Moshe Feiglin is even considering giving her the top spot in the party.

5. Everyone’s first lady: The Tuesday morning news of First Lady Nechama Rivlin’s passing came well after newspapers had gone to press, but lawmakers and pundits from across the political spectrum, country and world took the time to mourn the wife of President Reuven Rivlin.

• The theme across just about every message of condolence was Rivlin’s modest nature. “Beyond the fact that Nechama was the president’s wife, she was a personality in and of herself. Modest and active on behalf of at-risk youth, in recognizing the other and in working for equal treatment for Israel’s Arab citizens… In Nechama, I met a strong woman with human values. May she rest in peace,” tweeted Hadash-Ta’al MK Ahmad Tibi.
• Labor MK Shelly Yachimovich, who was a close friend of the late Rivlin, tells Army Radio that the president personally called her after the first lady passed. “He was hurt and broken. I too burst into tears. This is a loss for all citizens of the State of Israel.”
• Kan’s Amichai Stein tweets that Nechama had accompanied her husband at just about every official event he attended. Over the last three months when she was hospitalized due to complications following a lung transplant, the president frequently would mention how he missed having her at his side.

למרות המצב הרפואי ממנה סבלה בשנים האחרונות, נחמה ריבלין הייתה לצידו של בעלה בכל האירועים, אשת הנשיא, הגברת הראשונה של ישראל, במשרה מלאה. מאז שאושפזה, ב3 חודשים האחרונים אמר הנשיא לא פעם שהיא חסרה לו. pic.twitter.com/7AwjeqZDO4

— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) June 4, 2019