Likud starts mulling the political costs of coalition-building

Haredi parties look to join forces to help win demands; Likud official suggests merger with Kulanu but not Yisrael Beytenu, rules out justice portfolio for Smotrich

With the elections over, jostling for cabinet positions among right-wing factions has already begun.

A top Likud politician said Thursday the victorious ruling party expected to hand out the prestigious defense and finance ministries to coalition partners, but threw cold water over the hopes of the far-right Union of Right-Wing Parties to take control of the Justice Ministry.

“Likud won’t hold the defense and finance [ministries],” former coalition chairman MK David Bitan told Army Radio in a Thursday morning interview.

The comments seemed to contradict reports from within Likud on Wednesday that suggested Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was considering holding the defense portfolio himself.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gestures as he addresses Likud supporters at his party’s headquarters in Tel Aviv on election night early on April 10, 2019. (Thomas COEX / AFP)

Likud MK Avi Dichter, a former head of the Shin Bet security service, also said Thursday he hoped to win the appointment. “I haven’t hidden my desire to be defense minister,” he told the Ynet news site. “I’ve been working in national security for 48 years, and I think I can bring good things, as well as experience,” to the position.

Channel 12 reported on Wednesday that Netanyahu was also looking into the possibility that Kulanu, led by former Likud minister Moshe Kahlon, and Yisrael Beytenu, led by former Likud activist and ex-Netanyahu aide Avigdor Liberman, would merge into a single 44-seat Knesset faction.

The report sparked leaks from within Likud that suggested party activists were loath to let Liberman, a longtime critic of Netanyahu, back into the fold. But Kahlon, who hasn’t burned bridges with his former faction and proved his political strength on Tuesday even in an election that saw a massive flocking of right-wing voters to Likud, would be welcome.

“Kahlon should return to Likud,” Bitan said Thursday. “That’s an offer we’re not going to make to Liberman.”

Union of Right-Wing Parties leader Rafi Peretz (R) and MK Bezalel Smotrich are greeted by supporters at the party headquarters, April 9, 2019. (Flash90)

Rafi Peretz, head of the Union for Right-Wing Parties, an alliance of far-right factions, said Wednesday his party would ask for the education and justice ministries.

Peretz, a religious-Zionist rabbi and former chief chaplain of the IDF, will ask Netanyahu to be appointed education minister, a post that has been a traditional priority for religious-Zionist political factions. URWP will also demand that no. 2 Bezalel Smotrich get the Justice Ministry, where the party plans to push ahead with judicial reforms to weaken the power of the High Court of Justice.

Bitan did not comment on the education demand, but ruled out the justice portfolio for the far-right.

MK David Bitan at a Likud party faction meeting in the Knesset on June 25, 2018. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

“Smotrich won’t be justice minister,” said Bitan, who served in the election as Likud’s representative on the Central Elections Committee.

The comment seemed to confirm reports from within Likud that suggested the party planned to offer Smotrich the housing ministry instead — a priority for the pro-settlement politician — and keep the justice portfolio for Likud’s Yariv Levin, a former deputy head of the Israel Bar Association and longtime critic of judicial activism and the High Court.

Meanwhile, United Torah Judaism and Shas, the two ultra-Orthodox factions that together won 15 seats on Tuesday, are looking to close ranks in the coalition talks in a bid to win more concessions from Netanyahu for their membership in the next coalition.

UTJ chief Yaakov Litzman said Thursday morning he would also look at bringing the URWP into the alliance.

Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman speaks during a press conference at the Health Ministry in Jerusalem on January 3, 2019. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

“I intend to turn to [Shas leader] Aryeh Deri to create unity during the coalition negotiations on our main demands,” chief among them ensuring that Haredi seminary students would remain exempt from military service, Litzman said.

In the final calculus, Likud is likely going to enjoy a windfall of portfolios, as its size relative to potential coalition partners grew in Tuesday’s election. From 10 ministries in the outgoing government, its cabinet representation may grow to as many as 15.

UTJ refuses to serve in ministerial positions on ideological grounds (though its leader, Yaakov Litzman, has served as deputy health minister), but Shas is likely to get three or even four cabinet posts. If Kulanu does not merge with Likud, it is expected to get one ministry for the four-seat party.