Likud taps Yair Netanyahu for senior WZO role, risking compromise deal on appointments

The ruling Likud party late Wednesday tapped Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial elder son Yair for a board position at the World Zionist Organization, threatening the collapse of a compromise agreement reached earlier in the day on appointments at key Zionist institutions.

The vote on Yair Netanyahu’s nomination as head of the Hasbara department was later postponed by two weeks after it was announced by Likud Culture Minister Miki Zohar, with the opposition Yesh Atid and The Democrats parties saying in response they would no longer agree to the deal on the next leaders of the WZO and Jewish National Fund-KKL.

The younger Netanyahu, who has spent much of the past two years living in Miami, Florida, is best known for his firebrand social media presence and association with a number of far-right European and American politicians and figures.

According to Hebrew media reports, the position he was nominated for comes with an office, a car, and a salary commensurate with that of a government minister.

“We were shocked to hear of the despicable decision,” Opposition Leader Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party said, vowing it “will not sign any such deal.”

Lapid added: “Won’t happen. Period.”

The Democrats chairman Yair Golan called the younger Netanyahu “a despicable person who has dedicated his life to destruction and division,” and said “he is unworthy of representing the Jewish people” and similarly declaring “we will not allow this to happen.”

Defending the move, Zohar claimed in a post on X that, for many years figures on the left have “worked to appoint relatives and associates to positions in national institutions.”

Zohar, who was earlier filmed getting into a shouting match with a minister from the coalition’s ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit party over the deal Likud reached with Yesh Atid and others, said that “suddenly, when it comes to Likud and Netanyahu, it turns into a storm.”

The minister denounced the “disgusting display of malicious hypocrisy” against the younger Netanyahu, who, he asserted “merely wanted to promote Zionist advocacy in the Diaspora for the sake of the Jewish people.”

״תוריד את היד״ – כזה עוד לא ראיתם: שני שרים בממשלה בקטטה שכמעט גלשה לפסים פיזיים בגלל קרב בשולי הקונגרס הציוני. השר וסרלאוף תקף בחריפות את השר מיקי זוהר על הדיל שלו שכולל את מפלגות האופוזיציה ״חוצפנים, עבר נרצע, הולך עם השמאל אבל מחרים את עוצמה״ | אל תחמיצו pic.twitter.com/GxfVEhXmC3

— מיכאל שמש Michael Shemesh (@shemeshmicha) October 29, 2025

Under the terms of the unsigned agreement now at risk, Rabbi Doron Perez, chairman of the religious Zionist World Mizrachi movement — and father of Cpt. Daniel Perez, who was killed in the October 7 Hamas attack and whose body was held captive in Gaza for two years — would serve as the next chair of the World Zionist Organization.

Halfway through his five-year term, Perez would be replaced by a representative of the Yesh Atid party.

Meanwhile, Yesh Atid MK Meir Cohen would serve as the next chairman of the Jewish National Fund-KKL, retiring from the Knesset after 12 years. He would be replaced in the middle of his term by a representative of Likud.

A WZO source described the agreement as a balanced compromise between the liberal and conservative blocs, based on the relative size of each. During the previous term, both positions were held by Likud figures, Yaakov Hagoel and Ifat Ovadia-Luski.

The source added that an attempt by right-wing factions to take over both positions was thwarted by a united stance between pluralist parties.