Far-right MK Smotrich: Despite Netanyahu, we can get the education ministry

Bezalel Smotrich goes after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who reportedly promised the Education Ministry portfolio to the Jewish Home last month, but told his Likud party today that the portfolio would remain theirs.

Netanyahu’s statement came after Smotrich said yesterday he wished to be education minister, and would use the post to do away with the “religious coercion” in Israel’s schools toward a “religion of liberal democracy.”

Today, Smotrich slams the prime minister for apparently backtracking on the earlier promise to Jewish Home after the uproar over his words.

“Netanyahu is a talented and capable man, but not always good under pressure,” Smotrich says. “The question of which portfolios we will receive in the next government does not depend on what Netanyahu promised in the past and does not depend on what he says or does not say today. The question of which key positions we will have depends on how much power we will get in these elections,” Smotrich says at the Union of Right Wing Parties campaign launch event in Jerusalem.

— Jacob Magid