Far-right MK who quit coalition over ‘deep state’ involvement, says he’ll rejoin to boost numbers if PM meets his demands

Far-right lawmaker Avi Maoz, who is the sole MK representing the anti-LGBTQ, anti-feminist Noam party, tells Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he is open to rejoining his governing coalition, boosting his razor-thin majority from 60 lawmakers to 61, if the premier agrees to meet his demands.

Maoz makes the offer following the resignation of United Torah Judaism from both the government and the coalition earlier this week, and after Shas resigned from the government today, but remained in the coalition.

The Noam chair resigned from Netanyahu’s government and returned to the opposition back in March, saying that he was doing so because the “deep state” had taken over the Justice and Education ministries.

In his resignation letter, he had alleged that this cabal of officials was “instilling a hyper-progressive, anti-Jewish and anti-national worldview into the education and legal system in Israel.”

He claimed that no part of his coalition agreement with Netanyahu’s Likud had been fulfilled, that the Education Ministry had refused to work with him, and that the “deep state” had prevented him from allocating additional budgets for national religious schools.

“According to my calculations, there are just 60 lawmakers in the coalition,” the far-right lawmaker now writes on X. “The prime minister knows what my conditions are for returning to the coalition. My conditions haven’t changed following my resignation from the coalition.”