Far-right’s anti-LGBTQ MK Avi Maoz resigns from government role

Far-right anti-LGBTQ MK Avi Maoz announces he is resigning his post as a deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Office.

Maoz, whose appointment to a role in which he was given oversight of external programming in the Education Ministry elicited national outrage by pro-liberal forces, says he will continue to serve the coalition as an MK.

Maoz is the sole representative of the homophobic Noam party in the Knesset, having run alongside far-right Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit in the November election.

In his resignation letter, Maoz says he has been frustrated by his inability to bring about meaningful change in his role, and “was shocked to find there was no serious intention of honoring the coalition deal regarding [the formation of] an authority of Jewish identity” that he would also have led.