Smotrich announces far-right MK to lead Knesset Education Committee

By Ariela Karmel

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17 December 2025, 6:01 pm

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Ariela Karmel is a political correspondent at The Times of Israel. She previously reported for Calcalist and Haaretz. She holds an MA in Middle Eastern and African History from Tel Aviv University and a BA in Political Science from the University of British Columbia.

MK Zvi Sukkot at a Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem on July 18, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announces that MK Zvi Sukkot from his Religious Zionism party will be appointed chair of the Knesset Education Committee, pending approval by the Knesset House Committee.

In response, Sukkot says he is “excited to receive the great honor” and that he will “work with all [his] strength for the benefit of education in Israel.”

“Education is the most important foundation for Israel’s advantage in the region and for the growth of the people of Israel,” he continues.

Sukkot will replace Shas MK Yosef Taib, whose ultra-Orthodox Shas party quit the government to protest the lack of a law regulating the conscription of yeshiva students in July.

The party announced in October its withdrawal from all coalition roles it held in the Knesset, giving up its chairmanships of parliamentary committees, including the Education Committee, which has not functioned in months.

Sukkot’s appointment to lead the committee comes a month after the far-right lawmaker was questioned by police over his participation, along with other coalition MKs, in a mob that rioted and broke into the IDF’s Sde Teiman military base.

Sukkot has since defended his actions and insisted that he was permitted to enter “any place in the State of Israel.”