Ministers take customary photo with president; Netanyahu the sole survivor from ’96

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the other members of his new government posed Thursday for the traditional photo with the president, marking his return to power after a year and a half in the opposition.

The new government is the sixth to be assembled by Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving premier,.

As he left President Isaac Herzog’s official residence, Netanyahu pledged his government — the most right-wing and religious in the country’s history — would be inclusive of all Israelis, amid concerns over its agenda.

“I’ll be the prime minister of everyone,” he said.

Netanyahu’s latest government has 31 ministers, of whom five are women. (Update: The ministerial team was completed on January 2, with the appointments of United Torah Judaism’s Meir Porush as minister for Jerusalem, Tradition and Mount Meron, and Likud’s Gila Gamliel as intelligence minister, approved by the Knesset.)

When Netanyahu first became premier in 1996, his cabinet had 17 ministers, with just one woman. The outgoing government had 27 ministers, nine of them women.

No one else in the 1996 photo is still in government, though two remain active in politics — Likud MK Yuli Edelstein and veteran former lawmaker Tzachi Hanegbi.

Netanyahu announced Tuesday that he was tapping Hanegbi, a longtime political ally, to serve as national security adviser after failing to secure a high enough spot in Likud’s internal primaries to enter this Knesset.

Edelstein is slated to serve as the head of the powerful Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee after being passed over for a ministerial post.

The lawmaker, who has previously helmed several ministries and served as Knesset speaker, fared poorly in the Likud’s August primaries after publicly challenging Netanyahu.