Netanyahu temporarily filling all cabinet spots vacated by Haredim in row over draft

Nearly two weeks after Shas and United Torah Judaism quit the government, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to name any candidates, interim or otherwise, to fill the ministerial roles previously held by the ultra-Orthodox factions.

Shas held the health, interior, labor, welfare and religious services portfolios, while UTJ politicians had served as Jerusalem affairs and deputy transportation minister.

According to the Kan public broadcaster, these portfolios are now held by Netanyahu himself, a move which violated a law prohibiting those under indictment from serving in a ministerial capacity.

While illegal, Netanyahu retaining these jobs is not a criminal matter and has happened before, with the prime minister taking over ministerial positions for a matter or days or weeks before appointing replacements, Amir Fuchs, a senior researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute, told The Times of Israel.

“It takes some time, politically, to rearrange the [cabinet]… It’s illegal if it will [take] more than a reasonable time” to install new ministers, he said.

It is widely believed that even when Netanyahu announces new ministers, they will be temporary placeholders, meant to keep the previous incumbents’ chairs warm until they return.

It was this reasoning that led Netanyahu to appoint Tourism Minister Haim Katz to take over UTJ chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf’s place at the helm of the Housing Ministry when he quit a month ahead of his party’s exit from the government.

Katz had previously served in three additional ministerial capacities on an interim basis during Otzma Yehudit’s short-lived sojourn in the opposition earlier this year.

Both Shas and UTJ quit the government over its failure to pass a law exempting yeshiva students from military conscription and have said that they will not return without significant progress on the issue.

Asked if Netanyahu is saving his party’s cabinet positions in the expectation that it will return to the government, Motti Babchik, a senior adviser to Goldknopf, said on Monday that UTJ would ask its rabbis about coming back only “after the law on the arrangement of the status of yeshiva students is passed.”

While a spokesman for Shas did not reply to a request for comment, Kan reported last week that the party is said to be attempting to maintain de facto control over the ministries it headed until now.

According to the broadcaster, the party is opposed to Tourism Minister Haim Katz (Likud) taking over its ministerial portfolios, as it fears he will oust Shas bureaucrats.

The outlet cited coalition sources as saying that the Shas ministers’ resignations are a sham and that in practice, “everything will stay the same” in the party’s former ministries, as they are staffed by Shas-appointed advisers and directors general.

According to Kan, Shas’s portfolios are expected to be transferred to a minister from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party.

In addition to Katz, the ministers being considered to take on those portfolios are Justice Minister Yariv Levin, Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, and Education Minister Yoav Kisch.

Hebrew media reports that Netanyahu is yet to reach a decision on the matter and has fielded many requests from Likud members seeking to take over the posts.

Netanyahu is “too afraid” to give these portfolios to anybody else, a coalition insider told The Times of Israel, declining to elaborate beyond chalking the matter up to “politics.”

Kan also reported that the far right Otzma Yehudit party would receive the Jerusalem affairs portfolio, while Religious Zionism would be given control over several Knesset committee chairmanships vacated by UTJ.

The Knesset House Committee is scheduled to meet on Tuesday to discuss the appointment of Likud MK Hanoch Milwidsky, in place of former Knesset Finance Committee chairman Moshe Gafni.

Milwidsky’s candidacy has proven controversial, as he is currently under investigation on suspicion of rape and witness tampering.

The House Committee will also discuss appointing a replacement for Shas MK Avraham Betzalel as chair of the Knesset Special Committee for Bridging Social Gaps in the Periphery. Betzalel recently quit the Knesset, reportedly over allegations of “inappropriate acts,” although he disputes this characterization of his motives.

Lawmakers still need to appoint new chairpeople for the ethics, labor, and interior committees as well as the powerful Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, whose chairman, Likud MK Yuli Edelstein, is being pushed out over his role in blocking the passage of a Haredi exemption bill.

Edelstein is slated to be replaced by fellow Likud lawmaker Boaz Bismuth, whose appointment must be approved by members of both the House Committee and the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.