No Justice Ministry, no peace: 7 things to know for June 6

1. Divide and conquer: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appoints Likud loyalist Amir Ohana as justice minister, and while Union of Right-Wing Parties No. 2 Bezalel Smotrich uses the opportunity to criticize the premier for “using” the national religious camp, confidants of URWP leader Rafi Peretz direct their fire within the faction — at Smotrich.

• “From the beginning of the week, the boy has been acting in an embarrassing manner,” says one “Jewish Home official,” hiding behind anonymity as he criticizes a fellow member of his party.
• The immature behavior thus criticized was Smotrich’s declared aspiration that with himself as justice minister, Israel would return “to the days of David” when the kingdom was ruled by halacha, or religious law. Yedioth Ahronoth explains that Netanyahu, looking for any excuse not to appoint Smotrich to the Justice Ministry, pounced on the remarks.
• With only the Education Ministry left on its list of desired ministries, officials in the National Union (Smotrich’s faction in the URWP amalgam, which also consists of Jewish Home and Otzma Yehudit) briefed reporters, reminding them that the terms of its alliance with Peretz saw Smotrich getting first pick of ministry, meaning the No. 2, denied the helm of the Justivce Ministry, now planned on snagging the education post.
• Tempers have since apparently cooled, with Peretz tweeting that he distances himself from the attacks on Smotrich and Smotrich tweeting in response that he Peretz is his buddy and they won’t let anybody get between them.
• Yedioth’s Elisha Ban Kimon points out that Netanyahu has succeeded, at least temporarily, in doing to the national religious camp what he has long done to its sister flank, the settlement movement. And that is “neutralizing” its political power by “turning leaders against one another.”

2. Who are you, Amir Ohana?: All the bickering between URWP “officials” (read: leaders) has taken some attention away from the appointment of Israel’s first openly gay minister — though some of the Hebrew dailies prefer to focus on the Likud MK’s actual policies.

• Ohana is among the only senior members of Likud to have publicly backed Netanyahu’s drive to secure immunity from prosecution in the cases against him.
• The Walla news site prominently references Ohana’s consistent opposition to judicial review. The Likud MK has referred to the High Court of Justice as the “Council of Torah Sages” and argued that it should not be allowed to strike legislation supported by a majority of MKs, which represent a majority of the country.
• Walla also highlights Ohana’s position in favor of easing restrictions on gun purchases. “It is unreasonable to say to a civilian who has no criminal or medical record, ‘you are entitled to defend the state in the army and the reserves, but during the rest of the year you are not allowed to defend yourself.'”
• Channel 12’s Amit Segal points out that given Netanyahu’s tendency to not allow even loyalists to get too comfortable in their posts, it would not be far-fetched if Ohana is given the boot after the next elections (assuming Likud wins again). It is because of this that MK Yariv Levin deserves praise for refusing to accept the position in a transitional government where his powers would be merely ceremonial.
• On that note, Segal’s colleague Daphna Liel tweets that Netanyahu is sending messages to the United Torah Judaism in an effort to calm the nerves of officials in the Haredi party queasy about an openly gay man being appointed to such a senior post. The import of the message s that the Ohana’s appointment is only temporary and that he’ll be moved to a less prominent position after the election.

3. In other LGBT-related news: Jerusalem is gearing up for today’s pride parade, which is expected to attract tens of thousands to the capital.

• Meanwhile, in a clear show of support for the LGBT community, Channel 12 reports, police have recruited several transgender trainees and that one of them has already completed her course and is working her beat.
• Police have also arrested three far-right activists that were planning to disrupt today’s march. Attorney Itamar Ben Gvir releases a statement saying that one of them is his client who has at the past two parades “dressed up as a gay individual,” stormed the stage and shouted insults at attendees before being detained.
• As for next week’s Tel Aviv pride, Hebrew media reports that “How I Met Your Mother” star Neil Patrick Harris will be serving as the parade’s international ambassador.

4. Representing the best of us: Times of Israel blogger Noah Efron writes a moving eulogy for Nechama Rivlin, who was laid to rest yesterday at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl national cemetery.

• Efron recalls an anecdote about the First Lady from author David Grossman: “she wanted to give one of my books as a present to a leader from another country, Trump or the King of Spain. She would phone and ask me to sign the book and write a dedication. She said, I’ll send you a book to sign. I said to her: No need, I have lots of copies. I’ll sign one and you can give it. She said, Absolutely not. I’m buying a book with my own money, and you’re signing it. And that is what happened.”
• Responding to comments on the First Lady by those who said she represented the decent, less divisive Israel of old, Ephron writes, “and I think that’s wrong, maybe even exactly wrong. I think we love Nechama Rivlin not because she is who we are not, but because she somehow is who we are.”
• “Nechama Rivlin touched us so much because she did not think that being decent, here, in this place, is somehow special. And, yes, I do see that Nechama Rivlin was the best of us. We loved her for that, for who she was. And we loved her, too, because she showed us what we are, at our best,” he concludes.

5. It’s one state now. Get on board: Israeli diplomats in Washington are reportedly working to prevent the Senate from passing a bipartisan resolution that would endorse a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

• According to Channel 13, the resolution was drafted by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen and is seen as a means of putting pressure on the White House ahead of the release of its peace plan.
• However, Israeli diplomats, led by Ambassador Ron Dermer, have been trying to get them to take the references to the two-state solution out of the text, the report says, citing Israeli diplomats and congressional staffers.
• On a separate but related front, US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt tweets out a New York Times interview of Muhammad Shtayyeh in which the Palestinian Authority Prime Minister says the PA is on the verge of collapse. Greenblatt responds by asserting that their dire situation is of their own doing, leading to a wave of clap-backs from critics who point out that the US has cut all of its aid to the PA, while still expecting Ramallah to come to its negotiation table.

6. Entering politics in order to enter Gaza: Israel Hayom leads its daily edition with an interview of former IDF deputy chief of staff Yair Golan, who suggests that an expansive ground operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip is necessary.

• Golan says his entry into politics is not a matter of if, but when, adding that he is currently in consultations with various officials in order to decide the most appropriate way for him to make the jump.
• Golan says that in a “reformed world,” the results of the last election would have led to the formation of a Likud-Blue and White coalition that worked on behalf of the majority of Israelis who oppose the policies of the ultra-Orthodox and the far-right.
• The former IDF deputy chief blames Netanyahu for playing a large role in the entry into the mainstream of rhetoric that describes the army as “leftist,” judges as “the enemies of Israel” and the president of the Supreme Court as a “non-Zionist.” He says the premier should vow to step down if indicted.
• On Gaza, Golan admits that the disengagement had been carried out poorly, but says he would not wish to return to what was before 2005. “In the first five years of the Second Intifada, 147 Israelis were killed in Gaza. Since 2005, 121 Israelis have been killed, including in all of the military operations.”
• At the same time, Golan asserts that a ground operation in Gaza — one that even many on the political right oppose — is necessary. He insists that opponents of the measure are paralyzed by the fear of losing soldiers when the actual cost does not necessarily have to be that grave or drawn-out.

7. Gospels and child sacrifice: JTA’s Ben Sales covers an ultra-Orthodox anti-vaccination rally of some 200 people in New York emceed by a black hat rabbi who quotes the Gospel of Luke.

• The emcee, Rabbi Hillel Handler, along with the other speakers charged the CDC and its purported stooges with hiding the dangers of vaccines and destroying evidence that they are harmful. They cited no credible evidence.
• Del Bigtree, a Hollywood producer without medical qualifications who styles himself as an expert on vaccines, links vaccines to the Holocaust and then to child sacrifice. He compares them to Nazi experimentation on unwilling Jewish medical subjects, then to the intentional ritual murder of children, in an effort to debunk the scientific consensus that a critical mass of vaccinated people, or herd immunity, means that even those who cannot be vaccinated for genuine medical reasons will have some protection from getting sick.
• At the end, Sales reports, the crowd applauded.