Made-up ministries help Netanyahu form government

Netanyahu helped solve the problem by persuading Erdan to become ambassador to the United States and United Nations, but other solutions ended up having to be more creative.

By GIL HOFFMAN
Defense Minister Benny Gantz [L] and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu [R] wearing masks in the Knesset (photo credit: ADINA VALMAN/KNESSET SPOKESPERSON)
Defense Minister Benny Gantz [L] and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu [R] wearing masks in the Knesset
(photo credit: ADINA VALMAN/KNESSET SPOKESPERSON)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu managed to complete the task of appointing ministers in his Likud Party on Sunday by creating new ministries and cobbling new portfolios from existing ones.
Netanyahu faced a severe shortage of available portfolios for the 18 ministerial hopefuls in his party. He helped solve the problem by persuading Gilad Erdan to become ambassador to the United States and United Nations – but other solutions ended up having to be more creative.
David Amsalem will be the ministerial liaison to the Knesset, a role that in the past was given to ministers who focused on other portfolios. Amsalem will also be in charge of the National Cyber Authority, the Digital Israel project, the National Companies Authority and the Civil Service Commissioner.
In a particularly odd pairing, Ze’ev Elkin will be higher education and water resources minister. In the former part of his role, he will be in charge of Yad Vashem, community centers, adult education and relations with UNESCO. The latter part of his responsibilities include the National Water Authority, Mekorot and water companies.
Miri Regev will be transportation minister for a year and a half and then give the ministry to Elkin – but for all four years, she will remain in charge of the Ministerial Committee on State Symbols and Ceremonies, which runs Independence Day celebrations.
Tzipi Hotovely will be settlement affairs minister and in charge of key religious Zionist issues like national service, pre-IDF military academies, religious Zionist neighborhoods in development towns and the World Zionist Organization’s settlement department.
But Hotovely has been offered to become ambassador to the UK in August. Netanyahu told the Knesset that if she takes the post, Tzachi Hanegbi would receive her responsibilities.
Hanegbi’s current title is minister-without-portfolio in the Prime Minister’s Office. He will be in charge of relations with the Vatican and churches and will be the government’s representative at the UN’s conference of donor countries.
Likud is not the only party where new posts were created. In Blue and White, Michael Biton will be a second minister in the Defense Ministry together with his party chairman, Benny Gantz.
Gantz will also form an Alternate Prime Minister's Office, in addition to his offices in the Defense Ministry, the Knesset, and Blue and White's Tel Aviv headquarters.
The office will be headed by Hod Betzer, who was Gantz's top aide when he served as IDF chief of staff between 2011 and 2015 and has been his own chief of staff since he entered politics in December 2018. Creating the extra office is expected to cost taxpayers millions of shekels.
Biton, whose brother died during his IDF service, will be in charge of preparing the home front, relations with mayors, the ministry’s socioeconomic department and relations with bereaved families.
Merav Cohen received the Social Equality portfolio that was once the Pensioners Affairs portfolio but will also include the former Minority Affairs Ministry. Gantz was expected to appoint an Arab leader to that post.
Rafi Peretz left the Yamina Party to become Jerusalem affairs minister, which was Elkin's second portfolio in the last government. His Bayit Yehudi Party will become part of the Likud faction in the Knesset.
The strongest backlash came against Gesher leader Orly Levy-Abecassis, who ran with Meretz but joined Netanyahu’s government with the new title of community strengthening and advancement minister.
Levy-Abecassis’ new ministry will take away parts of the Public Security Ministry including its Community Security Authority, Anti-Drugs and Alcohol Authority and projects in the Arab sector; lead the fight against violence against women; and head the national task force to defend children online.
In a speech to the Knesset, Levy-Abecassis defended her ministry and said recent violence in families proved how much she was needed to fix the problem.
In his speech to the Knesset, presumptive opposition leader Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) said the new ministers should be ashamed.
"We have more ministers and deputy ministers than patients on life support due to the coronavirus," he said. "It's not just the waste, it's the contempt. The complete contempt for the crisis facing the Israeli public. Instead of helping them you're creating irrelevant ministries, hiring more drivers, buying more cars, adding budgets and hiring associates – all at their expense."