Under pressure from court, PM says will drop portfolios by January 1
Under the gun by a High Court of Justice petition, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Thursday that he will drop all his portfolios on January 1 other than his role as premier.
Besides being prime minister, Netanyahu is currently health minister, social welfare minister, Diaspora minister and acting agricultural minister.
Pressure for him to drop these portfolios spiked after Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit announced a final indictment for the prime minister on November 21.
Shortly afterward, the Movement for Quality Government in Israel filed a petition to the court both to get Netanyahu fired as prime minister and to force his resignation from his other ministerial roles.
On November 25, Mandelblit
defended Netanyahu’s ability to remain prime minister, but deferred his view on whether he could keep the other roles, hinting that he understood that Netanyahu would voluntarily resign them.
In light of Netanyahu’s announcement to voluntarily relinquish the roles,
Mandelblit told the High Court on Thursday that he no longer needs to express a legal opinion on whether the court should force Netanyahu’s resignation regarding those positions.
The January 1 date suits Netanyahu because he would not want to appoint ministers until after the December 26 Likud leadership race. Candidates in Likud for available portfolios include Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely and Deputy Defense Minister Avi Dichter, and MKs Nir Barkat and David Bitan.
Netanyahu could also decide to be magnanimous to his Likud challenger, MK Gideon Sa’ar. Hotovely and Barkat are seen as candidates for the Diaspora Affairs portfolio.
Shas and United Torah Judaism have also demanded portfolios after the Defense portfolio was given to MK Naftali Bennett. Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman has received permission from his rabbis to temporarily become a full minister after briefly holding the role from 2015 to 2017. Shas wants to receive the Welfare portfolio.