Veteran Likud officials spurn low-level offers, express resentment at plums given to supposedly unqualified representatives. Meanwhile, the Haredi parties are talking about compelling PM Netanyahu to bring Yamina into the government.
The swearing-in of the long-awaited national unity government, which was supposed to take place on Thursday, has been postponed at the request of the Likud.
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Some of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud cohort refused to meet with him on Thursday because they were dissatisfied with the positions offered to them in the new government. Associates of the prime minister explained that the postponement was due to a procedural bottleneck created as talks with Likud members dragged out, as well as efforts to persuade Habayit Hayehudi leader Rafi Peretz to join the government.
As of Thursday, there were a number of Likud MKs who were disappointed with their offers, and others who had not yet been summoned to discuss their future. Two, Avi Dichter and Tzhachi Hanegbi, even threatened to absent themselves from the swearing-in.
Dichter said, "This week, a courier was sent to me with a bad offer to find me a role outside the cabinet. I rejected it out of hand. I was promised a meeting. As of 5 p.m. today [Thursday], I haven't had anything resembling an offer and I wasn't invited to a meeting."
Hanegbi wrote on Twitter: "Minutes before the new government is rolled out, I still haven't been invited to a meeting about the new government. I assume I won't be needed in the Knesset tonight."
Netanyahu's close associates attacked Dichter and Hanegbi, saying that they had been scheduled to meet with the prime minister along with seven or eight other MKs, but because of their threats their meetings had been cancelled.
"You don't threaten the prime minister," one official said.
One of the ministers who declined the new position they were offered was Gila Gamliel, who was offered a portfolio that would handle college and university education. Dudi Amsalem, who had insisted on the Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage portfolio, which was eventually assigned to Rafi Peretz.
Other Likud ministers, including Zeev Elkin, Yoav Gallant, Eli Cohen, Tzipi Hotovely, as well as former Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, were still waiting to meet with Netanyahu.
However, not everyone in the ranks of the Likud was disappointed. Amir Ohana, who is No. 19 on the Likud list but is considered very close with the prime minister, was offered the public security portfolio and accepted. His deputy will be Desta Yevarkan, who defected from Blue and White to join the Likud prior to the September 2019 election.
Another major appointment was handed to outgoing Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev. Regev will spend the first part of the unity government, a year and a half under Netanyahu as prime minister, at the helm of the Transportation Ministry, and when Blue and White leader Benny Gantz becomes prime minister 18 months from now, will be made foreign minister. Regev has also retained responsibility for state ceremonies and has been assigned roles in both the cabinet and the Judges Selection Committee.
Regev is the first woman to serve as transportation minister.
The choice jobs offered to Regev sparked resentment in the Likud. Party officials said Thursday, "You see veterans ranked high on the list like Avi Dichter, Tzachi Hanegbi, or Gila Gamliel, who still don't have jobs, and apparently won't receive senior positions like Miri Regev did, and you don't understand.
The Likud officials said it appeared as if Regev's plums were "compensation" for not having been offered her first choice, the Public Security portfolio.
"The transportation ministry is a top portfolio in itself, it's not certain why she needs to be compensated. Apparently sycophancy pays off," the officials said.
However, some officials were more optimistic about Regev as the future foreign minister. "It might be good. She has done a lot to bring the periphery to the center of the country, and we believe she'll do the same thing here, especially in promoting public transportation lines to the center … [Bezalel] Smotrich was a pleasant surprise, so why shouldn't Regev be?" the officials said.
Likud MK Micky Zohar has been appointed coalition chairman and Likud faction chairman and is expected to be given a ministerial appointment. Yifat Shasha-Biton has been appointed chairwoman of the Knesset committee handling the coronavirus crisis, while Haim Katz has been named head of the Labor and Welfare Committee.
Likud members weren't the only ones let down. Blue and White MK Miki Haimovich had wanted the agriculture portfolio, but it was assigned to Alon Schuster.
Blue and White said that Haimovich would serve as deputy Knesset speaker, as well as be named chair of the Knesset Interior Affairs Committee.
Meanwhile, despite Yamina leader Naftali Bennett saying unequivocally Thursday that his party was headed to the opposition bench, Netanyahu was still under pressure to find a way of bringing Yamina into the government.
Members of the Haredi factions were angry at Netanyahu for supposedly not doing enough to make Yamina part of the coalition.
One Haredi MK said, "I have done and am doing everything I can to talk with our party heads as well as senior Likud officials about them bringing Yamina into the government, but unfortunately I can't do more than that."
The Haredi parties are reportedly "uncomfortable" at Yamina being in the opposition and are concerned it could have negative ramifications for them. Heads of the Haredi factions Aryeh Deri, Yakov Litzman, and Moshe Gafni recently wrote to Netanyahu and demanded that he find a way to include Yamina in the unity government. Other Haredi party officials said the letter was not enough, and that the Haredi parties needed to find a way of compelling the prime minister to work with Yamina -- even possibly conditioning their own participation in the government on Yamina being a part of the coalition.
Former Likud minister and Netanyahu rival Gideon Sa'ar joined the call, tweeting on Thursday that he "called on Prime Minister Netanyahu to use the postponement of the swearing-in of the government to renew talks with Yamina on the joining the coalition. The distance can be bridged."
Bennett and Yamina colleagues Ayelet Shaked and Bezalel Smotrich convened a press conference on Thursday to deny reports that Yamina was in talks with the Likud.
"It's not true," Bennett said. "Yesterday, the Likud and Blue and White secretly laid out the lines of the new government. I read them and was amazed to discover that Netanyahu had removed [Israeli] sovereignty from the basic tenets. Netanyahu deleted the words 'Judea' and 'Samaria'. For a year he promised, declared, time after time, he would apply sovereignty. In the past few days, the Palestinian Authority has been threatening that if sovereignty is part of the platform of the new government, it will cut off ties.
"Prime Minister Netanyahu has erased any remnant of the Right from the platform of the new government," Bennett said.
