Negotiations for the composition of the next government officially started April 28 and are expected to last for some time. In the days after the April 9 elections, senior United Right officials said the party was expecting two portfolios, including the Justice Ministry.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fifth government has yet to be formed, but it appears quite certain that United Right party Knesset member Bezalel Smotrich will not serve as Israel’s next justice minister. Smotrich has been conducting an aggressive campaign for some time against the Supreme Court and has repeatedly promised to carry out sweeping reforms of Israel’s legal system. Although he has not gone as far as his colleague, Knesset member Moti Yogev of HaBayit HaYehudi (a party in the United Right alliance), who in 2015 urged the razing of the country’s top court, Smotrich’s gung-ho battle cries appear to have frightened even Netanyahu himself.
