Official coalition negotiations are slated to start April 28, and the United Right party expects to receive two ministerial portfolios. Despite their efforts to present a united front, the two future ministers, Rabbi Rafi Peretz and Bezalel Smotrich, are on a collision course with no obvious escape route. The United Right party was established shortly before the April 9 elections, in February 2019, uniting HaBayit HaYehudi, National Union-Tkuma and Israel Power factions. Now this alliance, which was the end product of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s concerted efforts to consolidate the religious right, seems unlikely to remain united.

In fact, Peretz and Smotrich have little in common. Had Netanyahu not brought them together to save votes on the right, they never would have found themselves sharing the leadership of the same faction. Peretz is a former helicopter pilot, a brigadier general in the reserves and former chief rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces. He represents the classic religious Zionist movement, committed to the state and its institutions. He was elected head of HaBayit HaYehudi after Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked left the party, and now heads the United Right.

In contrast, Smotrich, who, at 39, is chairman of the National Union and No. 2 on the United Right list, was a Knesset backbencher for HaBayit HaYehudi. He completed his studies in law — cum laude — and passed the bar. During the disengagement from Gaza in 2005, he was arrested and detained by the Shin Bet for three weeks as someone who could provoke riots. It seems that his worldview is clear. He is a full-blown right-wing extremist. Commitment to the state and its institutions are hardly his cup of tea. In 2006, for example, he was an organizer of the infamous “Bestiality Pride” parade to protest Jerusalem’s gay pride parade. In the outgoing Knesset, Smotrich frequently challenged Bennett and Shaked from the right, though, in most cases, his rants were considered little more than background noise. Had they not left the party, he would likely have remained a marginal character on the right.

The promo for the impending explosion in the United Right could be seen this week, when Peretz learned through the media that Smotrich submitted a long list of demands to the Likud team involved in preliminary coalition negotiations, on behalf of both of them, even though Peretz never agreed to it. This list of demands included the ministries of Education and Justice, which would certainly be acceptable to Peretz. The rest was more problematic. Smotrich demanded reforms to weaken the legal system, including the passage of legislation (a controversial clause) to overrule the Supreme Court, changes to the way judges are selected, diminishing the status of the attorney general, and imposing limits on the authority of the state comptroller.