Negotiations for the formation of the next coalition officially open on April 28, but informal negotiations are already underway and the demand for portfolios in the emerging government far outweighs supply. In order to form his next government, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have to give in to the demands of five prospective coalition partners. The five include head of the Yisrael Beitenu party Avigdor Liberman, chair of the Kulanu Party Moshe Kahlon, the ultra-Orthodox Shas and Yahadut HaTorah parties, and the United Right alliance to which he has already promised two significant ministerial positions. Most senior members of Netanyahu’s own Likud party will be last in line.
In order to satisfy all these demands, Netanyahu will have to amend the Basic Law: The Government, which limits the number of ministers to 18 as per a 2014 demand by then coalition partner Yair Lapid, head of the centrist Yesh Atid party. Current assessments put the number of ministers in the next government at 26, maybe more. In order to satisfy the appetite for portfolios, the coalition representatives must get ministries with bombastic names (but little substance), such as the Ministry of Regional Development. This will also require splitting some ministries joined together in the past — such as Minister Miri Regev’s Ministry of Culture and Sports — to provide two ministerial slots, or reconstituting defunct ministries such as the Ministry of Minority Affairs.
With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Israel’s temporary government included a Ministry of Minority Affairs headed by Police Minister Bechor Shalom Sheetrit. Rather than concern for the welfare of the new state’s Arab citizens, the ministry was established to oversee Israel’s minority communities that were subjected to military rule. Israel’s first government in 1949 scrapped the ministry.
Over 45 years later, Moshe Katzav of the Likud party was appointed minister for Israeli Arab affairs (and also served as tourism minister), a position he held for three years. From 2001 to 2002, Salah Tarif of the Labor party served as a minister without portfolio in the Prime Minister’s office tasked with minority affairs. Between 2009 and 2011, Labor’s professor Avishay Braverman served as minister of minority affairs.
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