By: Arye Green
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday announced to the cabinet that he is appointing new ministers to positions he previously held, from which he had resigned due to the criminal charges against him.
Netanyahu appointed Member of Knesset (MK) David Bitan (Likud) as Agriculture Minister, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) as Diaspora Affairs Minister, and Deputy Finance Minister Yitzhak Cohen (Shas) as Construction Minister, and moved Yifat Shasha-Biton (Likud-Kulanu) from her current position of Construction Minister to a new position as Welfare Minister.
The appointments came after Netanyahu resigned from all of his ministerial positions on Thursday, following a petition by the Movement for Quality Government to the High Court of Justice, demanding that he resign after he was indicted for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.
Besides his role as prime minister, Netanyahu had served as Welfare Minister, Diaspora Affairs Minister, Agriculture Minister and Health Minister. Yaacov Litzman, the previous Deputy Health Minister, was recently appointed Health Minister.
Bitan was appointed Agriculture Minister despite his likely indictment, after the police recommended in March that he be indicted for bribery, money laundering, fraud, breach of trust and tax offenses. Bitan allegedly received hundreds of thousands of shekels as well as a promise to receive apartments as bribes between the years 2011 to 2017, while he served as Rishon LeZion deputy mayor and as a Knesset member.
Bitan thanked Netanyahu for his appointment, and said he hopes to prove he deserves it.
“I thank the Prime Minister for the trust he has given me, I will act responsibly with the public interest before my eyes. The ambition of every public figure is to serve his constituency and the citizens of Israel. In doing so, I will prove, as I have in whatever role I undertook, I am working to make a significant contribution to Israeli society,” he said.
Hotovely also thanked Netanyahu for her appointment, and said she will work to strengthen ties between Israel and Jewish communities abroad.
“I thank Prime Minister Netanyahu for the appointment, in which I will be fully committed to the government’s policy that every Jew should feel at home in Israel. I will work to enhance the ties between Israel and all Jewish communities and denominations of Judaism around the world. I also look forward to working with them in the great task of battling the rising tide of global anti-Semitism,” she said.
(TPS)