The Knesset elected Likud MP Amir Ohana as its speaker on Thursday shortly before the confidence vote for the inauguration of the 37th Israeli government. A former minister in previous governments, Ohana is the first openly gay person in the Knesset to hold that role.
“I promise to do my best to be worthy of the trust you place in me,” he told other Knesset members.
The result of the plenary vote was 63-5, with all coalition lawmakers voting in favour, with the exception of United Torah Judaism MK Yaakov Tesler, who was overseas.
Ohana’s selection was decided on Wednesday when members of the Likud faction elected him in an internal vote to succeed Yariv Levin, who held the post in an interim role for two weeks.
Levin, a former Knesset speaker and a trusted ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, took over the post to oversee a three-part legislative blitz ahead of the swearing-in, and vacated the role early Thursday to become justice minister.
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The Speaker, who holds one of the most strategic positions in the Knesset, exerts significant influence over the legislative agenda and pace, chairs legislative sessions and maintains decency in plenary sessions.
Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu (L) is sworn in as Prime Minister as Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana (R) looks on December 29, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Ohana previously served as Minister of Justice and Minister of Public Security, and his promotion to the previous posts in 2019 made him Israel’s first openly gay minister.
Ohana, who is seen as a Netanyahu loyalist, was among the frontrunners in the internal Likud primaries ahead of the Nov. 1 election, positioning him for a senior seat in the new coalition.
In his first remarks after being elected speaker, Ohana thanked Netanyahu for his “courage and confidence” in moving forward with his candidacy, saying he and the Likud leader “have come a long way together” and “will continue with God’s help.” “
The newly elected Speaker of the Knesset, Amir Ohana, is preparing to take office immediately after his election by other MKs on December 29, 2022 in the Knesset. (Yonatan Sindel/FLASH90)
He thanked his parents – who were at the gallery – for accepting him “for who I am.” And he thanked his partner Alon Haddad, “the second half of my life for almost 18 years,” who was at the gallery with the couple’s children, Ella and David, who Ohana also mentioned.
Ohana vowed that the new coalition would not violate LGBTG rights.
“This Knesset, headed by this speaker, will not harm you or any other family, period,” he said in comments addressed to his family.
Alon Haddad, partner of new Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, and her children listen to Ohana’s speech from the Knesset Gallery, December 29, 2022 (Knesset Channel screenshot)
Several of the Likud’s far-right and ultra-Orthodox partners have voiced homophobic positions, including the return of now-banned conversion therapy, changing forms of government to say “mother” and “father” instead of the gender-neutral “parent,” and challenging the legal platform one “normal family,” like the openly anti-LGBTQ Noam party.
Noam’s only MK, new deputy minister Avi Maoz, looked the other way as Ohama delivered his opening address, as did members of the United Torah Judaism Party, Channel 12 Israel News reported.
Yitzhak Goldknopf (left) and Meir Porush, both ministers in the new government, look away as gay Amir Ohana MK delivers his first speech as Speaker of the Knesset, December 29, 2022 (Screenshot from footage by Ari Kelman, BeHadrei Hadarim, broadcast on Channel 12; used under clause 27a of the Copyright Act)
Netanyahu has repeatedly insisted he will not allow violations of LGBTQ rights, despite signing coalition deals that say otherwise.
Before the speaker’s election, Maoz claimed that recent reports of his party compiling lists of gay media workers and “left-wing” Justice Department officials were nothing more than an attempt by the media to “defame, demonize and shame” him. .
The daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth last week published the lists his party produced in 2019 as an internal document, sparking widespread condemnation.
Maoz, who is set to serve as deputy minister for “Jewish identity” in the next government, claimed he has nothing against individual LGBTQ people and is only targeting “LGBTQism as an agenda and as a political movement.” and against leftist ideology and not against individual leftists.
Therefore, he said, he will vote for Ohana’s appointment as speaker of the Knesset.
Maoz said the media “deliberately and maliciously attempts to portray me as fighting certain individuals. As if the Stalinist purges, or at least the McCarthyist persecution, were about to begin. The reality, of course, is the complete opposite.”
The lists “are merely lecture materials collected from news websites to show influence in different public systems,” he added.
Noam Party leader Avi Maoz addresses the Knesset plenary session ahead of the swearing-in of the new government on December 29, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel/FLASH90)
Although he voted for Ohana as speaker, a member of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party expressed reservations about the Likud MK’s sexual orientation.
“We are not happy with the path he is taking, but we are looking at the person and not at his inclinations,” MK Yoav Ben-Tzur, minister at the new government’s welfare ministry, told news site Ynet.
Ben-Tzur also denied there would be any changes to LGBTQ rights.
“We think we are a democratic country and there are disagreements. There will be no extremism anywhere here,” he added.
The election of a new Knesset speaker and the swearing-in of the government on Thursday followed weeks of negotiations between Netanyahu’s Likud and his far-right and Haredi coalition partners, which required voting on a number of controversial laws before the deals were signed.
In addition to amending discrimination laws that allow goods and service providers to refuse services based on religious beliefs, the coalition agreements include a commitment to pass a controversial High Court repeal bill designed to limit judicial oversight of the executive and legislature, and a declarative, albeit somewhat vague commitment to annex the West Bank to Israel.
In addition, the far-right Otzma Yehudit party has struck an agreement to separate the Border Police from the Israel Police Force and place the force under the direct control of new National Security Minister MK Itamar Ben Gvir.
The agreements, if implemented, will also bring sweeping policy changes related to religion and state, including allowing gender-specific public events, restricting eligibility for Jewish immigration to Israel under the Law of Return, and increasing funding for social assistance and religious instruction. Coalition agreements are not legally binding and are not always fully implemented.