(Jerusalem) A coalition agreement signed between Israeli Prime Minister-designate Binyamin Netanyahu and an openly homophobic far-right leader, to form the next government, upset the LGBTQ + community on Monday.
“It’s a dark day for Israel,” Hila Peer, president of Aguda, the country’s largest LGBTQ+ rights organization, told AFP after Benyamin Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud party. , and Avi Maoz, leader of the small Noam faction, had signed an agreement the day before granting Mr. Maoz a post of deputy minister in the next government.
The right-wing bloc of Mr. Netanyahu and his ultra-Orthodox and far-right allies won the majority in the legislative elections of 1er November (64 seats out of 120), ahead of the camp led by the centrist Yaïr Lapid (54 seats).
To form a government, Mr. Netanyahu is conducting talks on the distribution of ministerial portfolios with his allies, including Avi Maoz (66), the only representative of Noam, known for his nationalist and anti-LGBTQ + positions.
“We are going to study the legal possibilities to cancel the gay-pride “, he had declared to the military radio at the end of the elections, for which he had joined the far-right formation “Religious Zionism”, whose leaders Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir openly express their aversion for members of the LGBTQ+ community.
According to the coalition agreement, Avi Maoz will be appointed deputy minister at the head of an administration responsible for “Jewish identity”, placed under the authority of the prime minister.
The Jewish state is the best student in the Middle East with regard to LGBTQ rights (lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer). In particular, it recognizes gay marriages concluded abroad.
Activists fear a backlash on these issues, as well as “on the fight of women for equality”, says Hila Peer.
“He is a homophobic, misogynistic and xenophobic personality with positions known to all and to whom power and authority are conferred,” she criticizes.
“The fact that Netanyahu is appointing Avi Maoz as deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Office is simply insane,” outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid said on Twitter.
On Friday, Likud and Itamar Ben Gvir’s “Jewish Force” party signed a coalition agreement under which Mr. Ben Gvir will serve as national security minister. But on Monday, talks were continuing with the other parties.
Mr. Netanyahu has 28 days to train his team, with a possible extension of 14 days.
The cabinet that Mr. Netanyahu will form, already at the head of the government from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009 to 2021, could be the most to the right in the history of the country.