Representatives of Israel’s Likud Party on Wednesday nominated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair for a salaried board position at the World Zionist Organization, prompting opposition delegates to postpone voting at the World Zionist Congress taking place in Jerusalem.
Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar (Likud), who is running for election as WZO chairman, announced Netanyahu’s candidacy to run the WZO’s Information Department on Wednesday as the body’s 525 delegates were preparing to vote on a string of nominations and a power-sharing agreement worked out during the three-day Congress at the International Convention Center Jerusalem.
However, following the announcement, Yesh Atid and The Democrats opposition parties backed out of the draft agreement and suspended voting on resolutions and other nominations at WZO and other Zionist National Institutions. The vote has been postponed by two weeks.
Yair Netanyahu is a polarizing figure who has inveighed online against his father’s critics, including by making corruption allegations against some of them that a court determined were libelous. He tweeted “go f***k yourself” to French President Emmanuel Macron in April after Macron announced that France would recognize a Palestinian state.
Yair Netanyahu’s proponents say he is a bold critic of an unelected yet powerful bureaucracy and a passionate advocate of Israel.
Yair Lapid, the head of the opposition Yesh Atid Party, wrote on X: “The Likud tried to appoint Yair Netanyahu in an underhanded manner to a senior position in the Zionist institutions, with a salary and benefits that match those of a cabinet minister. Yesh Atid discovered this at the last minute, blew up the deal, and prevented the appointment.”
Zohar wrote on X that the opposition’s reaction was “hypocrisy” as “For years, all the representatives of the left have been working to appoint relatives and associates to positions in national institutions.” Yair Netanyahu, he added, sought the position “to do public advocacy for Zionism in the Diaspora for the Jewish people.”
WZO was founded in 1897 by Theodor Herzl. It laid the groundwork for many of Israel’s modern institutions and today acts as a major vehicle through which Jewish communities around the world, including in Israel and the Diaspora, can participate in shaping Zionist-policy, funding and programs.
The executive decision-making body of the WZO is the World Zionist Congress (WZC), convened every few years (about every five) and often described as the “parliament of the Jewish people.”
The WZO allocates about $1 billion in funding, and the WZC sets priorities for the organization as well as linked institutions that, together with WZO, are known as the National Institutions of the Jewish People: The Jewish Agency for Israel, the Jewish National Fund (JNF-KKL) and Keren Hayesod–United Israel Appeal (KH/UIA).
Israel, the United States and the rest of the Diaspora have a roughly equal number of delegates in the WZC, who are elected via internal elections. One in, they vote on leadership, budgets and policy direction for the WZO. Elections for delegates in many countries are open to Jewish adults who affirm the Zionist movement’s platform; delegates represent different ideological streams and slates.
