The World Zionist Organization on Tuesday announced its leadership was approved in a largely obsolete World Zionist Congress vote held last week, but the results are expected to be overwritten by another agreement still being negotiated.
The WZO said that World Mizrachi CEO Rabbi Doron Perez would serve as its new chairman in rotation with incumbent and World Betar chairman Yaakov Hagoel.
Yet the results of the vote, which 499 WZC delegates participated in remotely, came as negotiations continued for a new WZC coalition agreement on the positions and portfolios in Israel’s National Institutions. As the negotiations stood on Tuesday evening, Perez was not poised to become the WZO chairman but its president. The largely ceremonial role would be expanded to engage in matters of budget and Diaspora relations.
Hagoel would share the chairmanship with a representative of the Liberal Zionist bloc, a position that had originally been reserved for Yesh Atid until they withdrew from the agreement last Wednesday.
'Wall-to-wall agreement': Miki Zohar
Culture Minister and Likud Israel faction leader Miki Zohar notified slate members that there was a “wall-to-wall agreement” after two weeks of negotiations. He assured that Likud representatives would serve as the Jewish National Fund chair for half the time, the chair of the settlement division, and the Mount Herzl director.
After the first coalition agreement was scuttled in response to Zohar’s proposal that the prime minister’s son, Yair Netanyahu, be appointed to the WZO executive, a second agreement was developed with Hagoel’s Likud faction. Hagoel and his faction had been excluded from the initial agreement, the culmination of a dispute between Likud factions over the movement’s leadership and a failure to hold elections.
Last Sunday, the WZO announced a vote on the agreement favoring Hagoel’s faction, but right-wing factions demanded that the vote be delayed until a better agreement could be negotiated. They filed a petition to the WZO supreme court, which determined that the results of the vote wouldn’t be publicized until WZO and other factions could file a response.
The WZO court determined on Monday that the results could be published, noting that a third agreement had already been negotiated by the parties.
The vote was extended from the deadline last Tuesday to last Wednesday morning, allowing for the third agreement to be negotiated. Slates were confident that the “wall-to-wall” consensus would be approved by the executive, overwriting the results of the WZC delegate vote.
Yet last Wednesday night, Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid announced that his party would no longer be participating in the coalition, requiring the factions to negotiate a fourth deal over the weekend. With a two-week WZC convention extension coming to an end on Wednesday, the executive had still not voted on any final agreement by the time of this article’s writing.