New Israeli ministers sworn in

Wed, 19 Jan 2011

Jerusalem - Two new ministers were sworn in late Wednesday, including one to a new and specially created post of Homeland Security, in a stormy parliamentary session held two days after Israel's Labor Party suffered a major schism.

The vote was 53-40 for the nomination by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for Matan Vilna'i as homeland security minister and of Orit Noked as agriculture minister.

Shalom Simhon, who until Wednesday had the agriculture portfolio, was also sworn in as trade and industry minister, while Moshe Kahlon, who had also already held a ministerial portfolio and is from Netanyahu's ruling Likud party, was sworn in as minister of welfare and social services.

Vilna'i, Noked and Simhon were members of the Labor Party - the third largest coalition partner of Netanyau's Likud - who broke away with Defense Minister Ehud Barak to form a new faction, Atzma'ut (Independence).

Barak said he formed the new faction because he found the situation within the quarreling Labor Party intolerable.

Netanyahu, in turn, was quick to sign a coalition deal with the new Atzma'ut.

On Wednesday, he created the new post of Homeland Security to be able to give Vilnai a place in his cabinet, which already counted 30 ministers.

Members of Israel's largest opposition party, the centrist Kadima, sprayed air freshener into the plenum hall in protest against what they called the "political stench" created by Barak's splitting the Labor Party.

But Netanyahu said the addition of Atzma'ut had made his coalition stronger.

"The government is being strengthened today," he told a special session of his cabinet held earlier Wednesday to approve the nominations.

"It is becoming more stable. I think that this is apparent to the Israeli people, to the entire world and to our Palestinian neighbors. And this is important, to advance the peace process and to advance our worthy goals in all areas," he said.

Three Labor Party cabinet members - trade and industry minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, welfare and social services minister Isaac Herzog and minority affairs minister Avishai Braverman - who did not join Barak, resigned from the government and the cabinet on Monday.

A fifth member of Barak's Atzma'ut faction, first-term legislator Einat Wilf, is tipped to become chairwoman of a parliamentary committee.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/363178,israeli-ministers-sworn-in.html.