Le Premier ministre élu Benjamin Netanyahou est parvenu à un compromis avec le chef du parti sioniste religieux Betsalel Smotrich dans les négociations de coalition qui étaient dans l’impasse, dans lequel le portefeuille de la Défense restera au Likoud tandis que Smotrich deviendra ministre des Finances, a rapporté lundi Channel 12.
Smotrich dirige une liste qui a obtenu 14 sièges et plus d’un demi-million de voix.
Bezalel Smotrich was born in Haspin, a religious Israeli settlement in the Golan Heights, and grew up in the Beit El settlement in the West Bank. He has ancestors in the Ukrainian town of Smotrych, whence his name originates.
His father was an Orthodox rabbi, and Smotrich received a religious education, attending Mercaz HaRav Kook, Yashlatz, and Yeshivat Kedumim. During his short service in the Israel Defense Forces, he served as a secretary in the Operations Division of the General Staff. He earned a BA in law from Ono Academic College, and began a master’s degree in public and international law from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, though he did not complete it.
He was certified as a lawyer. Smotrich is an Orthodox Jew, and is married to Revital, with whom he has seven children.
The family lives outside the Kedumim settlement in the West Bank, in a house that was illegally built outside of state land and in breach of the settlement’s master plan.
