On Thursday, Israel’s parliament elected former minister Amir Ohana as the new Speaker of the Knesset, making him the first gay person to hold the position in the state’s history.
Ohana, who entered parliament in 2015, was elected with 63 votes, while five deputies voted against the decision and one abstained. Ohana belongs to the Likud party.
Ohana is considered the third man in the state after the president and prime minister, according to the constitution.
In 2019, Ohana became the first openly gay man to hold a cabinet post, as he took over the justice portfolio in the previous Netanyahu government.
A coalition deal between Netanyahu’s Likud party and Avi Maoz, leader of the right-wing anti-gay ‘Noam’ party has shocked homosexuals in Israel.
The agreement provides that Maoz will be appointed deputy minister in the newly created “National Jewish Identity” directorate, which will be responsible for foreign programs in the education ministry.
Maoz promised to “study legal ways to cancel the gay march,” he confirmed on Israeli radio after the November 1 election.
The outgoing coalition government had passed a law banning so-called “gay conversion therapy” by granting everyone surrogacy rights.
The Jewish state is considered advanced in gay rights compared to its neighbors in the Middle East and recognizes same-sex couples who have been engaged abroad.
