Two names emerge as potential successors to Hotovely
Current Israeli ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely completes her five year long stint in the UK in August
Lee Harpin is the Jewish News's political editor
Two names have emerged as possible successors to current Israeli ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely, who finishes her five-year term in August.
One report in Israel claims Benjamin Netanyahu is considering appointing his chief of staff Tzachi Braverman, while a second article suggests deputy foreign minister Sharren Haskel could be the new UK envoy.
Haaretz’s reports that Netanyahu has singled out Haskel as a potential Israeli ambassador in London to ensure that she votes in favour of the bill that would exempt strictly Orthodox men from military service and that she votes in favour of the 2025 state budget.
He has used ambassadorial appointments in the past to get lawmakers who threatened to vote against his government to resign.
The newspaper cites three sources for the story, but staff in Netanyahu’s office such a plan and Haskel herself called it “baseless.”
Meanwhile, a report on the Walla news site says Netanyahu is considering appointing his chief of staff Braverman.
He was among those questioned by police in November on suspicion of forgery and fraud over the illegal altering of records in the Prime Minister’s Office on the early morning of October 7, 2023, amid the Hamas onslaught.
Netanyahu’s spokesperson said Braverman’s name had been touted for numerous posts, adding: “It would be better for the media to focus on more substantial matters than engage obsessively in endless vague and anonymous speculation.”
During her five-year long stint in the UK, Hotovely has become known for her right-wing political stance after being elected as a member of Knesset in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party in 2008 and becoming deputy foreign minister in 2015.
In December, during a Sky News appearance, Hotovely was pressed on the question of Palestinians having their own state, telling presenter Mark Austin: “Absolutely no.”
She added: “Israel knows today, and the world should know now that the Palestinians never wanted to have a state next to Israel.
“They want to have a state from the river to the sea. They are saying it loud and clear.”
A former newspaper columnist, Hotovely has been called the “ideological voice of the Likud.”
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