Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dropped his support for Ofir Akunis, Israel’s consul general in New York, as a candidate for chairman of Keren Hayesod and instead endorsed Eyal Hazon, who until recently served as Israel’s ambassador to Singapore. Senior Likud officials told Calcalist that Sara Netanyahu was deeply involved in the decision to remove support for Akunis.
Two months ago, Netanyahu asked Hazon to take over as director general of the Government Press Office, but Hazon turned him down. Keren Hayesod, also known as United Israel Appeal, is the world’s leading fundraising organization for Israel and was founded in 1920 as the fundraising arm of the Jewish people and the Zionist movement. It is one of the four national institutions, long viewed as a source of politically appointed jobs, with high pay, advisers, assistants, overseas travel and an official car.
Under an October agreement among parties in the Zionist institutions, senior posts were divided among party representatives, and the Keren Hayesod chairmanship was to be a post proposed by Netanyahu. He first nominated Akunis, who had already begun preparing to return to Israel, but then reversed course at the last minute. The liberal bloc in the World Zionist Organization, including Labor, Meretz, Yisrael Beiteinu and the Reform and Conservative movements, had already objected last week to filling the post before the election, arguing that a five-year appointment should wait until a new government is formed.
Recent reports said Netanyahu wanted to replace Akunis with Caroline Glick as consul general in New York, but that move faced strong opposition from Reform and Conservative communities in the United States. According to political sources, Netanyahu realized Glick’s appointment would be difficult, and removed the issue from the agenda for now. As a result, Akunis will remain in his current post, though a new government could still replace him. Akunis’s associates said Netanyahu offered him the job, he accepted, and all Keren Hayesod representatives abroad voted for him unanimously. They accused some Likud representatives in the Zionist Organization of joining the opposition and the left to block the appointment for “political” reasons and said Akunis is insisting on continuing the already-started proper voting process.
Hazon is a political figure who previously served as Likud spokesman and as Netanyahu’s political and media adviser when Netanyahu was opposition leader in 2021. In recorded comments from that year, Hazon said he had flooded the internet with false information and that “the truth no longer matters.” He also said he had become this way in response to his opponents, declared that “I am pumping fake news as a response to them,” and added that his side must be “Trump.” In the same period he told activists that Netanyahu’s trial was a plot by the “deep state.” Hazon also appeared six years ago on Channel 14, then known as Channel 20, which is widely seen as friendly to Netanyahu. Likud figures have also mentioned former MK Osnat Mark as a possible candidate for Keren Hayesod’s CEO, after Akunis once tried to appoint her to a ministry post in early 2023 but she withdrew amid criticism over her lack of experience.
