Amir ohana not really gay
Benjamin Netanyahu appoints Israel's first openly gay minister
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has tapped Amir Ohana as acting justice minister, making him the first openly gay minister in the country's history.
The appointment of Mr Ohana, from Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, comes as Jerusalem prepares for its annual Gay Event celebrations on Thursday.
Israel's first openly gay minister, Amir Ohana has been appointed by Prime Minister Netanyahu. Source: Desiree Navarro/WireImage
Mr Netanyahu opted for parliament to dissolve itself and accept new elections, preventing Israeli President Reuven Rivlin from selecting someone else to form a government.
Mr Shaked and Mr Bennett had left the Likud years earlier, but their Modern Right party failed to win enough votes in April's poll to clea
Israel’s First Openly Gay Likud Lawmaker on Being in a Coalition With Anti-Gay Parties
Even for an assembly accustomed to spectacle, the maiden speech of Amir Ohana—the first openly LGBT Knesset member from Israel’s Likud Party—was unusual. After Ohana proclaimed that he was simultaneously “a Jew, an Israeli, a Mizrahi, a homosexual, a Likudnik, a security forces veteran, a liberal, and a free-marketer,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went up to the podium to congratulate and laud him. This tribute quickly descended into a novel argument between Netanyahu and the rivalry, essentially over which party is more accepting of LGBT members.
“Amir is the first clear and noticeable representative of the same-sex attracted community who was elected in an open main, that is, when he was completely out,” Netanyahu contended. “What about Nitzan Horowitz?” the opposition shouted, referring to a former representative of the left-wing Meretz Party. Their pivotal committee chose him, Netanyahu said. When leader of the opposition Yitzhak Herzog asked about another former Meretz MK, Netanyahu conceded that Ohana was the first in Likud.
Ohana—a father of twins, Elah and David, with his significant other , Alon—fol
On this day in 2015: Haredi MKs walk out when openly-gay Ohana sworn in
In 2015, Joined Torah Judaism and Shas staged a walk-out when Amir Ohana was sworn into Knesset. Will they do the same again?
Out, right-wing — and in office: An Israeli lawmaker moves beyond culture politics
More From David Christopher Kaufman
A curious thing happened in Jerusalem late last month. Amir Ohana — a lawyer and father of two — was sworn in as Israel’s newest member of parliament. And guess what? Ohana’s gay and conservative and a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-leaning Likud party.
He’s the first-ever openly homosexual legislator from Israel’s ruling bloc — the equivalent of a gay Republican entering Congress. And while he’s involved to LGBT rights, Ohana holds not many of the “lefty” views typical of “minority” legislators in liberal democracies.
Instead, Ohana comes to the Knesset as a security-minded hawk who’s fed up with Fatah, opposes a two-state solution, thinks Israelis should possess easier access to guns and believes Israel must persist a majority-Jewish nation. It’s tough — though not surprising — talk from a man who spent years as a military commander and member of Israel’s intelligence and security services.
But in this moment of extreme identity politics, Ohana’s unlikely victory suggests that the era of single-issue politicking may finally —
Likud Pride steps into the spotlight
“Up until five, six years ago, everyone in Israel automatically assumed that if you were lgbtq+, you supported the left. That is no longer the case,” MK Ofir Akunis (Likud) told Israeli and European LGBT activists in right-wing political parties at a June 2014 gathering in Tel Aviv.
On December 28, 2015, Member of Knesset Amir Ohana became the first openly gay parliamentarian in the Likud political party. His husband Alon, their four-and-a-half month old twins, and members of the Likud Pride Group, the LGBT-equality organization in the Likud party, attended his induction ceremony at the Knesset.
“I am here as the son of Meir and Esther Ohana, who emigrated from Morocco to build a country. I am here with my other half, Alon, my true adore. I am here as the father of the children Elah and David. And like [the biblical] David who defeated Goliath in the Valley of Elah, I am here against all the odds. I am here with all of who I am and what I am, what I’ve chosen and what I haven’t, and am proud of it all: Jewish, Israeli, Mizrahi, gay, Likudnik, a security hawk, a liberal, and a man of the free market,” Ohana said in his first Knesset speech.
Ohana is