Knesset Approves Appointment of Israel Katz as Foreign Minister

Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, has approved the appointment of current energy minister and veteran Likud party politician Israel Katz as foreign minister, effective immediately.

The Knesset’s approval came one day after the cabinet approved the appointment.

Katz, 68, replaces fellow Likud politician Eli Cohen, 51, who held the post of foreign minister for one year under an internal rotation agreement within the Likud party following the election of the Netanyahu government in late 2022.

Katz first entered the Knesset in 1998 and has held various ministerial posts, including agriculture minister, transportation minister, intelligence minister, and finance minister. He has been a member of the security cabinet and also had a previous stint as foreign minister, in 2019 to 2020. He became energy minister in 2022.

Katz sparked a diplomatic furor soon after his first appointment as foreign minister, when he said that Poles “suckle anti-Semitism from their mothers’ breasts.”

Considered one of the government’s hardliners on security issues and on relations with the Palestinians, he is entering office at a sensitive time, amid the Israel-Hamas war.

Cohen, 51, will continue to serve in the security cabinet. He is slated to return to the post of foreign minister in 2026, if his party is still in power then.