A final coalition agreement has been signed for the leadership of the World Zionist Organization and Jewish National Fund-KKL, officials said Friday, concluding a dramatic weeks-long negotiation process that included attempts to set up a plush job for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair.
Under the agreement, Yaakov Hagoel of Likud will be the WZO Chairman for the first 2.5 years, to be followed by a representative of the pluralistic/liberal bloc for the second half of the five-year term. At KKL, a representative of the pluralistic/liberal bloc will serve as the chair for the first half of the term, followed by a representative of Likud for the second half.
Rabbi Doron Perez, chairman of the religious Zionist World Mizrachi movement and father of Cpt. Daniel Perez, who was killed in the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, will be named the president of the WZO, instead of taking the chairmanship as announced earlier this week.
Yizhar Hess will continue in his role as WZO vice chair.
There was ultimately no role for Yair Netanyahu following a major outcry.
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This divides the senior-most leadership positions at the national institutions evenly between the right/Haredi and liberal/pluralistic blocs, a WZO source noted.
Rabbi Doron Perez, chairman of the religious Zionist World Mizrachi movement, carries a torch at the opening event of the 39th Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, October 28, 2025 (Zev Stub/Times of Israel)
“After an intensive period of Jewish and Zionist democracy in action, the final agreement that we have reached will enable our national institutions to continue with their important work,” Hess said in a statement following the announcement.
“This agreement ensures our institutions have balanced leadership without the presence of provocateurs who would undermine our efforts on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people. I congratulate all those who have been selected to senior leadership roles and look forward to working with them closely in the years to come,” he said.
These positions, alongside the leadership of the Jewish National Fund-KKL, collectively command budgets of more than a billion dollars a year to be used for Jewish causes, including education and promoting Jewish immigration.
The leadership appointments don’t usually get so much attention, but a series of controversial events in recent weeks has brought them to the forefront. Two weeks ago, at the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, a previous leadership agreement was torn up at the last minute when it was revealed that Likud MK and Netanyahu loyalist Miki Zohar had snuck in a cushy job for Yair Netanyahu.
In the end, the younger Netanyahu will not get any position in the WZO, sources confirmed. Allies of far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir will not have any position either, they noted.
A separate bombshell threatened to disrupt the nominations process last week. As a revised agreement was being prepared following the breakdown of the first deal, Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid announced that his party would no longer take part in any of the negotiations, decrying a system steeped in “a culture of corruption and political appointments” even as he had become a major power broker within the WZO.
After seeing the extent of internal corruption within the institutional appointments, Lapid said he’d “reached the conclusion that they can’t be fixed — they need to be shut down.”
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