Ayelet Shaked is one of a rare breed: she is a secular female politician, her husband is a career military man. She is an engineer and programmer. She worked for two years in the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and left it together with the founder of the conservative Habayit Yehudi (The Jewish Home) party, Naftali Bennett, currently minister for education and diaspora.
Even putting aside leftist criticism, we must acknowledge that her views are strongly conservative. She said, for example, that Jewish national rights take precedence over Arab national rights and she is only prepared to give concessions regarding the principle of Jewish majority with regard to individual rights.
She features prominently in the Israeli press on account of her strong views, youth and measured, almost glacial style that has earned her the nickname of “Ice Queen”.
Minister of Justice since 2015, in a poll conducted this August she had a 57 percent approval rate, making her the most popular cabinet member. Perhaps even more importanty, Australian businessman Joseph (a.k.a. “Diamond Joe”) Gutnick has publicly declared his support of Shaked. Gutnick was the main financial supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu’s successful first Prime Ministerial campaign in 1996.
Joseph Gutnick (picture: Jake Nowakowski)
She is widely regarded as the conservative politician who is most effective in delivering on conservative political promises and even the liberal Haaretz newspaper is of the opinion that “If Netanyahu has a heritage, then Ayelet Shaked is certainly the heir.”
(Title picture: Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked. Ilia Yefimovich/Getty Images)
