Police have recommended charging him. Should the decision be upheld by the attorney-general, he will be forced to resign.
Main opposition party Blue & White attacked the move, saying: “a prime minister who has become a criminal avoiding justice has now appointed a suspect in bribery to be in charge of the price we all pay for food.
“The Netanyahu government has been transformed into an crime organisation whose sole aim is to ensure its chief is immune from justice.”
Separately, Mr Netanyahu’s intention to appoint Shas member Yitzhak Cohen as social affairs minister foundered as Shas’ Council of Torah Sages instructed Mr Cohen not to accept, since he would have been responsible for granting exemptions for public employees to work on Shabbat.
Instead, housing minister Yifat Shasha-Biton, the last representative in the Knesset of centre-right Kulanu party, which merged last May with Likud, was moved to social affairs and Mr Cohen appointed in her place.
Another problematic appointment is that of deputy foreign minister Tzipi Hotovely as diaspora affairs minister.
Ms Hotovely enraged American Jews two years ago when in an interview, she said that those among them who criticise Israel do so because they lead “convenient lives” and “never send their children to fight for their country, most of the Jews don’t have children serving as soldiers, going to the Marines, going to Afghanistan, going to Iraq.”
Despite Mr Netanyahu at the time condemning her words, she refused to apologise.
Ms Hotovely’s appointment is not the only one that may seem objectionable to diaspora communities.
Last week, Mr Netanyahu promoted deputy health minister Yaakov Litzman to full minister in his place.
Mr Litzman is under investigation for his involvement in the case of Malka Leifer, the former headmistress of a Strictly Orthodox girls school in Melbourne suspected of serial sexual molestation of students currently fighting extradition from Israel to Australia.
Police have recommended indicting Mr Litzman for having pressured government psychiatrists to declare Mrs Leifer mentally unfit to stand trial, hugely angering Jewish leaders down under.
The promotion was described by Jeremy Leibler, head of the Zionist Federation of Australia as “a slap in the face” to Australian Jews.
With all the appointments, there is also disappointment from senior Likudniks who were hoping for a ministerial berth and remained backbenchers.
Chief among them is former Jerusalem mayor and now Likud MK Nir Barkat.
Despite showing complete loyalty to Mr Netanyahu in recent months, having come ninth in Likud’s Knesset list primaries last February and now featuring in various polls of party members as the frontrunner in a future race for leadership once Mr Netanyahu leaves, Mr Barkat has been passed over for promotion several times now.
It seems that his popularity has not escaped the prime minister, who has never been fond of would-be successors.
Following Sunday’s announcement, Mr Barkat let his disappointment be known “through sources close to him”, to which “sources close to Netanyahu” responded that “Barkat is in too much of a hurry.”
