JERUSALEM — In a dramatic shake-up, a coalition agreement between the center-left and center-right blocs of the World Zionist Congress fell apart suddenly on Wednesday night, hours after it was struck, after the Likud announced that it planned to name the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pugilistic son, Yair, to a top World Zionist Organization post.

“[The] whole thing has blown up now,” a spokesperson for Yesh Atid, the main Israeli opposition party, told eJewishPhilanthropy late Wednesday night, shortly after the news broke about the proposed appointment.

Shortly after the deal fell apart, the congress voted to extend itself by another two weeks in order to allow more time for negotiations.

The power-sharing agreement would have seen the two blocs split control of the WZO and Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund, swapping the leadership halfway through the five-year term, a WZO official told eJP. Rabbi Doron Perez, the chair of the religious Zionist World Mizrachi movement and the father of Capt. Daniel Perez, who was killed in the Oct. 7 attacks and whose remains were held captive by Hamas until earlier this month, would have been named WZO chair. Meir Cohen, a Knesset member of the Yesh Atid party, would serve as chair of KKL-JNF, which owns more than 10% of the land of Israel, making it one of Israel’s most highly influential and wealthy organizations. After two and a half years, the WZO will be chaired by an as-yet-undecided representative of Yesh Atid, and KKL-JNF will be chaired by an as-yet-undecided representative of the Likud party.

The various parties signed initial principles for the deal on Wednesday, but not the final agreement that would have included the names of the appointees. On Wednesday evening, Likud Culture Minister Miki Zohar, who negotiated the deal on behalf of the right-wing faction, announced that Yair Netanyahu would be appointed the head of a WZO department, a position with similar salary and benefits as a government minister, including an office, a car and a staff.

Yair Netanyahu is considered a highly divisive figure in Israeli society, frequently attacking his father’s political opponents, often in vulgar terms. In the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks, the prime minister’s son, who primarily lives in Miami, faced further criticism as he remained in the United States, even as other Israelis rushed back to the country to serve in the military or otherwise contribute to the war effort.

The Yesh Atid spokesperson said the opposition party “won’t allow” Netanyahu to receive the appointment.

Zohar criticized the opposition to Yair Netanyahu’s appointment, calling it hypocritical. “For years, all left-wing representatives have worked to appoint family members and those they are close with to positions in the National Institutions, but suddenly when it comes from the Likud and Netanyahu, it becomes a commotion,” he wrote on X, adding that the younger Netanyahu “just wanted to do Zionist public diplomacy in the Diaspora for the Jewish People.”

The now on-hold agreement was reached the day after the 39th World Zionist Congress began. The main voting sessions for the congress were initially scheduled for Thursday, but they were moved up a day due to a large Haredi anti-enlistment protest that has also been scheduled for Thursday in Jerusalem, which would have made it difficult for delegates to arrive or leave Jerusalem’s International Convention Center, where the congress is being held.

The agreement had represented a victory for the center-left camp, which was able to negotiate better terms, despite being slightly smaller than the center-right, due to a schism within the Likud, which leads the center-right coalition. This was made possible, in part, because of support from the non-elected Zionist institutions with voting rights who pushed back against an attempt by right-wing parties to take full control of the National Institutions.

Unlike most political bodies, the World Zionist Congress is not designed as a “winner-take-all” organization, with a ruling coalition and an opposition. Instead, the congress allocates positions within the so-called National Institutions — WZO, KKL-JNF, the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Keren Hayesod fundraising organization — largely based on the shares of seats that different factions have earned in the elections held every five years. In general, the leadership of the organizations goes to the larger faction, with lower-ranking positions going to the smaller one. Such was the case in 2020, when the Likud gained control of both the WZO and KKL-JNF.

Most years, a coalition agreement is reached before the congress even meets. This year, largely due to internal divisions within World Likud, delegates arrived at the congress on Tuesday without a clear view of how the National Institutions would be divided.

The schism within the Likud centered around competition between two main camps within the party, one represented by WZO Chair Yaakov Hagoel and one by Zohar, a close ally of the prime minister, who has personally intervened in the matter on Zohar’s behalf. Zohar appeared to have won out, though the dissolution of the agreement reopens that power struggle.