May Golan and Benjamin Netanyahu. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

JNS.org – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to appoint fellow Likud lawmaker May Golan as consul general in New York.

Golan on Wednesday was slated to become a minister in charge of advancing women’s rights, but a Knesset vote to approve the move was postponed.

The previous consul general in New York, Asaf Zamir, a member of opposition leader Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid Party, resigned in March, citing opposition to the government’s judicial reform initiative.

The post in New York is widely considered Israel’s third-most senior diplomatic position in the United States, after the ambassadorships to Washington and the United Nations.

Israeli media speculated that Netanyahu’s apparent intention to dispatch Golan abroad was partially motivated by a desire to ease pressure on him emanating from a hardline faction in Likud to which she belongs that is led by Justice Minister Yariv Levin, one of the main architects of the judicial reform program.

Golan first entered the public eye as a campaigner against African asylum seekers and is known for her firebrand rhetoric and staunchly right-wing ideology.

This week, Golan visited New York, touring the U.N. and making a pilgrimage to the Queens gravesite of the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.