Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to appoint Communications Minister Ayoub Kara as Israel’s ambassador to Egypt. In the February Likud primaries, Kara came in 39th on the party’s list of candidates for the April Knesset elections. Since the Likud won only 35 seats in the legislature, Kara was left out. He claimed he had been the victim of an internal hit job.

Now Netanyahu appears determined to not only compensate Kara but also appease members of his Druze community, which is furious at Netanyahu over the nationality law he pushed through the Knesset last year. The Druze serve in Israel’s army but the nationality law undermines their equal rights by defining Israel as an exclusively Jewish state. Many disappointed Druze Likud supporters gave their votes to other parties in the April 9 elections. In the Druze town of Daliyat al-Karmel, for example, 7.79% voted for the Likud in the 2015 elections, but only 2.65% did so this year.

But if Netanyahu thinks naming Kara ambassador will bring Druze voters back to the Likud ahead of the September elections, he may be in for a disappointment. Kara, then a Knesset member, actually voted for the nationality law last year, and Netanyahu even sent him to explain its importance. “The nationality law does not harm the Druze,” Kara declared in July 2018, angering his fellow Druze, who accused him of currying favor with Netanyahu in order to improve his standing within the ruling party.

On May 8, Kara was sent to represent the government at the annual Remembrance Day ceremony in the military cemetery of the Druze town of Usfiya. Bereaved families walked out of the ceremony in protest. However, this is hardly the only problem with Kara. He is an object of ridicule among many in the Likud and outside it and called “the clown,” an unflattering sobriquet that he came by deservedly.